When you see little black spots on your fiberglass swimming pool, it could be a few things. First, try to remove them with a vitamin C tablet. If that doesn’t work, then have your water chemistry tested to see if you have a high phosphate level. If you do, use a phosphate remover then balance the pool water to see if that solves the problem.
Cobalt can also cause spots like these. The gel coat delaminates a bit from the surface and these spots can develop. Just place a CuLator Ultra 4.0 into the pump basket to see if that lowers the metal level to remove the staining.
Gel Coat delamination does happen with some fiberglass pools. Check with your pool manufacturer to see what they can do, but doing a phosphate, or stain treatment is much easier to deal with.
If you have any questions, give Periodic Products a call at 954-764-7654 to discuss.
Why does the CuLator Ultra 4.0 Swell Up?
When CuLator is added to the skimmer or pump basket, it usually swells up and becomes very puffy. This is normal. The best way to see if the CuLator is catching metals is to hold it up to the light. In this case, there is some blue at the top showing that the CuLator is binding copper out of the swimming pool water and preventing stains..
Why does the CuLator Ultra 4.0 puff up? The CuLator polymers “hydrate” when they enter the water and puff up. As they bind the metals out of the pool water, the CuLator bags will “shrink” back down to a much smaller size. So, when is CuLator finished? It is easier to tell with the Ultra 4.0 because the bag will be about 1/2 full, or the contents will feel watery inside or they will feel sandy. With the 1.0 it is a little bit harder to tell, but when the bag feels almost empty or there is a lot of color in the bag after a month, then it is exhausted.
Opening Your Pool with CuLator Metal Eliminator
When you open your pool here are a few hints:
- Place a CuLator Ultra 4.0 into the pump basket and run a few days before adding any swimming pool chemicals (as long as the pH is above 7).
- Leave the CuLator Ultra 4.0 in for the entire summer to grab metals out of the water and keep your water clear and to prevent staining.
- If you are worried about any metal levels in the water, add some sequestering agent to the water to hold the metals in suspension until the CuLator will pull them out.
CuLator Metal Sequester
Review of CuLator Metal Eliminator with Before and After Shot
This pool was greenish from oxidized iron and lower alkalinity. After the chemistry was balanced and a CuLator Ultra 4.0 was used to remove the metals from the water, the pool stair stains were gone, the cloudiness was gone, and the metals were out of the pool water.
Here is the review:
Hi, I placed the CU Lator in the skimmer basket last week. The results from the test at Leslie’s is no copper. The chlorine and other test items were just about ok. So yesterday the family used the pool. I want to thank you for the product, CU Lator, and the kind and attentive assistance you gave to me in getting my pool dilemma resolved. Now I will have to learn how to balance the pool chemicals, so it does not repeat again. Thank you again and have a nice day.
F.T. Lincoln Park, NJ
Use CuLator Ultra 4.0 to Remove 0.4 Copper from 31,000 Gallons
| I have 0.4 copper in my pool currently. I am treating my pool for almost 3K ppb phosphate now. I used a sequestering agent a few weeks ago (Bioguard/SparkleUp) and then cleaned the filter with no reduction in copper. Do I need to add another sequestering agent to the water when I add the culator 4.0 in? My pool is about 31K gallons. Thanks for any advice!
DC
Hi DC, Thanks for the questions. The sequestering agent will last about a month. Just place the CuLator Ultra 4.0 into the pump basket and leave it in all summer. You should be good to go! Thanks, David |
Periodic Products Introduces CuLator InLine Pro
We have been working hard at Periodic Products to manufacture a filter with CuLator Metal Eliminator inside…and we have done it! After years of research, we have manufactured a pleated filter with the power of CuLator! Plumbed into the swimming pool circulation system with 3/4″ connections, the CuLator InLine Pro allows a replaceable CuLator Filter to remove and eliminate up to 8 ppm dissolved metals from 20,000 gallons. This new pleated filter system is an improvement over traditional CuLator products because of the added surface area which allows the CuLator polymers to grab more metals like iron, copper, manganese, and lead from your pool and spa water faster. Don’t forget, that once the metals are bound to the CuLator, they are not coming off! So, you don’t have to worry about metals dropping back into the water like sequestering agents and other products.
The clear sump allows you to see what metals the CuLator is removing from the water.
Here are a few examples of used CuLator Metal Eliminator Filters:
Once the filters are used up, you just replace them with a new CuLator Filter. Continuous metal removal is the best way to prevent metal staining on your pool surfaces and to prevent water from turning brown or green when you shock.
