help with adjusting please

[chem geek]

You didn't post your Calcium Hardness (CH) number, but if it is also high like your Total Alkalinity (TA), then raising the pH will make your water cloudy. I suggest you aerate the water to raise the pH (I agree with others that you need to get your pH raised, but you also want to lower your TA) -- don't add Borax and certainly do not add pH Up (sodium carbonate). From this thread it sounds like you have a vinyl liner so your CH may not be high, but that depends on your fill water -- if it's from a well, it could be high and it sounded like you accidentally used well water that didn't go through a water softener. That's why it would be good to test it and post the number.

So aerate your water to get the pH to the 7.0 to 7.2 range then keep aerating and add acid to keep the pH down and monitor the TA level. When it's down below 100, you can keep aerating to get the pH to 7.5

The BioGuard Pool Magnet Plus product you are using is a phosphonate which means that though it will sequester the metals in your pool, it will also make for great algae food. There are better metal sequestering products on the market that are not phosphonates such as Pool Stain Treat (by the way, Jack's Magic Pink Stuff has the same phosphonate main ingredient as Pool Magnet Plus as does Jack's Magic The Blue Stuff and The Vinyl Liner Blue Stuff). At any rate, you've already used the Pool Magnet so don't worry about that. It's not a big problem; just a less than optimal solution.

As for stains that may still remain on the vinyl, you could add more sequestrant (Pool Magnet Plus) and gently brush the stain area, but if the stain doesn't come off then you might need to use a stain remover. The problem is that stain removers have some form of acidity (such as ascorbic acid and oxalic acid) and that's not great for your vinyl, but you may not have much of a choice. I suggest getting the rest of your pool water chemistry in line, keep your chlorine level maintained, and lightly brush the stained area. If the stain persists even after adding the extra Pool Magnet Plus, then you can consider a specific stain removal product. If you use a stain removal product (one of the acids I mentioned), it will require the chlorine level to be very low since chlorine reacts with these acids (these acids are reducing agents and attempt to reduce the ferric form of iron to ferrous which is more readily sequestered). So if you need to do this, I suggest using a PolyQuat 60 algaecide before letting the chlorine drop to near zero and then applying the ascorbic acid stain removal. You could try Jack's Magic Iron, Cobalt & Spot Etching Stuff aka "Stain Solution #1" which is a non-acidic reducing agent. It also requires chlorine levels to be below 1 ppm FC so the use of the algaecide before use would be a good idea. Be aware that you already have the equivalent of Jack's Magic The Blue Stuff (same as The Vinyl Liner Blue Stuff) in your pool so you don't need to add that (as per their FAQ instructions).

However, it may be that you have so much metal in your water that it will be hard to remove stains. I know that others have responded with good advice, but am wondering if anyone out there has had metal stains on vinyl and successfully removed them without damaging their vinyl.

Richard