Recent content by tdp

@ Yeah, my pool gelcoat has a limited lifetime warranty, so I should be covered, but they don't pay the cost to refill the pool and re-add all the chemicals :(

There is an area on the bottom of my fiberglass pool where the coating has come off. I see tan stuff underneath which I presume is the fiberglass. Is this just a cosmetic issue, or is the pool water going to damage the fiberglass?

Is there a way to decrease the water level in my pool * before opening it * using the pool pump (not an external pump?) The company opening my pool needs to do some work on the lights, but I don't want to pay them to stand around while they get the water level low enough. I am having trouble...

I tried the lime thing and it didn't work. I just opened for 2021 and there were tons of worms, but chemistry is OK. One spring when I opened, it was also full of worms, and all my CYA was gone and the chlorine was 0. Turns out the bacteria in the worms' guts had eaten all the stabilizer and...

I had a Dolphin Triton for 5 years. It died yesterday. It did a good job, but I was disappointed it only lasted 5 seasons without me leaving it in the pool all the time. Also, it's heavy to haul out of the pool. I need to replace it and will probably try another brand. I wouldn't go back to the...

All I know is when I opened the pool two seasons ago, there were few if any earthworms, and the CYA had certainly fallen from its in-season value of 70, but was still about 30 or so. This season, quarts of earthworms, CYA stone cold zero. Having all those earthworms get in the pool during the...

Hi everyone, When I opened my pool this past spring, it had a lot of earthworms in it, chlorine was 0, CYA was 0, and I had a positive ammonia test. It was not fun to get the pool in shape. I hardly had any earthworms in the pool over the summer, just one or two if it rained. The last few...

If your FC is repeatedly falling to zero, as others have said, you have something else going on—probably a low-grade but persistent algae problem, possibly coupled with high chlorine use due to pee in the pool (urine and ammonia eat up chlorine like nobody’s business). I would say you need to...

I definitely had ammonia on opening this past spring (had a + ammonia test and couldn't hold a chlorine level). I don't think ammonia just dissipates through the mesh cover over the winter.

I think it usually does, but we had several large rainstorms this past winter (that probably normally would have been snow), and that may have caused unusually high runoff. I have just put a line of lime around the edge of the pool deck; we'll see if that keeps the worms from crawling up onto...

I definitely had ammonia; I bought a drop test meant for fish tanks and it showed an ammonia level that slowly dropped as I put in tons of chlorine. I open/close my pool in Apr/Oct so water is quite cold. It was not a green swamp on opening at all; I just could not get a chlorine level to hold...

When we opened the pool this spring, we had ammonia. There were a lot of worms in the pool after a very rainy winter, and I guess their gut bacteria had eaten the stabilizer and made ammonia. Both CYA and FC were zero on opening; this had not happened the first season we opened. We had to use a...

Beta-testing app. When I slid SLAM button to On, automatically put 24 as target FC level, which is twice actual recommended level for my CYA level. Someone who does not know to look at SLAM chart may think this is the recommended FC level based on his/her CYA. Just a thought. Overall, app is...

Just want to thank everyone that helped me out on this thread. It appears my nightmare is over, since I have a FC that is holding at 6, CC of .5, and a negative ammonia test. And to answer my own question, getting rid of ammonia is cumulative--I did the chlorine additions over several days, and...

My SWG pool was cloudy blue on opening last year and cleared up with just getting chemistry right and running the pump.