Texas Plaster Pool Metal Stains

[Captain Ron]

This is my first post and intended to "activate" my participation as suggested in the welcome email. I have found the "sticky note" on metal stains and appears to be just what I need.

ONE QUESTION: the ascorbic acid treatment appears less destructive of the plaster finish than a muriatic acid treatment/wash. Is this true?

[PoolDoc]

Yes, much, much less damaging. And, probably a lot less expensive, too.

BUT . . . don't follow that process just yet. I've had a couple of unsuccessful results, and I need to work out a way to prevent that. I can tell you one change to the procedure will be "Get a K2006 and report your pH, TA, and CH" BEFORE you start!" We may need people to get a TH (total hardness test) as well.

Here's the kit information:
+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

One caution for the 2012 season: Amazon does not stock the kits directly. So when buying at Amazon, Amato is our current preferred seller. However, they often don't list enough stock to last the whole day, so try order mid-morning. You should expect a delivered cost under $60 for the K2006A and under $95 for the K2006C. If you can't find that, wait a day.

+ Here are links to the kits we recommend (you can check local availability on the HTH kit, using the Walmart link):

HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon

[Captain Ron]

Thanks for your reply. One comment disturbs me...the unsucessful results!

QUOTE..."BUT . . . don't follow that process just yet. I've had a couple of unsuccessful results, and I need to work out a way to prevent that. I can tell you one change to the procedure will be "Get a K2006 and report your pH, TA, and CH" BEFORE you start!" We may need people to get a TH (total hardness test) as well."...QUOTE

I have a 14 year old pool with a new 1 year old plaster finish. I've fought this problem for a few years and feel the treatments I've tried in the past contributed to the failure of the plaster.

The rest of the thread makes sense as I've experienced it all! It appears this has been a "solution' for some time as evidenced by the time/date tags. Why the misgivings now?

[PoolDoc]

We're getting more consistent feed back, from people following the process as written. That makes it possible to more accurately evaluate how well it's working.

One of the big problems all of us have, is that WE don't have most of the problems users come here with -- we learned to avoid them, long ago. So, we have to rely on user feedback for more information. But pool owners are so used to failure with pool products and processes that they don't always tell us when something we've recommended doesn't work as we expect.

I'm hoping the new Pool Chart + the Pool Log (customized dosing calculator and test record for subscribers) will allow us to improve our advice a LOT, over the next year. It's probably already the best available, but it's a long way from perfect.

[Captain Ron]

Can you please clarify!

Your post seems to be at odds with another moderator/administrator! The post I refer to is "Ascorbic treatment for stains" (original by mbar, posted by aylad, and updated by PoolDoc in 2012)

[PoolDoc]

Yeah, I"m at odds with me.

I'd rather you NOT start the AA treatment till you have a K2006 and have reported accurate pH, TA, and CH measurements.

[Captain Ron]

Thanks! Now i understand. Kit is on order but I also have the HTH 6 in 1 from Walmart!

I'm not quite ready anyway as most of the chemical tools haven't arrived.