Re: Clear water, everything else wrong?
Actually, if the washing soda (soda ash, pH +) and baking soda only clouded up your pool, without causing major staining . . . . you've done well. It was a big risk, but fortunate is often better than smart! There's a fair chance you've begun removing the copper as copper carbonate.
Check for stains, and if you don't have them, you may want to continue with the soda ash. If you add it in small doses to the skimmer, there's a good chance you'll load up the copper carbonate on the filter, rather than in your pool.
But, do go ahead with the polyquat. It will help remove the stuff in the water AND prevent algae.
The loose cannon here is the EDTA. It will break down, from UV and chlorine, and release the copper it has sequestered. Where that copper will go is not certain. However, if you go ahead and raise your pH to near 8.0 with the soda ash, you may be able to, again, take the copper out on the filter as copper carbonate. That would be my best guess -- but I *am* guessing.
What you have to keep in mind is that the EDTA may be controlling your copper, but that it's a strictly temporary solution: it will break down, and release the copper. It may be better to try to control that, rather than letting it happen who-knows-when.
Higher pH with chlorine has been used to decompose EDTA. And though the pH levels used industrially are higher than you can use, we can hope that by raising the pH, and then *slowly* adding chlorine you may well be able to pull off the trick of breaking the EDTA and removing the copper without staining.
So, add the polyquat, and then slowly use the soda ash to push your pH to the 8.0 range.
Once there, begin slowly chlorinating (over several days) with small doses of calcium hypochlorite -- possibly available as shock -- added DIRECTLY to the skimmers. VERY IMPORTANT: Do NOT do this unless you have completely followed my earlier recommendation to remove ALL chlorine tabs, feeders and cartridges from your system. You must NOT allow cal hypo to come into direct contact with trichlor!
What you are trying to do is:
+ Add polyquat to prevent algae while you are monkeying around (and it helps with filtration).
+ Raise the pH using carbonates to help precipitate the copper onto the filter as copper carbonate.
+ Maintain the high pH with carbonates, and begin adding chlorine with a high pH chlorine source that also adds carbonates, with the goal of breaking the EDTA down, and taking the remaining copper out on the filter.
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