waterworship said:
hello and thank you. I was using HTH brand trichlor last year. Kept checking water, PH was perfect all year much to my amazement as I always have the too high levels in the past year, TDS didn't register much of anything, I shocked the pool a couple of times during the summer with Shock N Swim HTH product. Never had a green pool and water was always crystal clear . I only used the shock and the trichlor never added anything else. had a lot of heavy rains and had to drain it down several times as it was running over the top. I thought I may have some bacteria problem last year so I shocked the pool when the rash started but it never changed anything. Chlorine levels had to be bumped up occasionally but was usually within the acceptable range with just the trichlor tabs. I was putting 2 of the 3 inch ones in a floater about every 3 or 4 days as that was how long it took for them to dissolve down. I just wondered if the green powder on the filter was excess copper as it was a powder and sprayed off with a hose never any kind of slime or slick feeling. No plumbing leaks have ever been seen. If you folks have any ideas I'm certainly open to suggestions. Thank you again I'm hoping to get it right this year and not have the problem.
Who knows what the green powder was. I wouldn't use the HTH copper tablets anymore though.
To touch a bit more on what Alice offered...
What were you testing with? drop test kit, strips?
Were you testing your FC levels, along with CC levels or were you simply testing total chlorine (yellow OTO drop test)?
And what is "acceptable range"? :-D If you refer to the CYA chlorine chart... you will see the the higher the CYA level, the higher your FC must be to maintain a sanitary pool.
If you were constantly using tablets, then you were adding CYA, and it's entirely likely your water, even though it remained "clear", was not properly sanitized which could have led to the rash. For example, in your pool, two 3" tablets would raise the CYA by 10. Every 4 days. That would likely have made your CYA level
very high.
Proper testing and chlorination (no tablets with copper ok?
) should prevent a repeat of what you experienced.
I predict you can save alot of money by simply using bleach, borax and baking soda, and you may not even need the last two.... and you will spend alot less than using the HTH products. If you worry about the time, it's literally 5 minutes a day to test and add a little bleach.
Refer to the article in pool school about seasonal pools like the Intex, when you are ready to begin your start up.