Metal in pool

[mbar]

When I am dealing with staining I never lower the chlorine when putting in a sequestering agent. One of the reasons the stains are disappearing is because the chlorine level is so low You have to get the pool to a level where you can maintain a sanitized pool and keep the metals sequestered. You just don't have enough sequestering agent in the water. The problem is that chlorine eats the sequestering agent, which makes the chlorine levels go low, which can lead to algae, which leads to needing to shock, which leads to more stains That is one of the reasons that I don't let the chlorine drop to add the stain treat. You can add some algaecide, which will help when the chlorine does go down. Here is what I would do, Get your chlorine where you want it by slowly adding it - keeping the ph low. Add more sequestering agent, if you see the stain start to come back, add more agent. Keep checking the chlorine and add it slowly to keep it at the level you need for your cya. It can take a while to get it right, but once you do, you just need to add the maintenance dose of the sequestering agent on a weekly basis. Remember you want the water sanitized first - that is the most important, this way you can swim - you can swim with stains, but not with water that has aglae

Waterbear is right, you can't really filter out the metals, the only thing you can do is to keep them sequestered, or get them to stain on the filter, as PoolDoc explains in his post. Hope this helps, and feel free to ask any other questions you may have.

[newpoolgirl]

I don't mean to barge in, but what they are telling you is correct. if your levels go out of wack. you will be back to square 1. I was having this issue since may. Tried metal out, but what my pool store wasn't telling me was to keep my levels balanced. I did find a product to clear my brown water since i have a small cartridge filter with my 5,000gal intex pool that doesn't do much. It's called pool stain treat. it's a sequestrant and chelator. Don't ask me what that means, but after 2 days of using this my water cleared,and the cartridge filter actually caught all the brown(washed it out 4 times). I bought this product on my own as a last resort before I took down the pool. Called the company that makes it(united chemical corp.) And just like the above posts the company told me that even with this, if my levels are off, bam, back to brown water. They said for this chemical to work you levels have to be balanced. This site is the best one that I have found out there. Thank you and keep up the good work.

[waterbear]

Pool stain treat is just oxalic acid. It works exactly the same as ascorbic acid but is more toxic. (Citric acid also works the same.) You are just lucky the stain reformed in your filter and not in the pool. A sequestrant is still needed.

United chemical sell a lot of different products and makes a lot of claims for them. When you realize that the majority of their products are just soduim bromide (Pool stain Treat and the stain spotting bags being an exception since they are oxalic acid) and you look at the nonsense they call the Hamilton Index that they used to promote (and still do with their water balance recommendations) then you have to look at their claims for the products with a grain of salt.

I am not saying these products do not work, in fact they do (some better than others). It's just the marketing hype does not quite agree with the reality of what is really happening.

[newpoolgirl]

so even though this product(oxalic acid) states that it is a sequestrant, it is not? i know nothing about pool lingo. The only thing i do know is that i used 32 oz of metal treat(tricurboxylic acid/phophonbutane) , and also 32 oz of metal out(not sure what's in this). With both of these i've had no luck. since i used the oxalic acid product do i still have to add more of a metal out product?
since i've added the oxilic acid my #'s are:
TH:100 (this never changed since beginning)
FC: 0
pH:7.2
TA: 240(highest strip goes) can't seem to get down
CYA: 30 -can't get this up. used 4lbs of stabilizer and cond. last week.

5,000 gal pool

[waterbear]

First thing, get rid of the strips and get a decent test kit. I would recommend investing in a Taylor K-2006. It will be money well spent in the long run.
As far as the Pool Stain Treat, it is actually a reducing agent. I chemically transforms the insoluble colored metal stains into colorless and soluble metal ions that go into solution.
The metal is still in your pool and can redeposit as stains if your water chemistry gets a bit out of line or your water can become colored if you shock the pool.
Adding a metal sequestrant such as the metal out makes the metal ions in solution non reactive chemically so they are much less likely to deposit back as stain or color the water. However, sequestrants do break down and need to be reapplied on a regular (usually monthly) basis. If not your stains are very likely to return.


So to deal with metal stains you need two products:

1) a reducing agent such as ascorbic, citric , or oxalic acid to reduce the metal to a colorless, soluble form (Ascorbic is the least toxic, oxalic is the most toxic but relatively cheap.)

2) a sequestrant to keep the metal in solution and inactivated chemically so it does not react with pool chemicals to deposit as stain, precipitate out (rusty water) or oxidize into a colored form (green water for copper, yellow water for iron, purple water for manganese). Most of the sequestrantss on the market are based on HEDP (phophonates or phosphonic acid derivatives) and are the most effective. There are also ones based on EDTA that do not raise phosphate levels (really a non issue anyway!) but they don't work as well as the first type. However there are other chemicals used as sequestrants and chelating agents in pools so YMMV. (Also all chelating agents are sequestrants but not all sequestrants are chelating agents. The difference lies in the shape of the molecule and nothing more.)

Also, stain removal is more effective at lower pH so you might need acid and since most stain removers destroy chlorine (and you cannnot shock because that will bring the stains back) you will most likely need some polyquat 60 to keep algae at bay until the chlorine is holding again.

Don't forget that calcium is also a metal so sequestrants are also useful when there is very high calcium levels in the water.

Hope this info is useful.

[newpoolgirl]

thank you !

[newpoolgirl]

hello again. i hate to bother you but since i have added the pool stain treat, until yesterday, my water has been clear. My chlorine level has not been showing on my test kit. bought a different kind and it was showing FC at 1. I was using 3" chlorine tab in floater. I was happy with that since my water was clear. My husband decided to listen to someone at work about if our chlorine was low we could have bacteria and all get sick. Without me knowing he added shock, then the next day chlorine granules to our pool. I have no clue how much. Needless to say, brown water again. I took my water to get tested since the colors that showed on my strips didn't match some of the colors on the container.
pH 8
FC 5.1
TC 5.1
Alk 140
CYA 60
Copper 0.13
Iron 0.17(was 0.9 last time got it tested)
Hardness 140
Phosphate 300

My question is that if my Iron level is 0.17 would that be the cause of my brown water or something else? My water is the darkest it has ever been, but i'm assuming that's b/c my chlorine level and pH is the highest it's ever been, right? Also, I did add calcium. The pool store told me that i should add it b/c they told me that over time being low my liner could become brittle. They told me to add 2Lbs for my 5000gals. I don't even think I added a pound b/c i wanted to go slow with that. Could that have added to the brown, also? I was doing so good. I kept my pH at 7.2 and chlorine at 1 with that floater. I have never added any more cya to my water since i setup my pool. Why did my pH rise to 8, and cya go up to 60 since he added the shock and chlorine? The only cya i added was when i opened my pool a month ago, and my shock or chlorine does not contain anything like that.I did add the pool stain treat again last night. I guess since my water is real dark it will take longer to clear? Also, I know this could bring my pH down. If it doesn't bring it back close to 7.2 how long should I wait before I buy something to bring it down?