Joe Laurino on Fill Water Problems

Fill water can look perfectly clear and still wreck a startup. If there’s iron, copper, tannins, or other contaminants in the source, they can end up staining a new finish, clouding the water, and turning a “simple” startup into weeks of cleanup. We talk with Joe Laurino of Periodic Products, known throughout the pool industry for Culator metal removal, to get practical about what to test for and how to stop problems before the pool is even full. 

We dig into the difference between dissolved metals and tiny oxidized particulates, why well water is a special kind of tricky, and how even municipal water can carry hidden issues depending on the treatment plant and source. We also compare common pre-filters that rely mostly on pore size with higher-impact approaches that target metals and organics, including high-flow carbon and polymer-based filtration that doesn’t require painfully slow fill rates. If you’re a pool service pro doing plaster startups, refills, or builder handoffs, this is the risk management side of water chemistry. 

We also lay out a clear “trifecta” startup workflow: filter the fill water, use a startup treatment designed to manage plaster dust while supporting balance, then keep metals from turning into stains with ongoing capture. The goal is simple: protect the surface, get to clean and stable water faster, and reduce the surprises that cost you time and trust. Subscribe for more pool startup and water chemistry strategies, share this with a tech who’s fighting stains, and leave a review with your toughest fill-water question.

We break down why fill water can make or break a pool startup, especially when metals, tannins, and other contaminants are hiding in plain sight. We walk through how to test source water, choose filtration that actually matches the problem, and use a simple three-step process to protect the finish and prevent stains.  
• why startups feel risky and why fill water is a root cause  
• what to test for in fill water: inorganics and organics  
• how city water can carry oxidized metal particulates  
• why well water can contain both dissolved and solid metals  
• limitations of size-only pre-filters and when they fall short  
• where carbon helps most: tannins and organic contaminants  
• why throttling flow is a problem during a pool fill  
• how a two-stage system targets dissolved metals and organics  
• when a four-stage setup makes sense for tougher water  
• why some “city” supplies are still well water  
• the three-part startup trifecta: filter, Super Startup, Culator 4.0  
• how plaster dust can be converted to support water balance  
• why sequestration still matters even with filtered source water  
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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome to the Best of the Fool Game Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to join I'll be joined by Joe Loreno

Coaching Program Quick Invite

SPEAKER_00 1:09

of Puretic Products, better known as the scelator products in the industry, the Metal Eliminator products. And today he's going to address some fill water issues when you have metals and other contaminants in your fill water. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the Pool Guy

Why Fill Water Makes Startups Risky

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Coaching Program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. Let's talk a little bit about the pool fill water. So I get this a lot when guys are doing startups, and it's really lucrative in the industry to do startups because there's you you can land the account 90% of the time you're going to land that account. And so one of the things they're hesitant about taking startups are the problems that may develop or come about during the startup process. And one of the issues that I think a lot of people don't really address or talk about much, there's a few, there's a few experts in the industry that do focus on this, and that's the fill water. And I think it's an important aspect of any startup or any refill of a pool is testing that fill water to find out what's in there. And see you later has really come up with some pre-filters. And before we jump into your product, there are some pre-filters on the market already, and maybe you can compare yours to theirs and kind of let the listeners know know why yours are you know priced the way they are, the price point versus someone who's selling one on the internet that makes a pre-fill filter. So let's talk about the fill water first and we'll touch on that also. Um so with the fill water, what what kind of issues can happen when you're filling a brand new startup pool?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Okay, so so basically you really want to test your water for a couple things. One would be the inorganics, and the second are the organic. So the same thing that we've been talking about throughout here. So you want to test for metals. You want to make sure that the that you don't have a lot of metals in that water, especially if it's a well. Remember, if it's coming from a city source, then they've actually treated it with any kind of oxidizing agent. Chlorine is the typical one that's used, or some kind of chlorine derivative. They pretty much have oxidized the metals, so it's now basically particulate in nature. So it's that iron solid material that's very, very finely divided that's getting to your tap.

