orange/brown stain treatment, how long does it take

[mbar]

It all sounds good to me, but I have one more question - what is your ph? I had the same problem one summer - I would get rid of the stain, doing all you have done, and wham it would come back again. I then used the method of putting the puck in the skimmer, kept my ph no higher than 7.4, and brought the chlorine up very slowly leaving my filter running 24/7. I also put some DE in my sand filter. What is your calcium level? I still have a lot of unanswered questions on why the pool stains, even after 5 years. One year when the stains were coming back a lot, I was keeping my chlorine too high - I only had cya of 30 and kept the chlorine at 5 or above, so it seemed that as soon as I brought the chlorine up to that level, any iron that was left stained the pool. Then I did the treatment again, put the puck in the skimmer, and didn't raise my chlorine over 3 for about two weeks, keeping the filter running 24/7, and didn't have problems with the stains again. Last year when I opened,I used metal free as soon as I opened, ran the pump 24/7, and didn't shock the pool, but brought the chlorine up slowly putting pucks in the skimmer. I kept my ph at about 7.4, balanced the water, and I didn't get any staining. I live in norhteast pa, so when I open the pool (I have a mesh cover) I have a lot of new water so my stabilizer is really low, therefore I don't need a lot of chlorine in the water. By using the pucks I get my stabilizer up, and if there are metals in the water, the stains should come out in the filter. As you can see I am still learning - I will try the same thing when I open this summer. I am also very careful to never run my heater unless my ph is at least 7.4. I think that may have been how I was getting iron in my water, but I am still not sure. That's why I am interested any time I read about staining on the forum - we can all learn from each other - so keep me informed how everything turns out, because your plan sounds good to me.

[2005phyllis]

A couple of months ago we did the vit C test and there was immediate effect on the stain where the tablet was. We got a bottle of stain gone which I now know was citric acid. It didn't work at all, but I don't think we had the levels right for everything. Then we got busy with other things and have not been able to work on the pool again until now. The pool is 10,400 gallons with exposed aggregate. So we got another bottle of the same stuff .Instructions said to adjust alkalinity to 70 ppm, the calcium hardness to 400ppm and the ph to 7.4. We got the alkalinity to 65, ph to 7.4. , and hardness to 315. We added more calicium per the pool store's calculations. We put the stuff in yesterday evening (I used 1 pound) and nothing happened. Sooooooooooo back to the pool store today and now we have ascorbic acid.We had to readjust the alkalinity as it went to 95 and hardness was 310.These readings were done this afternoon from the pool store. We added 1 1/2 quarts of acid as calculated by the store and circulated the pool. . We tried a little on one pool step. Nothing appears to be happening. I then took a vit C tablet and put that in. That didn't do any thing either.We're a little hesitent to add too much calcium as last fall we had to drain the pool because it was sky high and so was the stabilizer. So now that the vit c didn't work, I'm really confused.

[mbar]

I'm confused too - I don't understand why the vitamin C worked the first time, and not the second. The only other thing I can think of is that it may not be an iron stain. There is a product by "Jack's Magic" that has 3 different tests to tell you what kind of stain it is. Stains can come from copper and magnesium too. I have only dealt with the brown iron stains. I wouldn't raise my calcium any higher if I were you 350 sound good enough. I just don't know - maybe someone else can chime in with some ideas? Don't throw any more chemicals in for now. Ascorbic acid ususally works right away, even if your chemicals aren't perfectly in sync. See if anyone else can come up with some ideas.

[leejp]

By using the pucks I get my stabilizer up, and if there are metals in the water, the stains should come out in the filter.

This is the new thing I'm trying this year... force the iron to stain the filter (DE or otherwise), then backwash to get it out of the pool. Will keep everyone posted.