I have a 1 year old plaster (diamondbrite) pool. I also have a chlorine generator. The problem is I added a bag of softener salt and I guess it didnt disolve quick eneough. Now there is a light brown stain. Im assuming this is a metal stain. Any reccomendations on how to get it out? Its a fresh stain (less than 24 hrs old). The pool has been trouble free so far. I check the chemicals daily and have been on top of everything. Real frustraing.
thanks
Drain and acid wash.
Possibly you had dissolved metal in the water previously, and the salt just precipitated and fixed it onto the plaster?
I am wondering - how did this happen? Did you add water to your pool that had been through the water softener? We have the diamond brite finish on our pool and would like to know what to look out for.
No I just added the softener salt, musta had some trace metals. I got the stain out. Someone told me to put dry acid (PH -) in a sock and put it on the stain, then move the sock arround every few mins with the pool pole. It worked!! It was like an eraser. I realized this was going to take a while since the stain was about 25 square feet, so I turned off the pump, and strategically poured the dry acid on the stain from outside the pool, let it set about 5 mins and turned the pump back on. Now all I have to do is get my ph/alk back up.
Whew, as little salt as I have to add, from now on I am only buying food grade. $7 here vs $4 for the softner salt.
Oh Well, lesson learned. And stain is out.
Usually my jet vac stirs up the salt as it dissolves, but when I added the salt this time I didnt put the sock on the jet vac all the way and it blew off, leaving the salt in one place while it dissolved. Had this not have happened, I dont know if it would have stained in the first place.
I'm quite surprised about that. Food grade is essentially a finer granule of solar salt. Rock salt, OTOH, may have a lot of minerals in it. Some food grade may also. Just look at some of the very high priced types.
Oils and other minerals are allowed in salt that is not sold as food grade. Rock Salt for ice cream machines is often grey as it has so much junk in it.
Water softener salt has a fair amount of trace materials in it. Brine tanks for water softeners should be drained every few years just to get this non salt junk out of the bottom of the tank. Green and brown goo will form a layer of surprising thickness (green from the coloring that is added to some softener salts, brown from the non-soluble residues in the salt).
Food Grade is sold in stores like Sams Club in 25 and 50 pound quantities. Yes is is a finer crystal, but more importantly for this application, has almost no impurities in it especially if the non-Iodized version is used.
Footnote, the FoodTV folks always ignore the risks of NOT using Iodized salt for table and most cooking salt. I grew up in an area that had a fair amount of Iodine deficient disease victims. I don't want that for myself, so I always use Iodized table salt in this household.
Solar salt is 99.5% pure. At work we clean our brine tank once a year and we put about 8,000 pounds of salt through it. I doubt food grade is much better. Food grade, mined or solar, still containers minerals, perhaps additives to keep it free flowing. See
It can also be fluoridated
Or do you want Living Energy in your salt?
But food grade can have 2% additives but solar has only 0.5% impurities. Again, I'm amazed that the softener salt had the reaction that it did. The OP put in about 40 pounds. That translates to up to 3.2 ounces of impurites. Food grade with additives can have over 12 ounces, plus trace minerals.
Can't hurt, we need a teaspoon of it in a lifetime. Some of the foods that are touted as being healthy, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, can neutralize iodine. Seafood usually contains some.
Since you didn't drain and acid wash, that metal is still in your water, and will redeposit on everything.
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