Metals And Organics To Test For

SPEAKER_01 3:38

If it's coming out of your well, you're getting some of that, but you're probably getting some some of the dissolved form also. So if you you really want to make sure that you capture both the solid particulates that are there and also any any kind of dissolved material, especially metals. So most of the materials on the market that you're gonna filter are basically size filters. So they're gonna be typically very similar to what you have in in a cartridge filter. It's going to be something that is going to have a certain pore size to it, it's going to capture those solid materials that are not dissolved, that are above a certain size, and let smaller particles that are suspended along with dissolved particles pass right through. So those are going to be limited in their scope. There are some products out there that actually try to convert the metals to a solid form so that they can then be captured. The problem there has been the speed with which it's being done. Typically, you you have to throttle the flow way back. And when you're doing a pool fill, the last thing you want to do is slowly put the water in. You want to put the water in fairly quickly for that surface. So you the other thing that you'll often find is people will use carbon tanks, and those are very good for the organics, the tannins that may be there. They will also capture some of the metals, but they won't capture the metals like a resin tank would do or like the polymer, sculator polymer will do. They have very, very limited uh ability to do that. So filter is always recommended, right? You you can't go wrong filtering it, depending upon how bad that water is, you need to filter appropriately. You need to treat that water as best you can. One of the questions that we often get is well, customers will be on a well, their house will be on a well, and they don't want to run their fill their water through their house system because it's expensive running the running that treatment system that they have. And I would caution to say, well, you're going to spend a lot more money trying to get those metals and those organics out of your pool than

Why Most Pre-Filters Miss Metals

SPEAKER_01 5:58

you will if you just use the the system that's on the house. It's it's usually has a a chemical treatment permanganate, we call it, and it that usually helps to uh again oxidize the materials, both the organics and the inorganics, that again makes it much easier to use. So again, test that water, make sure you know what's in it, and then filter it according to what the results tell you.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, and I think that's important. And so your your fill fast filters are a little different than the pre-filters that you mentioned that are like at the cartridges and the cartridge filter. You want to go over why yours are a little bit different than those?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, we we actually do a two-stage filtration system and actually a four-stage filtration system, depending upon the water. And again, that's why you want to test your water. So, what we've done is we've taken the polymer that is in the bag, the Culator product, and we've actually sealed it between two separate layers of a regular filter material. And what that does is that'll take out any kind of dissolved metals that are in that water. We then partner that with a pleated carbon filter, that's a high flow carbon filter, that allows you to use carbon, which is a very good material to take out organic, organic, any kind of contaminants that are in there. The other thing that it will do is it'll filter down to about 10 or so micron particle size. So we offer a two-sump system, which is the pleated carbon filter along with our fill fast CU later filter. And what that does is that'll get you down to about 10 or so microns. Now, depending upon what you have in your water, if you have tannins and humic acid, you may still get a kind of an orange color through your water at that point in time. So then we offer two more stages, which are basically carbon block filters, which follow these first two filters, and they are a five or so micron filter. Again, it's a range, so it's between five and ten micron, and then the final polishing filter is a 0.5 micron filter that actually takes just about everything out of the water. So depending upon what you have, we have a filter system, either a two-sum system or a four-sum system, that can give you really good water going into that pool.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

And I think that's something that again is often overlooked when you're starting up a pool is to fill water and what's going into the water. And I think people don't even know that they're on well water in a lot of areas. They they have this image of well water being, you know, not as common, but even my city uses a lot of well water along with other water sources from outside the area. And so you may have well water without even knowing you have well water.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Right, exactly. We're you know, we are we are here in Florida, it's

