Hello new user here

[jhiswin]

This is actually the first time we have noticed staining. Our water around here is normally clean/stable, except supposedly a lot of calcium-(something).

We don't normally add much, and maintenance is usually not too complicated.
The past years all we had to do was add chlorine tablets and shock every other week (didn't even have to bother checking levels, they were always okay). Maybe the ITS "Chlorine-Free" shock is causing the stains, that we use in rotation with ITS "super shock"? I think someone else also used some kind of phosphorous removing chemical and "solar pill".

I'm in the process of convincing the other guy to switch to the BBB method, and testing for hardness/stabilizer.

I've got a liquid test kit, but doesn't have calcium/stabilizer tests. I'll try to get the K2006 ASAP.


Just realized posting my IP address publicly is a bad idea. Can you edit it out in my original post?

[PoolDoc]

removed.

Chlorine free shock is almost always a bad idea.

[jhiswin]

I'm going to return as much of the chlorine free shock as I can.

I bought most of the items for the stain removal. Did you ever find out if the Culator can be used in the way you made in that post (soaking it)?

Does the 4ppm Culator actually absorb 4x as much as the 1ppm? Why are there different versions for winter and spring? Their descriptions seem to imply that they absorb different metals?

[PoolDoc]

I think the different sizes DO absorb different total amount of metal; but as best I can tell, the CuLator has ONLY one 'ingredient', so it's going to behave identically regardless. That is, they can change the capacity by adding more, but that's all.

Not sure which "soaking" post you are referring to . . .

[jhiswin]

You mentioned seeing if you coud soak in distilled water for reuse

[PoolDoc]

Ok. I had to Google, to see what you were talking about -- I was referring to the possibility of STORING it over the winter that way.

OK. I just called Periodic, and was told that long term storage of the CuLator product in deionized water (essentially, the same as distilled water) should not result in any deterioration.

Let me be clear: the purpose of storing that way is to avoid it drying out and cracking (some polymers can do that, once hydrated -- I don't know if the CuLator product would do that or not) and to store it over the winter, or between use periods.

Putting it in tap water would result in it picking up whatever metal ions were present in the tap water, and thus 'consuming' a portion of the Culator's capacity.

However, the info from Periodic product suggests you'd be able to buy the 4 ppm CuLator pack, use it for a week whenever you added a potentially metal containing chemical or top-off water, then remove it, and store in in distilled water till you were ready to use it again.

[jhiswin]

Just an update: I think I might have figured out where all the metal came from. Last year someone used an InTheSwim winterizing kit. I looked up the active ingredient for the winter algaecide in the kit, and it uses "Copper sulfate pentahydrate".
It really is a pain how difficult it is to find active ingredients for these products.

I'm going to use the upcoming rainy days to try the stain removal. I'll post my results in a new thread.