CuLator InLine Pro is available through your pool professional only. Call 954-764-7654 to learn more.
Iron Bacteria Eliminator Kit Worked!
Many thanks to Chris Walkerow at Periodic Products and Fred Schweer at Pool Rx for incredible help with our pool.
We’ve been dealing with gray/brown discoloration on the bottom of this pool in southwestern Pennsylvania for several years without success. Finally last fall, I reached out to Pool Rx whose sanitizing product we use. Fred worked with us and directed us toward C U Lator to deal with copper removal. In talking with Chris about the issue, he recommended that we use their Iron Bacteria Eliminator product to address the discoloration. So after dumping and refilling the pool to get rid of the very high chlorine stabilizer that had built up from past efforts, we followed Chris and Fred’s guidance to the letter. Nothing went in the pool this season without their approval. We couldn’t get the C U Lator products locally so we had them shipped up from Chris in Florida. Even liquid chlorine was very difficult to source locally: “Nobody uses that, use tablets or granular” is what we kept hearing. But we insisted on what these two chemists recommended.
We dumped and refilled the pool in late June, and completed the Iron Bacteria treatment just in time to swim over the July 4th weekend. The pool has been clear, clean, and stable the rest of the season! This is the first time in at least 3 years that we have had stable pool chemistry and had a normal pool bottom appearance. Our local pool supplier ran our water tests but quickly learned not to make any recommendations because we were “using another lab.” After about six weeks of consistently stable test results, they started to ask: “What are you putting in this pool?”
We HIGHLY recommend Chris and Fred for their outstanding ability to deal with pool chemistry issues. Apparently, a combination of iron bacteria in our fill water combined with clay soil, a high water table, and direct sunlight resulted in this persistent discoloration. Chris was the first to figure out a solution.
Attached are before and after pictures. A HUGE thank you to Chris and Fred!!!
Kids Hair Turned Green From Pool Water
Here is a recent question we received that I wanted to share:
I have a question regarding the Metal Eliminator. We have copper in our pool (about 2.0) no staining or water changing color… just the kids hair is getting a green tint. Do we have to use the Metal Sequester first (I did use metal free at the beginning of the season)? Or can I just get the CuLator Metal Eliminator and put it in my pump basket. Much Appreciated!!
K.D. California
Here is the response:
K.D.
Copper will definitely turn your kids hair green. No, you don’t have to use the Metal Sequester first, but rather use it at the same time with the CuLator Metal Eliminator Ultra 4.0 ( in your pump basket) for best results. All metal sequestering agents have a limited life span. Usually about three to four weeks; so, the best way to deal with stain-causing metals is to get them out of the water. CuLator is the only product that gets the metal out of the swimming pool water.
Thanks!
Jack’s Magic Stain ID Kit and Periodic Products No-Drain Metal Stain Eliminator Kit
Here is a question we were asked by Glenn in Orlando:
| In the past, I used “Jack’s” stain test kit. With that kit, I needed to use their “O2 Safe Shock” in addition to the copper stain remover, in order to get a reaction. Will your stain remover kit work for copper without this added product? |
Good question! If you have a fresh stain, our No-Drain Metal Stain Eliminator Kit will work on removing the iron and copper stains and eliminating the metals from your pool water. If you have had a stain for a long time, your stain may be calcified over and then you need to do a treatment like the Jack’s Magic “O2 Safe Shock” to remove the calcium layer and THEN do the stain treatment.
Don’t forget that when doing our stain treatment, you don’t have to do a stain test kit first because we have both types of stain treatments to remove iron stains and copper stains from your swimming pool surface.
The most important part of doing a stain treatment is to remember there are three parts:
- Treat and remove the metal stain
- Sequester the metals in the water
- Eliminate the metals with CuLator Metal Eliminator
Diamond Spa – Stainless Spa and CuLator
I’m Niki from beautiful Topanga, California! I posted the review of the Power Pak on your website product page.
I attached a photo of my stainless spa. The first time we filled it the metal started to discolor like rust. Using the Power Pak the pack turned orange so it appears my spa was discoloring most likely due to iron in my water. All the pool guys and pool stores here said their water test can’t detect metal levels that low, your product was the only consumer product I could find to help me determine the problem and remove it from the water. So far I’ve had no more discoloration!
Thank you!
Niki