Rust stains caused by coins!

[jsuarez9]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a new home with a pool and apparently the previous owners had children that loved throwing pennies into the pool. We went in and removed the pennies, but now there are rust stains at the bottom of the pool. The pool is 9 ft deep in its deepest area (where most of the pennies were) and I assume I may need a scuba tank to resolve this, but I don't want to rent one until I know what solution could possibly be used to remove the stains. Has anyone ever heard of how to remove these stains?

Thanks!

[aylad]

Try crushing up a few vitamin C tablets, put them in an old sock, and hold them on the stains for a few minutes to see if they will help lift them. There is a procedure that uses ascorbic acid to remove large metal stains, and the vitamin C is the "mini" version of that. You should be able to rig up the sock to your telescoping pole and probably handle this without the scuba tank.

A few years ago I had some rust staining in spots on the bottom of my vinyl pool, and time and normal shocking eventually lifted them, but if the pennies were there for a long time, it will probably take the vitamin C to lift it.

Welcome to the forum!!

Janet

[PoolDoc]

Janet, pennies don't have iron in them; they are copper plated zinc . . . so those stains aren't rust.

Vitamin C still may help -- not sure whether the stains are copper or zinc.

Ben

[aylad]

Yeah, I get that....my point was that the Vitamin C thing is just the easiest thing to try first.

Janet

[PoolDoc]

ok -- it would be interesting to know if VitC removed those . . .

[waterbear]

I assume this is a plaster or fiberglass pool, correct? If it is then the following applies:

Maybe the zinc, copper is doubtful. For those, dry acid in a sock might work. But try the vitamin C first. No need to crush it, Just put a handful in an old white cotton sock and hold it on the stain. If it is going to work it will do so in a minute or less. Use your pool pole to hold the sock on the stain if you can't reach it otherwise.
If that doesn't work put a handful of dry acid into another old white cotton sock and hold it on the stain for up to 30 minutes.

In any case, adding a double dose of metal sequestrant can help over time.

If you have a vinyl pool then you can use the vitamin c but do NOT try the dry acid!