9. A. Phosphates

This is Janine with Pool Zones in The Woodlands, Texas, and we will be discussing phosphate today and why should you be so interested in phosphate. 

Well, that does turn into green pool if you have too many phosphates because phosphates are food for algae. But before we get started into phosphate, I would like to show you a product that I discovered recently and it was just a phenomenal discovery.

This product… well let’s look at what it does, look at the clarity of this three or four day old pool, and look at the clarity of that water and how sparkling it is, and just so enticing and inviting to just look at that clarity, and very appealing. 

So let’s find out what product did we use to actually achieve that level of clarity. And here we go into our products here, we looked into this before but I’m going to show you just a little diversion here on a phenomenal product. 

Okay, this is what’s called Stain drop, and we added two bottles of this into an 11,500 gallon pool when we first started the pool. It is just phenomenal for clarity. What it does is it bonds or binds any metals in the pool, copper, for example, any iron for example. 

And what it does by binding to the metals is it prevents staining, and so it’s an all purposes, that particular one is an all purpose stain drop XPH, that is absolutely crucial in the start up of a pool to just get control of any metals that are in the cold water. Stain drop I highly recommended. 

We used two bottles when we first started it, we will continue to use a bottle… actually this is an ongoing product that should be used each month at a bottle every month, and it will give me a phenomenal clarity and it will prevent any staining, so really a great product, and ever since I started or discovered, I rushed down and bought six or seven bottles of it, it was quite an exciting discovery. 

So now let’s look into the next section here would be about phosphates and why are phosphates so crucial and so important? 

So phosphates are… you’re not gonna be able to see them, of course, but they’re in the water they are typically in the water and it just depends, some pools will have more and some obviously will have less. This is a phosphate remover, now keep in mind that the phosphate remover will actually remove the food for algae. 

So phosphate is food for algae and this PR 10,000 will remove the phosphates; it’s high concentrated strength, rather than that liquidy stuff that you buy down in bottles. 

Now here I am, I have the pump running and I’m planning to put that in small doses, they’ve got to be in very small doses, because this will cloud out the water, and the clouding process is the action, it’s a reaction to the phosphates it kills on content. 

So as I’m pouring this in, maybe I’m pouring an 8… I’m not doing that much today by the look of it, but I probably did eight ounces twice but not there, and I’m just going to put it in very very slowly, on contact it will cloud the water, and that means that it’s killing phosphate.

This particular pool has a very high phosphate, I think 2000-3000 range, and of course we want to be closer to zero, under 500 so really, really high phosphate in this pool.

You wouldn’t think there’s high phosphates because it doesn’t look green. But if the conditions turn, if there were for example, there’s a lot of rain, the chlorine was depleted, and then suddenly, that pool could go green, within a day or two, that quickly, why? Because the phosphates are in the water. 

There are several schools of thought about the phosphates, some say, well, you don’t have to do anything, just leave them alone and kill the algae, well why would you kill the algae, instead of the phosphates, that makes no sense. Get rid of the phosphate and you will get rid of the algae. 

So, it’s like, cause and effect, you don’t go after the effect you have to remove the cause of the problem, identify the problem and remove the cause, and that’s what we’re doing here. 

One thing about the phosphate remover is that the phosphates will precipitate, which means they will scale, they’ll become a scale, it will be like dandruff. You know what that looks like, it will be like dandruff in your pool, and of course you have to vacuum it out, or brush it out or clean it out. 

Now be careful, in a new pool in this pool we cannot put a cleaner in this pool. It’s too new, and it’s not going to be something we want to use. A new pool, no cleaner, robotic or you know suction cleaner or pressure cleaner, and we don’t use a heater and we don’t do any salt water for the first 30 days, we’re waiting for this process to cure. 

So the product that I showed you at the beginning of this video, which let’s go back to that. Whoops, it’s going to vanish in front of our eyes. Let’s go back. This is a product pr 10,000, and this will remove the phosphate on contact. You will need to clean the filter after several days, because all this has to go somewhere, it will cloud the water, and you do need to brush several times a day after you’ve added this. And also, vacuum it as well so you know, a hand vacuum is okay. 

On a new pool, you can’t use a robotic or the regular cleaner, on an older pool, you can of course, so it’s a great product, very easy to use, make sure the skimmer is running, and add it directly to the skimmer. 

So, that’s it. I think I’ve covered all the basics, I’ve gone into… I delved in a little further from the basics into phosphate and into the Stain drop which will give great clarity. And as you’ll see here with this pool it’s just phenomenal clarity, and also, more importantly is that this pebble pool, mini pebble aqua blue I believe it is, is curing at exactly the right chemistry, and all the chemistry is balanced for this pool and within range, and so this pool will be just a gorgeous pool once we get rid of the phosphates in two weeks, the colour of this pebble will really start to become quite stunning. 

That’s it for phosphate and the next series we’ll delve into some more details that you might be interested in as a new pool owner, or even an existing pool owner to learn some of the basics, and to understand some of the principles involved in pool chemistry. 

This is Janine with Pool Zones, I would like to hope that you come to the next lecture series, and that should be an entirely extra little detailing and you’ll learn quite a bit more in the next series.