Converting to Chlorine

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J

jbdial1515

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Jun 9, 2009
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I am approx. 2 days into converting our pool to Chlorine. We have a 20 foot above ground pool (circle) and this weekend I drained all of the water with the exception of appox. 10 inches. I refilled the pool with City water.

I have been adding bleach to the pool three times a day, once in the morning, at lunch and at night. I am trying to keep above 10 but is difficult since I do not have a Testing method to read that high and only able to check during these times of the day.

I have a cartridge system and I have been cleaning 3-4 times daily and brown-goo has been coming out.

On Sunday the pool started out green when I added the first bit of bleach and this morning it was cloudy blue with brown goo on parts of bottom of pool.

I have a Taylor Test kit on order and should be here in a day or two but in the mean time, I took the sample of water to pool store to test. It says I have a slight low PH so I added PH Up to the pool (will use Borax in the future, still had some PH Up left). When I added to pool, the PH Up seemed to react to the brown goo on the bottom and instantly turned the pool cloudy white.

I left back to work, left the pool alone except for adding more bleach on my way out. I will check when I get home but what caused the pool to cloud instantly with PH Up?

Thanks for the help and will continue to learn...
 
With the OTO (yellow) drop test, you can dilute the pool water 50-50 with chlorine-free water to double the range. You lose a little accuracy but if you're aiming to stay above 10 it'll be close enough. I think dilution should also work with the DPD (red) drop test. The thing about DPD is it will bleach out at very high levels, reading falsely low.

The pH test is also unreliable at FC >10. I would not mess with the pH until you're done with the conversion.
--paulr
 
Did the pool store give you a full set of water test results?

PH Up turning the pool cloudy white is usually calcium clouding, caused by high CH levels. If so, it will be fairly easy to clean up once you get your real test kit.
 
Yesterday morning, the tests were the following:

FC 4.5 (Before adding bleach to boost up)
ph 7.2 (This morning using simple Dye test, ph was not even on scale---Maybe I am reading wrong, can it drop that much in one day??????)
Hardness 111 (assume Calcium)
Alk (w/ proposed stabiizer correction) 31----have not added since did not want to buy from them. Will measure when I get TEST kit
CYA 4

Suggestions? Just keep adding Bleach until it clears? and then worry about the rest?

Thanks
 
Alkalinity around 30 is too low. At some point when the FC level is fairly low you should add enough baking soda to bring it up to between 60 and 70.

The other results you mentioned are fine for now.

Yes, other than the baking soda mentioned above, keep adding bleach.
 
Thanks for the info. It must have been the calcium because when I got home, it was back to where it was.

The calculator called for 6lbs of baking soda to bring Alk up as suggested. I started with 4lbs until I get my test kit hopefully tomorrow to see how it increased.

Tonight, the pool looks much better. It is blue and slightly cloudy. I vacuumed up the what brown goo was on the pool floor.

My last question for now is about my pump. I have a cartridge system. The sticker on the pump says 2.5 hp AO Smith. It is a variable speed. Previously I have hated the cartridge system because I really cant backwash or vacuum to waste. A filter does not seem to even last me a year. The Unicel number is C-8416 and looks like they are around 100 dollars online.

Do I go head and let local pool company install a Sand Filter with the current pump ($400) or do I keep the cartridge system?

Thanks
JB
 
FIlter cartridges will last several years with chlorine, even though they only last a year with baquacil. There are many fans of sand filters and many fans of cartridge filters and each group will tell you a different thing. Still, there isn't any reason you need to replace the filter unless you really want to, just the cartridge.
 
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