new to the site, completely confused with my problem!

amyxry

0
Aug 21, 2015
1
new bedford , ma
Hi, My name is Amy, I live in MA and have been a pool owner for over 10 years. Every year has been pretty good, except this year I have encountered something I cant seem to fix.
It started last week with a pretty heavy rainstorm, the next day i noticed that i needed to back wash the filter (DE fingers not cartridge) because it was running pretty high . Next day, pool looks great except there is what looks like jelly fish floating around and looks like tissue paper got into my pool and sunk to the bottom.20150814_161847.jpg (pics attatched... innoculous looking jelly fish type thing...) I scooped out the "paper" and it looked like this....20150815_002351.jpg and this... 20150815_002402.jpg so when i scrape it off... the site wont let me upload the pic for some reason but it looks like a pink human organ. gross. anyway ... i google diagnosed it as "tissue paper syndrome/white mold/pink slime". I shocked my pool, got all the levels right and i found a product called something like silverdene ? (at $40 a bottle) and added it to my skimmer. pool looked good, over the next few days i scooped up , vaccumed and brushed all the dead stuff out of the bottom of my pool. After 72 hours of that I took apart the filter and cleaned it .at this point, pool had been running 24 hours a day for 4 days . I think its all ok, but when i check my chlorine levels, there not even registering. Every thing else is fine. So I shocked again. next day same thing. I shock again. next day, same result. I put the filter back on the timer, and put 8lbs of shock in (when i normally put 2) because i googled chlorine demand and thats what was said to do. Next day....chlorine barely registers and now i see more of those thin white jellyfish looking things ! I put it back on 24 hours a day, added 12 lbs of shock , just want to kick it in the rear, and this is where I am now. I get to work ( i work overnights) and when i tell a friend / fellow pool owner what i did , she said i was going to burn out my liner with all that chlorine, never mind my lines. So Im here freaking out because it is a brand NEW liner I put in last year. so is it ok to put that much shock in ? I believe its a 20,000 gal pool and I use clear view products. And what should i do if this doesnt work? HELP !!!
 
Welcome to the forum, Amy! I am sorry for your pool woes.

In order to REALLY help you, everyone on this site will tell you that you need to purchase a reliable test kit that you can use at home and not rely on pool $tore testing. Pool $tores are analagous to oil change stores. You go in for an oil change and they try to sell you a new battery, some belts, a new air filter, whatever. With a home test kit (and our help teaching you), you will be an expert in no time. The test kit will pay for itself over and over. Our methods of using only the chemicals you really need will save you tons!!!!

Go online and get either a Taylor K-2006C or a TFtestkits TF100.

Btw, do it quickly. You have issues and we can only responsibly help if we have trusted home test kit results.
 
It looks like it might be a combination of pink slime (bacteria) and white water mold. Both of these can grow when there is insufficient active chlorine in the water. I suspect that your Cyanuric Acid (CYA aka stabilizer or conditioner) level got too high and/of your Free Chlorine (FC) got too low and allowed these pathogens to grow. As others have noted, you need to get a proper test kit and can then post your pool water chemistry numbers and we can help you from there. See Test Kits Compared. The TF-100 is generally the better value.