Grey stain on pool liner and now ladder

Allen G Myerson · Postby **Allen G Myerson** » Wed 17 Nov, 2010 22:56

Try some vinegar on a small test spot to see what effect that has.

The copper might test low now because most of the metal is now in the form of a stain. Hold off on the alkalinity increaser for now. Add enough liquid chlorine to raise the chlorine to 5.0 ppm. Don't use granular chlorine.

Alkalinity increaser is regular baking soda.

What is the volume of the pool?
Can you post the pictures?

Allen G Myerson · Postby **Allen G Myerson** » Thu 18 Nov, 2010 04:52

nikkih10 wrote:There is no heater in use.

Has there ever been a heater, working or not?

nikkih10 · Postby **nikkih10** » Fri 19 Nov, 2010 02:35

Allen,
we have never had a pool heater, there is certainly no plumbing to sugest that the previous owner had one either. We have been here for 15 years.

A couple of developments, tonight I had more time to test vinegar, took the ladder out & sprinkled it over it.
After a while the stain just dissapeared where the vinegar had pooled.

Last night I added approx 10 lites of liquid chlorine along with 500ml of Quaternary Amonium compound.

When I got home today the pool looks clearer, almost 50% clearer. the thing that may be misleading is that the water is slightly milky due to the 10 ltrs of Chrlorine.

The filter is running now. I will run it for a few hours, then vacuum tomorrow.

Do you think there will be an eventual chemical solution to this problem? Or will I be in there with a scourer to clear this stuff off the liner.

Regards,

Ian

Allen G Myerson · Postby **Allen G Myerson** » Fri 19 Nov, 2010 05:47

When I got home today the pool looks clearer, almost 50% clearer. The thing that may be misleading is that the water is slightly milky due to the 10 litres of Chlorine.

Your previous posts indicated that the water was crystal clear. Liquid chlorine should not have had an adverse affect on the clarity. The 500 ml of Quaternary Ammonium compound algaecide could cause some foaming. It would have been better to not have added that.

The vinegar test results are a good confirmation of copper/metal staining.

I will write up a post on a chemical procedure that you can use to try to remove the staining. I need to know how many gallons (or liters) your pool is. What are the dimensions of your pool length, width and depth? What type of filter do you have (DE, sand or cartridge)?

nikkih10 · Postby **nikkih10** » Fri 19 Nov, 2010 13:45

Our pool is 45,000 litres, and has a sand filter.

Regards,

Ian

nikkih10 · Postby **nikkih10** » Sun 21 Nov, 2010 20:37

Allen,
I got in the pool yesterday, tried to scrub the stains with no luck at all. The water is now quite milky, I guess this is some reaction to the Metal rmoval solution, the Chrlorine & the algecide.

You said you should be able to come up with a Chemical sloution, is there any more info you need from me?.

By the way, it is a little hard to tell, with the mikly water, but the stain, I would say has definately reduced.

Regards,

Ian

swimfit · Postby **swimfit** » Mon 21 Feb, 2011 00:38

Milky appearance of the pool water is the most common problem swimming pool owners come up with. I'd seen a genuine discussion on this forum on the same topic; let me direct you there. Those are real concerns so probably you'd come to know of the diverse reasons to having to face this. Good luck! :-)

http://www.poolhelpforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1520