My Ascorbic Acid Treatment Story - success and now failure

Hi All,

First off, thanks, aylad for sharing such detailed instructions for doing an ascorbic acid treatment to clear pools of metals. I purchased all necessary supplies from amazon.com and started treatment on June 17th. Stains lifted as predicted, and the pool has been crystal clear for the past 8 days. I had gradually started increasing the chlorine in the pool and have been maintaining chlorine levels on or about 5 ppm (my CYA is 60). I have been loving my pool, liner clear blue, all plastic parts shiny white. This morning, I went and added a gallon of bleach, as I have been doing every morning since to keep chlorine levels at 5 ppm. This evening, when I came home from work, I looked out my kitchen window and to my dismay, saw a yellow tinge on the pool walls. I am devastated. Checked ph levels, which had been constant at 7.2, and right now it is at 7.6! I just added muriatic acid to bring the ph down, and have ordered more Kem-Tek hedp and ascorbic acid from amazon. However, I know the chemicals will take some time to be delivered, so my question is - are there any comparable sequestering agents that I can get from Leslie's (right around the corner) or other pool stores? I am ready to cry right now - am having a July 4th party and was hoping to show off my beautiful pool! I don't want to walk into Leslie's and be told to buy useless chemicals, and in the state of mind I am now, I would purchase anything to throw into the pool.

I do have a culator bag in the skimmer. I bought an extra one, so will throw it in the other skimmer. My greatest fear was to get an algae bloom (so have been diligently adding the polyquat), but I did not expect the metals to surface again. I was waiting for the two week point to post my success story and to thank everyone for their help.

Thanks for all the suggestions anyone can offer. Ah - pool is inground, vinyl, 26,000 gal.

This is a follow up to my post. I lowered the ph to about 7 with muriatic acid, crushed vitamin C pills in the food processor, sprinkled the dust around the pool, and as soon as the metals started to lift, added a quart of Conquest which I got from the local pool store. Stains disappeared, and have stayed off for the past 13 days. July 4th party was great - weather was hot and humid and everyone enjoyed the sparkling pool. I have been monitoring the water carefully, maintaining ph level low (7.2 on average), and adding polyquat every 4 days.

Chlorine levels are still low, lower than the best guess chart suggests for my CYA level. I am planning on raising chlorine levels to 5 ppm starting tomorrow, I hope metals will not be released. Oh - and the culator bag is showing an orangy color, so I guess it has been trapping the iron. Hope this post helps someone.

Thanks for the update.

I agree; thanks for the feedback.

We do NOT have a foolproof guide to removing metals from pools, but every additional bit of info we get from actual pools helps move us a bit closer toward that goal. So, thanks.

I wonder if you could post info on your pump / filter / operating hours?

Also, as a recommendation: you might want to consider chlorinating, during the recovery period, using either trichlor tabs in the skimmer OR small doses of bleach added several times a day to the skimmer . . . or if you happen to run across them in your market area, cal hypo briquettes. Adding chlorine very slowly, upstream of the filter is more likely to bring the iron out ON the filter, instead of on the pool walls, etc.

If you're able to do this you may want to move the Culator packs to the throat of the skimmer, and avoid direct contact between the packs and any form of chlorine.

July 15 update - on July 10 I started added small doses of liquid bleach to the pool. I later added a trichlor tab to the skimmer as per PoolDoc's suggestion. I forgot to remove the culator bag from that skimmer, so that pack is now destroyed. I still have the other one in the other skimmer. Chlorine levels are now up to 5 ppm, but I am sad to report that the stains have returned, though not as bad as when all this started. I give up - will live with the light yellowish tinge on the pool walls, and if I make plans for a big party or anything like that, I will do the ascorbic treatment again.

I had been running the filter 24/7 while doing the ascorbic treatment (which lasted one month). I also vacuumed the pool twice a week, and then backwashed after vacuuming. Have not filled pool in the past month since we've been getting a lot of rain. Should I have drained part of the pool after the metals had been sequestered rather than waiting for the culator packs to pick up the metals?

I'm getting the impression, from various reports we get, that the Culator products 'work', but very slowly.

That actually makes sense, if you consider how little of the water actually passes through the bag and across the beads. Probably, for the Culator to be fast acting, you'd have to have a bulk amount, that you could put in an inline filter (like a 4" PVC pipe filled with the beads) that 100% of the pool water would cross. You'd have to install it downstream of the filter, to prevent the beads from being contaminated by things other than soluble metals.

Anyhow, back to the current state of things: I can't think of any reason a CuLator pack should 'die' in a month, if you can keep it clean (except for metals). So you might want to remove the Culator from the skimmer while the chlorine is high, since there's probably no *soluble* metal present, but use them during any ascorbic acid + low chlorine period.

In other words, use them to capture the iron, when you've 'dissolved' it with ascorbic acid, but otherwise store them for reuse.

Hi Ben, will do as you suggested as regards the culator bag. The one which "died" is the one which came in contact with the trichlor tab. The beans inside actually dissolved. Thanks for responding to my posts.

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Originally Posted by oseng

The one which "died" is the one which came in contact with the trichlor tab. The beans inside actually dissolved. Thanks for responding to my posts.

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Interesting. Thanks.