Algae - High chlorine - high TA - high PH - Need help
- Thread starter TNBandmom
- Start date
That does look like water with metals in it that turn it a clear transparent green. Adding sequestrant should clear up the green tint. Lowering the FC level and the PH will also clear it up at least for the moment. Before you lower FC, make sure that you have killed all the algae.
Today I've vacuumed to waste all that junk. Backwashed/rinse 3 sets after the vacuuming. Then filled the pool back up with water. Also a couple of hours ago I put a knee high panty hose on the skimmer. When I went out to check it about 30 minutes ago it was full and there was this light tan sediment in it. I cleaned it out but then thought just a bit ago I should post that pic.
Also at 2pm my tests were:
FC 8ppm
CC 0
PH 7.2
TA 80
filter still running and return is pointed to top of water breaking the surface.
I think I've killed all the algae since I've had 3 days of overnight FC tests where it has been the same in the evening and morning (no sun on pool for tests).
What do I do now?
Also at 2pm my tests were:
FC 8ppm
CC 0
PH 7.2
TA 80
filter still running and return is pointed to top of water breaking the surface.
I think I've killed all the algae since I've had 3 days of overnight FC tests where it has been the same in the evening and morning (no sun on pool for tests).
What do I do now?
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If the overnight FC loss test has shown no loss for three nights in a row, then the algae is dead.
It looks like you have some vacuuming to do.
I would try adding a startup does of sequestrant to see if that takes care of the green water.
It looks like you have some vacuuming to do.
I would try adding a startup does of sequestrant to see if that takes care of the green water.
I agree - looks like metals.
For sequesterant - look for "Proteam Metal Magic" "GLB Sequa Sol" and "Jack's Magic - Vinyl" those are all good brands. Follow the instructions on the bottle for startup dose - it's usually a qt per 10,000 or something along those lines...
For sequesterant - look for "Proteam Metal Magic" "GLB Sequa Sol" and "Jack's Magic - Vinyl" those are all good brands. Follow the instructions on the bottle for startup dose - it's usually a qt per 10,000 or something along those lines...
well I went to the 2 pool stores closest to me and all they carry is the Metal Free. At the one I took a water sample to have them test for metals but they were out of their test kit for testing the metals. The numbers they gave me were:
FAC 4
CH 100
CYA 30
TA 70
ph 7.6
TDS 700
It'll be time for my after sun test here in a bit so I'll test myself. Both of them wanted to help. One was like we sell this Metal free all the time it's good stuff and the other just swore I needed to add algicide. Both of them were like "your pool is what color? are you sure about that color?" This lead hubby to want to understand why our color was soooo unique and why I didn't want to use algicide. I'm like that's probably what already got me into this mess is because I already used 2 bottles of yellow out to try to get ride of the algae. I told both of them my overnight chlorine level isn't dropping so I don't have algae now. One of them was like you don't want to use one of those brands it will put phosphates in the pool. I thought to myself dude you don't know but I could have sworn when I was reading the borates link that puts phosphates in the water and I trust what I'm reading here much more that those young people at the stores who probably haven't even had a pool before to manage. We'll see if I have luck tomorrow finding some of the recommended products. If not, I'll have to keep filtering and order it online tomorrow evening.
If it's not metals and I do the metal treatment is there any harm in that?
Thanks for all the help.
FAC 4
CH 100
CYA 30
TA 70
ph 7.6
TDS 700
It'll be time for my after sun test here in a bit so I'll test myself. Both of them wanted to help. One was like we sell this Metal free all the time it's good stuff and the other just swore I needed to add algicide. Both of them were like "your pool is what color? are you sure about that color?" This lead hubby to want to understand why our color was soooo unique and why I didn't want to use algicide. I'm like that's probably what already got me into this mess is because I already used 2 bottles of yellow out to try to get ride of the algae. I told both of them my overnight chlorine level isn't dropping so I don't have algae now. One of them was like you don't want to use one of those brands it will put phosphates in the pool. I thought to myself dude you don't know but I could have sworn when I was reading the borates link that puts phosphates in the water and I trust what I'm reading here much more that those young people at the stores who probably haven't even had a pool before to manage. We'll see if I have luck tomorrow finding some of the recommended products. If not, I'll have to keep filtering and order it online tomorrow evening.
If it's not metals and I do the metal treatment is there any harm in that?
Thanks for all the help.
The only real possible "harm" in adding sequestrant when you don't need it is the cost. I guess the water could cloud up for a couple of days, but with your test numbers that seems unlikely.
Metals turning the water green isn't all that uncommon. It doesn't happen every day by any means, but we have already had a couple of them here at TFP this month.
Metals turning the water green isn't all that uncommon. It doesn't happen every day by any means, but we have already had a couple of them here at TFP this month.
