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purple pool water


Guest Barbara

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Our pool has turned a beautiful shade of purple just in time for Easter. When we shocked it a few days ago it turned green. Pool store checked water and said lots of iron in it (pool is 6 years old and we have never had this problem). Used Bioguard metal remover and 2nd application of Sparkle up today. Store says just to wait and continue running pump. Has anyone else ever seen purple water

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Guest Ted Mabie

Purple pool water huh? When doing a new plaster startup in Temecula , Ca. I

had a pool where the water{well water} came out of the faucet a mustard yellow

color that you couldn't see through and this was used to fill the pool. I had been doing startups for about 10 years when this one came my way so it was very unusual to say the least.After adding a clarifier and some stain inhibiter along with some acid for pH control the first day, I returned the next day to check on the progress. The water had turned a nice shade of lavender and with the tile selection

being the hot pink color group ,needless to say it was quite a sight!!! The home-

owner came out when she saw me there and stated that she loved it and asked me how I did it!!! All I could do was scratch my head and wonder . I dosed it again

and the following day the pool water was blue like it really should be, but I'll never

forget that one . I serviced that pool for a while when I started my own company

and had what seemed to be iron staining around the autofill inlet and it was also present on the driveway . I also met up with the well technician and he showed me where chlorine needed to added to his system for oxidation purposes, but it never looked like that first couple of days again !!

The other instances of purple , is when there is an excessive amount of

cyanuric acid {stabilizer} in the water and it reacts to copper ions ,it will drop out

and form a lavender colored scale so it could be that you could be seeing this

reaction. Reccomendation is a partial water change , proper pH control , and

quarterly analysis by a local pool supply especially if a cartridge filter is used

for filtration . Some day I'll write my book on all my funny little pool stories.

Hope this helps or at least a laugh anyway !! Ted M.

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Guest Charlene

hi, i don,t have purple pool water- the white pipes on the pump system look to have leaked and my creapy crawly lines are stained purple- also white parts of clothing turn purple- i recently had rrrreally low ph- have i put in to much phup-i can.t seem to get enough shock in pool- minimal results- also my eyes still have trouble with irritation. also turned my white filters purple- lavender.

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I've had the same problem for about a year. At first, the pool vacuum lines were stained purple at the water line and there was purple staining on the tiles at the water line. This season, the purple cast is attaching to parts of the pool plaster, as well as coating the plastic of the pool vacuum housing. Chemistry is all within range, perhaps a little bit high on chlorine.

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Guest Ted Mabie

Hi all,

Ted ,the technician here again, Kinda like Bob the builder that my grandson loves !!! On the purple discoloration, have you ran a cyanuric acid {stabilzer} test yet?

One of my former co workers in california told homeowners that the only chlorine to use was the sodium dichlor. Well in about 8 months they were experiencing the same problem, purple scale at the spa spillway into the pool or at the waterline tile. I had one pool the cyanuric level was so high that I had to drain the pool twice just to get it donw to an acceptable range. this will be especially true if you are using a cartridge filter where you're not changing out any water like you would with a sand or D.E. filter. The cure to that would be to install a drain valve after the pump in order to drain the pool periodically to keep the cyanuric level diluted, I also reccomend using different types of chlorine to offset the problems associated with each type of chlorine carrier. Either by doing a fresh water change or a complete drain along with a LIGHT acid wash and sanding to remove the cyanuric acid and then monitering the cyanuric level every 3 months to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand again . Depending on where you live will determine as to how much stabilizer you should have, in the southern climes I would run my cyanuric about 80 - 120 ppm due to the u.v. intensity, the northern climes where the angle of the sun is different 50 -100 ppm should be fine. While in some aspects of chemistry you can balance with addition of certain chemicals , the catch phrase here is " dilution is the solution " !!

Just a little info about me , started out as a pool routeman servicing about 120 pools a week for 3 1/2 years working up to a route supervisor in charge of 1500 accounts responible for training new personel to handle these accounts. From there [after a little quibble with the bosses son] was moved to a corperate liason position AKA the complaint department to handle customer complaints. Then moved on to work for a pool builder as a start up man / service technician/ company's chemical expert for 8 years. Started my own pool company with my wife and we ran that for five years before relocating to the Pacific northwest . Now in the Seattle area as a service technician again but would like to try again to be independant if I can get the financial resources to do so but who knows. So friends , I have enough field experience to resolve most of what you may encounter with your pool or spa!! Ted the pool guy

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  • 1 month later...

Ted prolly has a handle on this...if you use dichlor or trichlor pucks for a full season, your CYA-cyuranic acid

level will be way too hi. That causes problems for your chlorine to sanitize and soon all your levels are way out of range as you try to balance water. Once your CYA level ranges from 30-50 ppm, change to liquid chlorine (I call it bleach). You can also get liquid chlorine at home depot and pool stores and it may even be the 12% type. This is usually a good deal since 'ultra' bleach at walmart is only 6%. Still, this route is much cheaper and more readily available.

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  • 4 months later...

Ted prolly has a handle on this...if you use dichlor or trichlor pucks for a full season, your CYA-cyuranic acid

level will be way too hi. That causes problems for your chlorine to sanitize and soon all your levels are way out of range as you try to balance water. Once your CYA level ranges from 30-50 ppm, change to liquid chlorine (I call it bleach). You can also get liquid chlorine at home depot and pool stores and it may even be the 12% type. This is usually a good deal since 'ultra' bleach at walmart is only 6%. Still, this route is much cheaper and more readily available.

You want at least 12% sodium hypochlorite. That is a good point because the STAB. tabs (slo-or day-tabs) contain that and another option is switching to HTH if you have a gunite pool or Lithium(Sea-chlor) so you dont get that residual.

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I have heard that the purple is from metals, manganese in particular. I hope someone here who knows more about chemistry than I do chimes in here and tells me if that's correct. I have believed this for years, but never had it confirmed.

Yep, manganese can cause purple water and stains....check your water for metals and if positive use a sequestering agent.

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  • 2 months later...

Conquest or Powerquest or Hydroquest is great.

Since almost all sequesterants are phosphonic acid derivatives such as HEDP they all work about equally well. I only know of one that isn't (although there might be some more). NaturalChemistry's Metal Magic is EDTA, a chelating agent.

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