Leslie’s Sold Me Scale Remover But I Am Not Sure If I Should Use It

[Trillium8643]

So I have an unusual situation. I bought a property with a large 30,000 gal pool following the LNU fires in Northern California. The pool survived but the house didn’t, and it sat for four years until I bought it last summer when I had a pool company come and drain it and clean it and hook it up to generator power (We do not have electricity.) I’m a new pool owner but managed to keep it looking good last summer and through the winter until we had a pipe break, which shot dirt and somehow a rattlesnake into the pool. I did my best to vacuum but I now have very dark stains that won’t scrub off no matter what I do. According to Leslie’s my levels are fine but why won’t these stains go away? I tried scrubbing with a chlorine tablet and with vitamin C tablets. SOS. I can get them lighter but they won’t go away.

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

You can get the stains lighter doing what?

The stains are probably organic. Run your chlorine at half SLAM level and they will fade over time but may never disappear.

Or you can use diamond sanding pads and sand an area and see how deep the stain if and how much plaster you lose in sanding it away.

 

[Trillium8643]

Welcome to TFP.

You can get the stains lighter doing what?

The stains are probably organic. Run your chlorine at half SLAM level and they will fade over time but may never disappear.

Or you can use diamond sanding pads and sand an area and see how deep the stain if and how much plaster you lose in sanding it away.

Scrubbing the heck out of them gets them lighter. Will SLAM help? I am so sad. The pool was my one good thing.

 

[ajw22]

Will SLAM help?

Doubtful.

Run your FC at half SLAM level and brush often and it should fade over time.

Does your pool pass a Overnight Chlorine Loss Test?

 

[Trillium8643]

Shoot I was going to do that tonight but now it’s dark out. I’ll do it tomorrow

 

[mgtfp]

And yes, I'm doubtful that the scale remover would help.

Are the stains where debris had settled?

Good one with the rattlesnake. Did that come through the pipe? What a ride...

 

[Trillium8643]

Yes! It appears that it is where the dirt settled.

 

[SoDel]

As a random thought, I had an issue where calcium scale formed either mixed with or over (I don’t know which) some sort of dirt or dust and it caused intractable light brown stains on some areas in the pool. The plastering contractor called it “dirty scale.” It was very thin and I was able to remove almost all of it by keeping my CSI very low and brushing frequently over a season. I’m doing the same this season to try to get the last of it.

Your’s looks far worse than mine was but it might be worth a try to see if it comes off as scale would. I leave it to those more knowledgable for suggested tests and possible removal methods. A little bit of localized acid in the most inconspicuous spot would seem like something to try though; like it’s bad enough that it would be hard to make it worse.