My test tonight with my kit and no sun on the water.
FC 4ppm
CC 0
PH 7.5
CH 50
CYA <30 the tube was completely full but I could still see the black dot without any problems.
TA 70
Today with the sun out all day the pool consumed 10ppm of chlorine. There's another thunderstorm heading in and it is supposed to be sunny all day tomorrow. Should I add some bleach to make it through the day tomorrow while I'm at work?
Hopefully the other pool store will have the recommended products. I did find one possible dealer or the Proteam. I'll call them tomorrow other wise I'll have to either order some online or I've got to drive to Nashville on Wednesday and there's supposedly 2 dealers in that area.
Anything else I need to get? I have on hand:
some 3" tablets left over from last season. None in the pool.
soda ash
baking soda
borax (2 small boxes)
stablizer
muratic acid (1 gallon)
Once I get it clear at some point after it's stable and clear for a couple of weeks, I think I want to do the borates thing. But right now I'd just like to have it clear and clean.
thanks for the help.
FC 4ppm
CC 0
PH 7.5
CH 50
CYA <30 the tube was completely full but I could still see the black dot without any problems.
TA 70
Today with the sun out all day the pool consumed 10ppm of chlorine. There's another thunderstorm heading in and it is supposed to be sunny all day tomorrow. Should I add some bleach to make it through the day tomorrow while I'm at work?
Hopefully the other pool store will have the recommended products. I did find one possible dealer or the Proteam. I'll call them tomorrow other wise I'll have to either order some online or I've got to drive to Nashville on Wednesday and there's supposedly 2 dealers in that area.
Anything else I need to get? I have on hand:
some 3" tablets left over from last season. None in the pool.
soda ash
baking soda
borax (2 small boxes)
stablizer
muratic acid (1 gallon)
Once I get it clear at some point after it's stable and clear for a couple of weeks, I think I want to do the borates thing. But right now I'd just like to have it clear and clean.
thanks for the help.
I suggest you increase your CYA level to 50 to help cut back on the daytime UV loss.
If you plan to use bleach for daily chlorination - check the pool store's price for liquid chlorine, sometimes they have a better deal. $3.00 a gallon for 12.5% is a good price. If they sell Proteam they should have their Metal Magic.
Ignore anything any pool store tells you about phosphates. We won't steer you wrong.
If you plan to use bleach for daily chlorination - check the pool store's price for liquid chlorine, sometimes they have a better deal. $3.00 a gallon for 12.5% is a good price. If they sell Proteam they should have their Metal Magic.
Ignore anything any pool store tells you about phosphates. We won't steer you wrong.
This morning before leaving I went ahead and put 1 gallon of bleach in the water to compensate for the sun today since no one would be able to test the water. Hubby hung my stablizer socks in by the return. I'm going to stop by the pool store near my work on the way home today to get some more CYA test drops. I've also been able to call the one pool store near me listed as a distributor of the Proteam. They are only open M-F 8-5 so my son is going to go pick me up 4 bottles of that this morning. Should I have him go ahead and add that? Today is the only day when he is actually in and out and can check the filter in between his classes and work.
Boy the panty hose knee hi wasn't a good idea to leave on the pump over night. This morning it was so full that the pump wasn't getting any water.
I'm still checking price of the liquid chlorine. One pool place it is 4 gallons for 9.99 10% and one it is 11.99 for a 5 gallons and it is 10-12% per the guy on the phone. I'm not sure if this iron problem is from the mixtures of places hubby got the bleach from. He didn't go where I had asked him to go which was Kroger's or Walmart.
I've still got some of the chlorine 3" tablets from Sam's and 2 floaters that I could use if you guys think I should. Right now the weather here is mostly still just hitting the high 70's. A few days we've hit 80. I was going to get a solar blanket but now I think by the time the pool is all clean it will be warm enough that I won't need one.
Thanks for all the help and all the great information on this site. I've got a pool catalog of in the swim that I've been drawing big X's on stuff that I've read on this site that doesn't work well.
Boy the panty hose knee hi wasn't a good idea to leave on the pump over night. This morning it was so full that the pump wasn't getting any water.
I'm still checking price of the liquid chlorine. One pool place it is 4 gallons for 9.99 10% and one it is 11.99 for a 5 gallons and it is 10-12% per the guy on the phone. I'm not sure if this iron problem is from the mixtures of places hubby got the bleach from. He didn't go where I had asked him to go which was Kroger's or Walmart.
I've still got some of the chlorine 3" tablets from Sam's and 2 floaters that I could use if you guys think I should. Right now the weather here is mostly still just hitting the high 70's. A few days we've hit 80. I was going to get a solar blanket but now I think by the time the pool is all clean it will be warm enough that I won't need one.
