Vinyl Swimming Pool Stains Could be Metals!

If you’re a cheapskate like me, you may have opted for a large vinyl above ground pool instead of an inground pool. I did buy a good one – a Splash Pool – because they are warrantied for 30 years, and not just expected to last a year or two like the cheap ones you buy at a discount store. And yes, I am a frugal person with a pool – but I live in the Shouth, and hey – it gets hot here! OK?

Stains Could Be Metals and Not Algae

OK, so here’s the story. After I uncovered my pool for the summer it was a greyish-green horror. I did my best to scoop out gunk, balance the water, and start treating for algae – which I surely did have! However, even when the water tested within normal parameters, looked clear enough to see the bottom, and had plenty of chlorine, it was still an ugly greenish-gunky looking pond.

On the advice of the guy at the pool store, I dumped in more algicide, which was a big mistake. See, algae killers contain copper, and more copper may have been coming into the pool from my old pipes which supplied fresh water! Do you see the problem? The ugly greenish mucky color did not come from the water, which was crystal clear when it came out of the pump in a backwash or rinse. The color came from staining on the sides of the vinyl pool, and these were caused by metal in the water!

I found a solution that worked for me, and that was to get ascorbinc acid (vitamin C). You can find it at some pool stores, but some people buy it from vitamin stores too. You need to let the chlorine levels go down to very close to 0. But before you do that, test to make sure this is the problem.

Step 1 – Shake some of the ascorbic acid in a white sock, and throw the sock in the pool. Push the sock around the bottom with your pool net and see if it erases the state. It did the trick for me right away! Another test would be to take a vitamin C tablet and rub it against the stain if that is possible. If that erases the stain, then you know ascorbic acid will help!

Step 2 – Let your Chlorine levels go way down. You can usually just wait a day or two, or else you can buy another chemical for this. Being a cheapskate, I just waited. The ascorbic acid will work a lot better with little or no chlorine in the pool.

Step 3 – Add the Ascorbic acid according to directions, if you bought it at a pool store. My bottle said to add 1/2 pound per 10,000 gallons of water. Keep runnning your pump and filter, and you should see an improvement very soon. You can also follow up with some product like Metal Magic – but metal magic did not do the trick for me without the ascorbic acid.

When your pool is nice and crystal clear, like mine is, you can backwash and rinse your filter, and then make sure you get your PH balanced before adding chlorine back in.

I hope this works for you as well as it did for me. Have a great summer!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

• Advantages of Salt Chlorine Systems for Inground Pool Water
• Can an Investment in Salt Chlorine Systems Save You Money on Your Pool? You know that we always say that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.