Two-Stage Vs Four-Stage FillFast

SPEAKER_01 9:09

well water, it's it's you know, Everglades, but it's it's coming out of the ground. So, but it's treated at at our facilities uh before it gets to the tap. And if it goes through the older kind of facility, it comes out kind of brown because it's got some tannins in it. It's kind of ugly. It looks like it's used water when it sits you know in the glass. But if it goes through the newer modern kind of treatment treatment facility where they use ultra filtration, it comes out crystal clear. So depending upon where you live in the city, you have kind of better water than others, but it's it's all basically well water.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And I think Culator promotes a trifect uh system uh developed by uh the late Greg Garrett, and it's a three-part system of doing a startup. Do you want to go over that real quick for the listeners? If the guys and gals out there who are doing startups want to implement this in their startups to make it a much better process for the customer, what are what's the three the three items that that are in the trifecta system?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Well, we've we've already talked about two of them. So the first one is actually the filters. So the first step of that is to filter the water going in. You want the best possible quality water going in into that surface of that pool. Greg was all about the surface, and he did not want anything to touch his surface. So it you know, he was like, make sure the water going in is as good as it could possibly be. So the first step is to use the fill fast filters to filter that water. The second step is uh Greg about three years ago now came up to me and said, you know, is there any way we can take the plaster dust, which is basically calcium carbonate, and use that to assist in balancing the pool water because hardness, after all, is calcium and carbonates alkalinity. So we typically vacuum all this pool, this kind of plaster dust out of the pool, and then we dump in you know calcium, calcium chloride and sodium bicarb or sodium carbonate to balance the pool water. And he said, Well, Joe, can you create something in the lab that'll that'll get rid of this plaster dust problem and be able to balance the pool as we're doing it? And and we did. So we actually created a product which is which is called super startup, and it has three different chemicals in it, and one of those chemicals actually breaks apart the plaster dust and converts it into calcium ions and carbonate ions. And as the pool is is obviously it's filled at this point in time and the and the pumps are running, but what it's doing is actually using the plaster dust to actually help you balance that uh the

City Water Can Still Be Well Water

SPEAKER_01 11:45

water in the pool. The second thing it has in it is a very, very strong sequestering agent, which helps with any metals that may be there. And uh again, because we we talked about the source water filtering that source water, but now remember your plaster was probably made on site, and hopefully they filtered the water that was used to make your plaster or to make your pebble tech, because if it hasn't, as that surface ages and dissolves, you'll get the the metal into your pool water. So Greg said, we need to put in a really good sequestering agent and always had to be the best. So we we have the we have an agent in there that really lasts a long time. It's the same chemical that's in our our own our own sequestering agent. And then the third chemical in there is actually it's a it's a secondary buffer system that it uses uh a chemical that's not a carbonate material, and it also provides a flock. And he did not want to flock the organics to the bottom of the pool because again, it would touch his surface and potentially stay in the surface of the pool. So he wanted it to be suspended so that when you ran the filters, it's the most efficient way to get the solids out. So we basically flock to suspend in very large particles that clear within about an hour

The Three-Step Trifecta Startup System

SPEAKER_01 13:04

and a half. So if you have this kind of ugly looking water, you dump in this super startup, and within about an hour and a half, you you basically have crystal clear water. And in the meantime, you've helped to balance that pool water, and you'll notice that even though you do brush the surface, you won't see that plume of the plaster dust because as the plaster dust is being formed, the the chemicals are actually breaking it apart and helping you balance that pool water. So that's kind of the, if you will, second step. And the third step is to put a Culator 4.0 into the pump basket to make sure that any metals that get in that water will be able to be taken out of that water before they will stain. So it's a three-step process: filter, super startup, and then of course the Culator 4.0.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

And I think that makes starting up a pool very easy, knowing that you have those three things available for the pool professional who wants to do startups. And for the builder hiring someone, they should know what they're doing, of course, but they should implement something like this to make sure that the pool comes out looking great for the customer. Because I think a lot of uh the builders looking for good startup people, which is hard to find. And I think um Culator makes it easy by having this process available. Um you want to throw the website out there for them again, Joe?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah, it's www.su later. That's c ur.com. And I just want to add that the uh what we call super startup works for fiberglass and also vinyl on our pools. Well, you obviously won't be able to convert plaster dust into calcium hardness and carbonate alkalinity. You will still be able to sequester the metals and and you know benefit from that flocking agent. And and of course, the secondary buffer system will help you balance that water. So you will get two two out of three things happening with the superstar.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

And if you're looking for more podcasts, you can find those by going to my website, swingprolearning.com. On the banner, there's a podcast icon. Click on that, and over 1900 podcasts will be available for you to listen to at your leisure. And if you're interested in the coaching program they offer, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Have a great rest of your week and God bless.