Pool filter help

Jump to latest Follow Reply
C

chrismachowski02

0
Apr 9, 2016
16
Larue,Tx
Ok guys I need help. I have had this pool this being the 3rd season. 1st season the pool went great. No algae stayed clean and well it was great. 2nd season was where it got bad. mid season the pool kept getting green. All the chemistry was fine but it just kept doing it no mater what I did. The only thing I could do is when it got real bad just drain clean and refill. This way is costing me an arm and a leg and I am running out of limbs to give up. This season I went to a pool store and talked to them all to find out when I bought the pool I didnt put the proper amount of Zeo sand in. The seller of the pool told me that I just needed enough Zeo Sand to fill half the filter up. With that being said I have yet to open the pool back up because I have to drain it and do a deep clean on it. Then get new sand to fill the filter back up.

With this being said here comes the questions.

1st What kind of acid should I use to do a deep clean on the vinyl liner?

2nd I just bought a Quad D.E filter so can I use this filter behind the other or can I only use one filter at a time?(My way of thinking on this is to Use regular pool sand in the sand filter to pull out the microns down to 10 and with the Quad D.E. pulling the rest out and make it cleaner.)

Please help.
 
Welcome to TFP!

Only one filter is needed, either one is fine. Algae is not cured by filtering it is cured by proper water chemistry. How do you chlorinate your pool? If you are using trichlor pucks then the most likely reason you got algae was high CYA/stabilizer and lack of chlorine to compensate for the high CYA.

Have a read here and come back with questions, Pool School - ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry
 
Chris,

The best help I can give you is to "Stay Out of the Pool Store". Their job is to sell you stuff and they appear to be pretty good at it.

Honestly, the first thing I did after reading your post was to double check to make sure it was not posted on April 1st..

It is impossible for the "chemistry to be fine" and still get a green pool. I'd hold off installing the new filter, as you way want to return it.

If you follow the advice that you will get here, these guys will soon get you back on track.

Jim R.
 
Welcome! :wave:

I have no experience with vinyl pools, so I can't help with that much. However, muriatic acid will only work if the problem is Calcium scale. That will be like home-grown sandpaper. If the stains are blotchy they may be metal. If you're filling from a well or if the pool store sold you a mineral system (poolfrog, Nature2) then that's a possibility. Ascorbic acid cleans that. If the stains are organic then time and proper chlorine levels will remove them.

This scenario I wrote up a couple years ago may help you understand why you got algae.

We'll take a 16000 gallon pool, because that's what I have. On a fresh fill, prominent national pool chain recommends 2.5 pounds pf stabilizer per 10,000 gallons, which works out nicely to 4 pounds which brings CYA to 30.

With an average loss of 2 PPM/Day or 14 ppm/week, I'll have added 8.6 PPM/CYA if I used trichlor pucks perfectly. And they recommend a weekly "shock" of dichlor between 5 and 10 FC.... 2-3 oz per 10,000 gallons. Split the difference; I'll add 4 oz. CYA went up another .9.

So..by the end of week one, I have added 9.5 more CYA. It is now 39.5. Mimimum FC for that is 3, so I'm probably okay.

Week two, up to 49 CYA.
Week three, 58.5. Minimum FC should be 5, but they recommend 3 as ideal, so the pool looks a bit hazy. So I'll toss in a little extra dichlor "shock" to jack FC up to 10. Which adds another 6.4 CYA. Keeping count? We're up to 64.9 now.

That caught the algae just in time.. we had two weeks of good luck. A steady diet of pucks and 4 oz. "shock" each week only added another 19, up to 73.9 now.

Week 6 it started looking funky, so we "shocked"it once again. CYA is up to 99.3. But minimum FC to keep algae at bay is 8, and we're still holding things to 3, because prominent national chain's preprinted sheet shows that as ideal. So algae got a toehold and the pool has a bit of a tint. So we throw two whole bags of dichlor in which jacks it another 7.6 by the time week 7 is over, we're at 116.4, because we had pucks in the floater the whole time.

So...in 7 weeks, from 30 to 116.4. Let's say there are no more algae outbreaks because they sold me a huge bucket of phos-free and another of yellow-out monopersulfate "shock" Nothing but the pucks and the extra 4 oz of dichlor "shock" weekly. So the next 7 weeks added 66.5, which brings the total to 182.9 CYA.

Now if we didn't understand this and things looked a bit hazy, we might throw an extra puck or two in the floater every couple weeks, which will drive it over 200 easily.​
 
ok so what yall are saying is that even though I only had the filter filled halfway with sand that will still not cause the water to not get cleaned.

- - - Updated - - -

Also I am using tabs with 2 floating puck holders that I keep full. The chlorine levels stay a little high yes but that is why Im confused as to why I am growing so much algae in the pool. With that much chlorine im not understanding why the algae.
 
ok so what yall are saying is that even though I only had the filter filled halfway with sand that will still not cause the water to not get cleaned.
Click to expand...
Not really. Regardless of the sand level, a filter will not filter live algae from a pool. You have a chemistry problem......not filtration.
With that much chlorine im not understanding why the algae.
Click to expand...
How much chlorine do you have?
 
You are correct............it is NOT a filter problem. It IS a water balance issue as in there is not enough Free Chlorine (FC), maybe to much CYA (stabilizer), PH and TA may also be off.

If you get your own test kit we will be able to help you get your water balanced AND looking like a jewel. It will be cheaper in the long run as well!

Look in my siggy for the test kit I think is the best bang for the buck.

Kim

Just saw that you have two floaters full of tablets............I am willing to bet your CYA is sky high. The higher the CYA the more FC you will need. After a while you will not be able to put enough FC in due to the CYA being so high.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
ok guys i have redone my pool. drained cleaned and put a new filter on the pool. When I got it filled the pool filled I went ahead and tested the water. The results are as follows.
TC 0
FC 0
CC 0
PH 7.5
TA 120
CH 40
CYA -30 (My tube only goes up to 30 and the dot was still there all the way up to the top)

After I Dumped shock in and cranked my chlorine up to 5 and ran the pool for 3 hrs I checked it again. It now reads as follows.
TC 5( my test only goes up to 5)
FC 5
CC 0
PH 7.8
TA 120
CH 30
CYA -30(same reason)

Please I need help.
 
Last edited:
What do you need help with? How does your water look?

What color is your chlorine test? Yellow? That is OTO and as the shades get more yellow it indicates higher chlorine level, like tweety bird yellow, school bus yellow, light orange, orange julius.

CYA, is the water clear or cloudy? Clear is 0 and cloudy is 10-20.

PH is OK, just lower it to 7.6 when it gets above 7.8

TA is OK

CH is not important in a vinyl pool as long as it is below 500ish

Read here, Pool School - ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry
 
Water is cloudy enough I cant see the bottom of the pool but the CYA is not indicating that. the chlorine test is pink. very light to almost no pink for 0 and dark pink for 5. I tested the water again today and the pool is still cloudy.

TC 5
FC 5
CC 0
PH 7.5
TA 90
CH 30

I didnt test the CYA because of the last results indicate that the Cya if great.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
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