Thanks for all the help and all the great information on this site. I've got a pool catalog of in the swim that I've been drawing big X's on stuff that I've read on this site that doesn't work well.
Verify the dosage on the bottle if it's 1 quart per 10,000 gallons use the appriopriate start-up dose, probably 2 bottles at first if I could guess - yes, have him add it.
Honestly you might be better off sticking with the Great Value brand from Wal-mart - the 5 gallon strong stuff is a great price but would probably degrade rather quickly before you could use it up.
Are the 3" tablets "HTH" brand? Make sure there is no copper in them. Save them for vacations....
I imagine most of the stuff in that catalogue will be x'd out except the toys and floats
Honestly you might be better off sticking with the Great Value brand from Wal-mart - the 5 gallon strong stuff is a great price but would probably degrade rather quickly before you could use it up.
Are the 3" tablets "HTH" brand? Make sure there is no copper in them. Save them for vacations....
I imagine most of the stuff in that catalogue will be x'd out except the toys and floats
Oh my goodness. I'm sooooo happy right now. I had my son put 2 bottles of the ProTeam in the pool a couple of hours ago. I had him take a pic of the pool with his iphone and send that to me before he added. Now he just got back home from class and took another pic with his iphone and sent it to me. The difference in the two pics is sooooo marvelous. The water looks blue now! Maybe there will be enough light on the pool when I get home from work.
Yeah... Glad that did the trick.
You'll need to use the "maintenance dose" routinely, according to the instructions on the label.
You'll need to use the "maintenance dose" routinely, according to the instructions on the label.
Now that I've gotten home myself and seen the pool. It looks so much better. It's actually an aqua blue color. There's still some colored areas and trash on the floor. Also at least now I have a local source to get the Polyquat 60 and the proteam metal magic. I had my son go ahead and get 2 extra of each of these to have since that pool store only has m-f hours. At least they were very nice and pleasant to him. The lady I had talked to on the phone was like we don't deal with AGP pools only in ground so I wouldn't want to recommend anything. I thanked her doubled checked the manufacture's website but I figured if there was different version like with the Jacks's you guys would have told me.
So now I have the filter still running 24x7. I've got about 4lbs of stablizer in 2 socks by the return. I'm going to check the chlorine level & ph now and see how that is doing. figure this weekend will vacuum again to waste. Was thinking this weekend I might get hubby to take the filter head off and clean the sand. The pressure is still holding and not showing that I need to backwash but I'm going to keep monitoring and see.
I've also written down all the chemical composition of the chemicals I have on hand to see what might need to go. I don't need any more of this.
So now I have the filter still running 24x7. I've got about 4lbs of stablizer in 2 socks by the return. I'm going to check the chlorine level & ph now and see how that is doing. figure this weekend will vacuum again to waste. Was thinking this weekend I might get hubby to take the filter head off and clean the sand. The pressure is still holding and not showing that I need to backwash but I'm going to keep monitoring and see.
I've also written down all the chemical composition of the chemicals I have on hand to see what might need to go. I don't need any more of this.
I tested just the chlorine and ph. Do I need to do a complete test? I've been reading so much on here that some of it is jumbling together about about reacts with what.
FC 0
CC 0
ph 7.2
I've been reading through other posts on metal removal but I'm not sure if I should add the 197oz of bleach to get the FC to 4 or add the initial treatment of the polyquat 60 which is Initial treatment use 11-17 ounces per 10,000 gallons of pool water.
Pool is 23800 gallons. Water temp is 65. High tomorrow is supposed to be low 70's and sunny.
Trying to figure out what to do for tomorrow. No one will be home to test or add anything.
Thanks for all the help and encouragement.
FC 0
CC 0
ph 7.2
I've been reading through other posts on metal removal but I'm not sure if I should add the 197oz of bleach to get the FC to 4 or add the initial treatment of the polyquat 60 which is Initial treatment use 11-17 ounces per 10,000 gallons of pool water.
Pool is 23800 gallons. Water temp is 65. High tomorrow is supposed to be low 70's and sunny.
Trying to figure out what to do for tomorrow. No one will be home to test or add anything.
Thanks for all the help and encouragement.
Raise the FC level to the minimum for your CYA level, wait an hour to see what will happen, and if nothing goes wrong (turns green again, all FC vanishes, etc), raise FC up to your normal target level.
The degradation is real but a little overstated; according to here storing 10% at a constant 90F will degrade to 5% in... not quite 4 months. At a constant 80F it's 8 months. With a pool in the >20K range and no cover, it's not unlikely to be using a gallon a week; if you can store the 10% stuff anywhere below 90F then I think it pretty much comes down to price and convenience of going by the right store.frustratedpoolmom said:
--paulr