Newbee, need assistance with math (TFP or BBB)

Jump to latest Follow Reply
T

tea

0
Aug 13, 2015
15
Pittsburgh, PA
Hello,

This is my first year being responsible for the inground pool. 18 x 36 rectangle, approx 25,000 gallons, shallow and deep end. I have used the pool and helped in the past, but never had to maintain it myself. Today I am reading about FTP & BBB in searching for answers.

After uncovering it just two weeks ago, I am still looking at a green pool that is VERY cloudy. I cannot even see the liner in my shallow end. The color has improved from very dark to a lighter, but it's consistently staying the same now. I have been to the local pool shop 2x this week to get water tests. I will enter the results below. Thus far, I have used a dozen bags of shock and have been adding alkalinity increaser.
I have about 8 lbs of alkalinity increaser left that I could use. Today I picked up 6 gallons of bleach that are 5.25%.

My numbers today:
Total Chlorine is 1.2 / Min 1.0, Max 3.0
Free Chlorine is 0 / Min 1.0, Max 3.0
pH is 7.5 / Min 7.2, Max 7.6
Total alkalinity is 80 / Min 80, Max 150
Calcium Hardness is 150 / Min is 150, Max is 400
Stabilizer is 0 / Min is 30, Max is 100
Shock treatment is 1.2


If anyone has recommendations for me, please let me know. I have seen the pool green before, but never this cloudy.
I have scooped at the bottom and come up with very few leaves. But there is a fine, dust-like, brown organic matter that rises to the surface.
My filter cartridge is new, purchased earlier this week. It was running well around 8 PSI. Today I noticed it at 25, so I hosed it. It went back down to 8, but within a few hours and has since gone back up to 22. I am fine to hose it again, but I'm not sure how else to treat this mess I've got going.

Thank you so much in advance.
 
Nothing except FC based on your CYA level is important to turn green in to clean. Stop going to the pool stores for their unreliable tests and expensive products.

Get your own good test kit (I recommend the TF-100, link in siggy line) and start taking action with plain old liquid chlorine and possibly some CYA. Go for the regular household 8,25% bleach from a store with heavy traffic and avoid discounted, old or stored-outside-at-the-hardware-store bleach.

Ignore alkilinity, it isn't important at this point.

Tell us all about your pool surface, equipment and how you've been chlorinating up til now.
 
I have a whisperflo pump and cartridge filter now at 150 sq ft.
The pool is fiberglass shell from the 70s with a new-ish liner (4 yo.)
having just uncovered it two weeks ago, I have mostly been shocking it and then threw in some powder chlorine left over from last year-- probably 4 lbs total.
i was planning to rely on their readings at least to provide me with an accurate snapshot of my water until I can get a kit.
should I put like 5 gallons of bleach? Or 10?
 
You can't rely on their test results- they'll be different each time even with no changes in water. They're *that* unreliable. And they're also in the business of selling pool products so you know where *their* bread is buttered. The numbers you gave in the first post are evidence that they don't understand how FC and CYA relate to each other.

I'm not sure what you mean by "shocking it" because some people called products "shock" and others call a repeated treatment process a "shock". The only way to kill and remove all the algae is to raise your FC level up to a specific level based on your CYA level. And then MAINTAIN it there longer than the algae can survive and reproduce. It takes a few days to a couple of weeks often. But if you aren't getting the FC up high enough and long enough you've wasted your time and money.

Get a good test kit. It will be less costly than buying unnecessary products.

Have you cleaned the filter lately?
 
You NEED that test kit....seriously. Then what you need to do is bring your CYA up to about 30, then start a SLAM process
Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain <---directions.

You need to focus on bleach, bleach and more bleach at the right level and maintain it until the water is clear. Dont just dump it in willy-nilly because if you use too little it's a waste of time (the algae laugh at that!) and if you use too much thinking "more is better" you can damage the liner. With your own test kit you'll run frequent tests to determine how much chlorine to add, perhaps even hourly.

For a vinyl pool don't worry about the calcium and the TA is fine. Drop your pH to 7.2 before adding your SLAM bleach because pH tests are not reliable when the FC is over 10.
 
Hello, so I picked up a kit and have the following measurements:
My CYA isn't really even registering to 30, it is so weak. So I guess I should add some of this stuff? (How much?)
My Ph is at 7.2 :)
My chlorine is at .5 and my Bromine is at 1.

I'll take any suggestions!
 
What does it say on the bags of "shock" re chemical composition? If you see "dichloro" somewhere in there, then you have been adding CYA (stabilizer) along with the chlorine, and your stabilizer are now higher than when you started. If you see "calcium hypo..." then you have been adding calcium, which you probably don't need more of.

Just put in a jug or so of plain bleach daily (no more powders) until you have your own reliable test kit in hand, please.
 
tea said:
Hello, so I picked up a kit and have the following measurements:
My CYA isn't really even registering to 30, it is so weak. So I guess I should add some of this stuff? (How much?)
My Ph is at 7.2 :)
My chlorine is at .5 and my Bromine is at 1.

I'll take any suggestions!
Click to expand...
Don't add any CYA just yet, until we can verify what kind of "shock" you were dumping in (see my previous post). You don't have bromine - the same test is used for either chlorine or bromine, so both scales are shown next to each other.

What test kit did you end up with? Note that you will still need a better kit, or at least some supplemental reagents, if it isn't either a TF-100 or a Taylor K2006.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
That CalHypo you added can have contributed to your cloudy water. Your vinyl pool doesn't need calcium.

Darn, that kit from Walmart won't cut it- it doesn't register chlorine high enough. Can you take it back and get either the TF-100 from TFTestkits.net or the Taylor's 2006 kit? YOu can get it from there too, Amazon or sometimes found locally.
 
tea said:
The shock I used says 68% calcium hypochlorite.
I picked up the hth kit from WalMart for $22. That's the best I will have for now.
I have a reserve of bleach here...
Click to expand...
If you're saying that is the kit you will have for the foreseeable future, and you now want direction on how much bleach to put in, it will be difficult to advise you. The kit only has enough CYA reagent for two tests (if it's the kit I'm thinking of), and you've already used one. You should get CYA up to around 30, but you don't know exactly what you're starting with, so that implies a few more CYA tests needed down the road.

Even with CYA at 20, for example, you need 10 ppm FC to SLAM, which is beyond the chlorine levels that can be measured by your kit.

So, asking for advice with results from your kit is sort of like driving along an unfamiliar road, with a mud-covered windshield and no lights, and asking someone to navigate for you based on the observations you can report.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply