Fiberglass pool badly stained

[duraleigh]

Whoa, Guys, you've misread his posts (not that I've ever done that in my life )

The "pool" side of his exchanger is stainless steel...not copper. the "boiler" side is copper and it never touches pool water.

Secondly, I'm a little mixed up. Using muriatic to clean up an acid caused stain doesn't make sense to me. I'm missing something but I don't know what.

Off the subject, but muriatic is quite good at removing green masonry.....it's effectiveness diminishes as the masonry cures.

Dave S.

[waterbear]

Whoa, Guys, you've misread his posts (not that I've ever done that in my life )

The "pool" side of his exchanger is stainless steel...not copper. the "boiler" side is copper and it never touches pool water.
Yes but he stated that he found the source of the staining , corroded galvanized pipes which means the stains were iron--the brown stain commenly known as "rust" and he replaced them with pvc (the pipes, not the stains!)
Secondly, I'm a little mixed up. Using muriatic to clean up an acid caused stain doesn't make sense to me. I'm missing something but I don't know what.

The stain was caused by iron, not acid.
Chemistry 101 here(it won't be pretty!)....Ferric oxide (rust) is FE2O3 (sorry no subscripts) which means the iron is in it's trivalent form (+++ charge) which is not soluable. HCl will convert the iron to it's bivalent form (++ charge) which IS soluable and the iron goes back into solution in the water as an ion FE++. This is the way all those metal treatments and stain removers basically work on metal. They don't get rid of them they just put them into solution again ready to drop out when you least expect it. If you have ever needed to use one and the water in the pool has not been changed there is a very real possibility that you will continue to need to use them based on the chemistry of what they actually do.


Now to answer his questions. Since it has been determined that the HCL wont hurt the fiberglass pool and he intends to drain it that is probably the best way to get rid of the metals since he can rinse it afterward and drain to waste again. As far as treating the fill water, there are filters designed to remove iron specifically. If the levels are high that might be the best course.
Dave S.

Hope that makes everything clear

[duraleigh]

Mark,

This thread has become as convoluted as any post I've seen lately. I'm going to drop out with these thoughts.

I don't think it has been determined that acid will not harm your fibreglas. It probably won't, but nothing in this thread promises that.

Secondly, I would be very careful draining that pool. Fibreglas pools are designed to be kept full and draining one would, IMHO, jeopardize the structural integrity of your pool.

Dave S.

[PoolDoc]

First, the staining you see is a symptom of a much more expensive problem - corrosion of your copper heat exchanger.

but . . .

Last year I noticed that below the water line was becoming stained and couldn't figure out why. Tried metal out, jack's magic and a couple of other products with no results. Fast forward to now, pool is drained down about 1/3 and the staining is really bad, about the color of oak from the water line down. Figured I'd try some muriatic acid on a test area and it worked great for bringing it almost back to white. Gave the test area a good rinse when I was done.

Michelle, acid does not usually remove copper stains from surfaces. Copper stains are black or green-to-blue, not "oak" color.

Also, there are NO metal control products that are "removers". Proper use of some of them, IN CONJUNCTION with filtration, can sometimes 'stain' the filter, instead of the pool.

If you choose to address chemical issues, please be careful to post based on your own field experience, rather than what you've been taught in a sales meeting. Many of the things that everybody in the pool knows to be true . . . aren't actually true. So, if you don't know something to be a fact from your own experience, as a service tech or a chemist or a manufacturing engineer, please don't post it as if it's true. Instead, report it as "many in the pool industry think . . . " whatever it was you wanted to state.

We'd welcome any genuine expert knowledge you have . . . such as specific information about your company's products, or about FG pools generally, especially if you also know ways to solve those problems. "Poolsean" does this very well with salt products, including his own.

But, please avoid offering generic solutions that someone in your company believes in, unless you know for a fact that these solutions are valid ones. Using a liquid metal control product, like ProTeam's "Metal Magic" will not, all by itself, solve problems with metal staining. And the HEDP based "Metal Magic" will do virtually nothing to solve problems with the iron stains that are Hoogie's problem. Nor, as far as I know, will Haviland's product, which is called "Stain Elimitor" (their spelling, not mine!), not "Metal Magic".

Also, please note that I've added the required ID signature to your profile, so that any future posts will be properly identified, as required by the Forum TOS.

Thanks,

Ben

Metal Magic (MSDS showing HEDP content attached):