Fighting continuous Iron stain on fiberglass pool.

[hemi9673]

I am new to this forum and I joined because I am totally being whipped by iron staining. I have been fighting this iron staining problem since April of this year. I have bought a lot of stain lifting and sequestering agents over the past few months and I am at my wit's end.
I have an 11X24 fiberglass pool. The pool is only 4 years old and so is the house. I lower the chlorine level in the pool to less than 1ppm and get my pH in the 7.2 range. I add the, this past time Jack's Magic iron removel stuff, and then add Jack's Purple stuff and turn the SWG off and run the pool pump for 4 days. Within 30 minutes the walls of the pool are crystal clear and everything is good. After a few days of running the filter system I then backwash for 3 minutes. Everything still is great. I then start to bring my chemicals back in check as well as keep adding maintenance doses of purple stuff like I was told. Then as soon as my chlorine levels start to come back up there the stain is again. This is getting real old. I know I'm lifting the metal but I guess I am just not getting all of the metal out. Please someone help me out here with what I'm doing wrong.

[Denniswiseman]

Are you on a well because that is the most obvious source
It's pretty impossible to get the iron out and seqestering is the only option
A YouTube video on Iron filter removal if it's really bad
I use the Ascorbic Acid Treatment which is similar process to your Jacks

[Phil.c]

Polyfill filtering worked for me, no staining came back after nearly three months and with chemicals it came back in a few weeks, unfortunately, I couldn't test it for longer because the twenty year old liner split and I had to renue it.

[hemi9673]

I am not on a well. The house and pool are a new build of just 4 years old. I have never had a problem with iron until this year. I believe I may have done it with either my salt choice or algeacide choice.
When you say polyfill, please explain the process. I have enough iron stain remover and sequestering agent left for another treatment. I can get the stain to go away easy I just am obviously not getting the metal completely out of the water. I just seen something called CULator and was wondering if maybe I need this in my pump filter. If there is another way with the polyfill please enlighten me. Thanks for the help.

[Denniswiseman]

I already posted a link in my previous post
Some people have posted good results about Culator

[Phil.c]

Polyfill is hollow fibre that is used to stuff pillows etc. I filled the skimmer with it, set the valve to skimmer and filtered it that way, I changed the Polyfill every three days and did this for about two weeks, the Polyfill didn't turn brown, I put the used Polyfill in a cloth bag, I notice that there was brown staining at the bottom of it.

As I said, this worked for me, it's worth a try?

[hemi9673]

Can you buy chance tell me what particular brand of polyfill you bought. I have looked all over Amazon and I can not find anything that says Hollow Fiber Polyfill.

[Denniswiseman]

I think you will find it's all Hollow Fiber Polyfill

[hemi9673]

I don't see hollow fiber listed on any of the bags so I wasn't sure. So the Polyfill brand will work fine?

[hemi9673]

Also do you just put the Polyfill in the skimmer basket? I am worried it will be pulled through the skimmer basket and into the Sandfilter. Did you put the Polyfill in something before you put it into the basket?

[Denniswiseman]

I believe Phil.c put it in the skimmer basket
PM him to get an answer

[Phil.c]

I put it straight into the skimmer basket, pushed it down to fill it, but make sure it's not too tight, put it just below the water line so that you can see the water swirling that way you know that the flow is not restricted, make sure your valve is set to skimmer only.

Change it every three days but when you take it out don't let the water drain into the basket, in other words take it out in one sweep and into a bucket.

I bought a big bag of the filler and even when no stain came back I kept using it, as I mentioned, it worked for me, hopefully it will work for you.

[hemi9673]

One more thing I would like to ask. Since my pool was built 4 years ago along with the house, is there anything that could be causing the iron problem. Up until this year I have never had a problem. I have no iron or copper lines going to the pool. I have a Hayward salt system so I just don't understand where it could be coming from. I keep thinking it was something I used when I opened up the pool this year to get rid of algea, but I'm just not sure. Everytime I go out and look at the pool the stain looks darker to me. I am trying to get together everything I need for the next treatment but I sure hope this finally does the trick.

[Phil.c]

My indoor pool is twenty years old, I had no iron problems except a couple of years ago I started it up after the winter only to find the liner was brown at one end, this then progressed to the rest of the pool, the only thing I can think of is water mains repairs about a mile away.

BTW, the iron has to be sequestered into the water before the Polyfill filtration.

[hemi9673]

Ok so today I got my chlorine, pH, and alkalinity where it needs to be. Put the Polyfill in the skimmer basket. Put the CuLator in the pump basket. Put the pump in circulate and add the stain remover. Then I add the sequestering agent. I also turned my Hayward salt cell off. Tomorrow when I get home from work I will change out the Polyfill as instructed. So when should I put the pump in filter? Also when should I backwash and how many times should I backwash? How often should I add more sequestering agent and how much should I add. My pool is only around 6500 gallons. I plan on changing the Polyfill out until I run out. I hope this is the last time I have to deal with this.