Finally got my test kit in last night. 5:45AM test results were:
FC 31 (courtesy of 5 gallons of 10% dumped yesterday at 4pm)
CC 1.0 (something is alive...incredibly)
pH 7.5
TA 100
CH 50
CYA <30(water cloudy in test but not enough that the dot disappears)
A bit of backstory, I got this pool with the house. It is 10-15 years old. The pump was shot and they hadn't opened it in a few years. Figured we should try it before just calling the scrap man for it. After realizing we weren't making much headway with leaf rakes, we drained almost completely to find about two solid feet(!!!!!) of rotting leaves, frogs and at least one unfortunate squirrel. Scooped, dumped, cleaned, scrubbed. It was full again by last Sunday. Cloudy with some brownish dust from the fines we couldn't remove around the bottom but mostly blue again. I was treating with about a gallon or so of 10% bleach twice a day while dissolving a tube sock of 100% CYA(about 2lbs.) to try to help keep the chlorine from cooking off. I also used 16oz of DiChlor with the evening gallon of 10% bleach, only because I had no CYA in there. I was trying to monitor what I could with Aquachek 7-in-1 strips until my real kit arrived but apparently that thing was well off. We had some rain and a solid week of near 100 heat since and on Thursday, the water had turned this sort of yellow-green color. Take some in a white cup and it's yellow. Said heck with it, dropped 5 gallons of 10% bleach in there last night. No improvement this morning. (the stairs were not in the pool until yesterday. We scrubbed them in 10% bleach, inside and out and soaked the gravel in the weights before putting them in.)
I've been running the new pump 24/7 with no improvement to clarity at all since refill. I've also vacuumed to waste, trying to get rid of more of the little dirt/leaf bits we couldn't grab when we cleaned it out. I tried a little DE, but it blew back out of the return. Last night, I stuck a skimmer sock on there only to find orange-brown sludge on it this morning. It nearly all rinsed off which makes me wonder if it is leaf tannins or dead algae from the bits as opposed to some random iron I have precipitated out of solution. The only other stained spot is the skimmer frame below the water level. It's old, so I don't know if that just happens with time or was due to the mounds of decaying leaves in there. (We have black walnuts near the pool BTW)
Questions:
Obviously my FC is really high. Should I let it drift down to shock level for 20-30CYA and try to maintain that?
How in the world can anything still be alive in there after 12 hours at 30+ FC level?
Should I keep working to get CYA up to about 30?
Is it normal for a sand filter to take a long time to clear water, or send DE back out into the pool like mine did? I've backwashed a few times for 5-6 minutes a go, then rinsed for a few minutes afterward in the even the sand was channeled. Didn't help.
Iron or tannins/dead floaty stuff? How can you readily tell?
FC 31 (courtesy of 5 gallons of 10% dumped yesterday at 4pm)
CC 1.0 (something is alive...incredibly)
pH 7.5
TA 100
CH 50
CYA <30(water cloudy in test but not enough that the dot disappears)
A bit of backstory, I got this pool with the house. It is 10-15 years old. The pump was shot and they hadn't opened it in a few years. Figured we should try it before just calling the scrap man for it. After realizing we weren't making much headway with leaf rakes, we drained almost completely to find about two solid feet(!!!!!) of rotting leaves, frogs and at least one unfortunate squirrel. Scooped, dumped, cleaned, scrubbed. It was full again by last Sunday. Cloudy with some brownish dust from the fines we couldn't remove around the bottom but mostly blue again. I was treating with about a gallon or so of 10% bleach twice a day while dissolving a tube sock of 100% CYA(about 2lbs.) to try to help keep the chlorine from cooking off. I also used 16oz of DiChlor with the evening gallon of 10% bleach, only because I had no CYA in there. I was trying to monitor what I could with Aquachek 7-in-1 strips until my real kit arrived but apparently that thing was well off. We had some rain and a solid week of near 100 heat since and on Thursday, the water had turned this sort of yellow-green color. Take some in a white cup and it's yellow. Said heck with it, dropped 5 gallons of 10% bleach in there last night. No improvement this morning. (the stairs were not in the pool until yesterday. We scrubbed them in 10% bleach, inside and out and soaked the gravel in the weights before putting them in.)
I've been running the new pump 24/7 with no improvement to clarity at all since refill. I've also vacuumed to waste, trying to get rid of more of the little dirt/leaf bits we couldn't grab when we cleaned it out. I tried a little DE, but it blew back out of the return. Last night, I stuck a skimmer sock on there only to find orange-brown sludge on it this morning. It nearly all rinsed off which makes me wonder if it is leaf tannins or dead algae from the bits as opposed to some random iron I have precipitated out of solution. The only other stained spot is the skimmer frame below the water level. It's old, so I don't know if that just happens with time or was due to the mounds of decaying leaves in there. (We have black walnuts near the pool BTW)
Questions:
Obviously my FC is really high. Should I let it drift down to shock level for 20-30CYA and try to maintain that?
How in the world can anything still be alive in there after 12 hours at 30+ FC level?
Should I keep working to get CYA up to about 30?
Is it normal for a sand filter to take a long time to clear water, or send DE back out into the pool like mine did? I've backwashed a few times for 5-6 minutes a go, then rinsed for a few minutes afterward in the even the sand was channeled. Didn't help.
Iron or tannins/dead floaty stuff? How can you readily tell?
