Captain Dud D. Buttermonkey

[Captain Buttermonkey]

hey guys n gals!

I've been in the industry for 4 years and have a service company in Louisiana that I lose my mind over every pool season. Since branching out on my own, I've had 95% of my pools on point. Why not 100% you say? Well the other 5% is a certain area in my region with terrible water (the municipality uses some chemicals chocked full of phosphates twice a month to clean the pipes). When I first started doing pool work, I had an old school guy tell me flat out phosphates are bs! Since then, I've talked to several up and comers and the new school train of thought is quite the opposite. With the subject being a bit of a debate, I started testing for phosphates in this problem area of my route. At first I only tested the pools that were experiencing problems so every time I tested, it showed 500+ ppb. Not knowing what else to try, I started using phosfree...and it worked great. When I saw how well it worked, I thought that old timer that advised me to the contrary, was just stuck in his ways and resistant to try anything other than chlorine. My success with phosfree in that problem area prompted me to then start testing phosphates in all my pools. So as I'm getting phosphate readings from my other pools I start to notice that some of my better looking pools had 1000+ ppb phosphates and had zero problems! It didn't make sense! I couldn't wrap my head around why phosphates were such a problem in some pools but not a problem at all with others. I eventually chalked it up to a false positive of some sort. Then I read the BBB thread and realized that I had been misinformed. Id always been told that stabilizer only needed to be kept up with for salt pools. In tab pools it wasn't really a concern because the stabilizer was already in the tabs. I even had one guy that's been in the business for 30 plus years tell me that stable locking a pool is a myth...and as long as I keep my free chlorine where it needs to be, I'll never have problems.

Now that I know where I was going wrong, oh boy do I feel like an idiot! Once I looked at your chlorine/cya chart, I knew I had the answer to all the questions and head scratchers I've experienced over the past 4 years. Maybe now I can keep some of my sanity each spring!

Anyway that's my story. I'm quite possibly the dumbest pool guy ever...but hey my wife didn't marry me for my smarts! All kidding aside, Id just like to say THANKS!!! To TFP and its contributors: You are the bomb diggity! And you can expect to hear back from me soon...as I will be looking to you for advice on implementing BBB into weekly pool care.

 

[Texas Splash]

Great story, and proves we always can learn something new. Welcome to TFP.

 

[duraleigh]

Welcome to the forum. If you have a question concerning opening or closing a pool, "Whatever, USA" is of little help to those of us trying to respond with climate in mind.

 

[Divin Dave]

Indeed, the trick is to understand the FC/CYA relationship.

 

[pooldv]

Welcome to TFP!

 

[Patrick_B]

Welcome to the forum,

Some may not understand or they may disagree with what we do, but we know it works.

Please add you're location in your profile. It is important that all members add where they are, and we take it more seriously than "Whatever"USA.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Welcome. If the Louisiana town where you live is purposely adding phosphates to their water system, you have an unusual variation to what you'll hear most often here. We do believe that phosphates are not an issue when there is no algae to consume them. Having NO algae is usually because you have enough chlorine in line with your stabilizer to prevent it.
For those problem pools you might have to alter what we normally say, but consider it on a case by case basis and not do it universally just to pad the bill or CYA.

 

[chem geek]

So you should find that pools at or above the minimum FC/CYA ratio do not get green or black algae regardless of the algae nutrient (phosphate, nitrate) level. For pools below the minimum FC/CYA level, whether they get algae depends on the algae nutrient level. For pools low in phosphates, the threshold when algae would grow would be at a lower FC/CYA ratio and such growth would be slower as well even with no chlorine. We only have the Chlorine / CYA Chart for the "phosphates don't matter" case, not for lower algae nutrient levels.

 

[Casey]

Welcome to TFP!

 

[Captain Buttermonkey]

sorry buddy. I felt like a dunder head just now making the cya connection to my problems...made me a little reluctant to give my real location. plus I like them bud light commercials.

to answer your question, im in the northwest corner of Louisiana. its hot n muggy here just about year round

 

[Captain Buttermonkey]

Welcome. If the Louisiana town where you live is purposely adding phosphates to their water system, you have an unusual variation to what you'll hear most often here. We do believe that phosphates are not an issue when there is no algae to consume them. Having NO algae is usually because you have enough chlorine in line with your stabilizer to prevent it.
For those problem pools you might have to alter what we normally say, but consider it on a case by case basis and not do it universally just to pad the bill or CYA.

well that was just a tad insulting yippee.

Ive spent quite a bit of time going through old service charts and researching online to do just the opposite. Im here to perfect my craft and hopefully lower my clients pool operating costs.

and yes the city of sibley add some form of metal treatment once or twice a month. the water comes out the faucet slap full of phosphates. We have to add phosfree almost every time we add water to some of the pools over there.

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but now that I know the cya connection to this problem, Im hoping I can cut out the phosfree treatments out

 

[YippeeSkippy]

well that was just a tad insulting yippee.

Ive spent quite a bit of time going through old service charts and researching online to do just the opposite. Im here to perfect my craft and hopefully lower my clients pool operating costs.

and yes the city of sibley add some form of metal treatment once or twice a month. the water comes out the faucet slap full of phosphates. We have to add phosfree almost every time we add water to some of the pools over there.

- - - Updated - - -

but now that I know the cya connection to this problem, Im hoping I can cut out the phosfree treatments out

I'm sorry, didn't mean it to sound that way at all. I don't mean to sound that accusatory to *you* personally. Mea culpe.

Let me try and rephrase to say consider on a case by case basis so that its used only when warranted and not just a routine addition because that's what we do to the pool for everyone in that area.

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