Desperately need advice. (Day 9--We have a clear pool now!)

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S

Snowball

0
Jul 16, 2011
43
Greer, SC
I've been trying to clean up the pool for weeks. First the pump wasn't working and we fixed it but then the pipe broke. Now that the pump is fixed and we put a lot of chlorine granules in it and we have a chlorine dispenser too. Since I scooped out tons of leaves from the bottom the water looks much better but it's still kinda green and very cloudy.
I only have a ph and chlorine test kit. The chlorine level was very high 2 days ago when we put the granules in but now it dropped to below 1 again and I used a lot of ph up but the ph is never higher than 6.8. Now we've spent probably more than $200 on chemicals and we can't really afford to waste any more money. The pool looks like this right now(it used to be completely black) and I'm hoping that there's an inexpensive way to clear it up before the summer ends! Any advice is appreciated!
 

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Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

You need to read shocking your pool in pool school.....buy a LOT of 6% bleach..............and post us up some pool store test results to start from.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

Others with more experience are probably already typing a response, but my guess is that their answer will be:

Get a good test kit, find out your CYA level, use liquid chlorine/bleach, and remove any solids at the bottom.

If its taking a long time to shock the water clear, you probably aren't getting the chlorine level high enough to stay ahead of the algae growth. If you don't get and stay ahead of the algae, your chlorine is wasted.

The chlorine level needed is dependent on your CYA levels. See http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock

Good luck! My pool was black when I opened this year and is now clear thanks to advice I found on trouble free pools.

I have the same filter as you. A tip for when your pool clears up: when vacuuming the dead algae off the bottom you'll want to vacuum to waste or else some amount of it will pass through the filter and return to the pool. You'll only want to vacuum to waste for the worst spots and work quick as you can loose a lot of water.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

You need a good test kit and to read the section on shocking and clearing a swamp. Without a good test kit you are flying blind and not getting the best benefit for all those chemicals you have added. Think of this as a war against algae, and the chlorine level is your number of troops. If you dump a whole lot in and don't keep them resupplied they get wiped out and soon your back to the starting point, a good test kit like the TF test TF-100 will let you know where your standing in this war, or at least when more troops are needed. Putting too much in wastes chlorine also and can cause damage to your pool liner, etc. I know a good test kit is a big investment at this point, if you can't afford the TF-100 they also offer a smaller TF-50, but I think everyone here will tell you these type of kits will pay for themselves quickly in time and effort saved as well as in dollars saved on wasted chemicals.

Ike.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

woodyp said:
You need to read shocking your pool in pool school.....buy a LOT of 6% bleach..............and post us up some pool store test results to start from.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I've been reading stuff in the pool school section and doing research on the web. I know I need a good kit to know the cya level. Our local walmarts don't have the 6 way kit and I'll probably need to order online. In the mean time is there anything I can do to improve it? Should I keep the dispenser in the pool? I'm afraid that'll add more cya and keep lowering the ph... Adding ph up doesn't bring up the ph at all.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

Yeah, what they said. ;)

You definately need a good test kit, it's impossible to properly shock your pool without it. Mine is the best investment I've made in the pool since we had it installed. It's worth every cent!

Read Pool School - How to Shock Your Pool and follow what it says, and it WILL happen. Take a look at how my pool looked at the beginning of the season....

http://www.troublefreepool.com/opening-pool-day-25-work-your-magic-proteam-s-mm-t32363.html

ETA: I did end up having metals, so had to use some sequestrant for that, but you can see from the pictures what just lots of plain old 6% bleach did for our pool (and some muratic acid since my pH was high at the very beginning). And brushing and vacumming. ;)
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

nathanwitte said:
Others with more experience are probably already typing a response, but my guess is that their answer will be:

Get a good test kit, find out your CYA level, use liquid chlorine/bleach, and remove any solids at the bottom.

If its taking a long time to shock the water clear, you probably aren't getting the chlorine level high enough to stay ahead of the algae growth. If you don't get and stay ahead of the algae, your chlorine is wasted.

The chlorine level needed is dependent on your CYA levels. See http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock

Good luck! My pool was black when I opened this year and is now clear thanks to advice I found on trouble free pools.

I have the same filter as you. A tip for when your pool clears up: when vacuuming the dead algae off the bottom you'll want to vacuum to waste or else some amount of it will pass through the filter and return to the pool. You'll only want to vacuum to waste for the worst spots and work quick as you can loose a lot of water.
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for the reply! I'm thinking of switching to bleach after I read the posts in the pool school section. And we need a new vacuum cuz the pool is in a bad condition and everything seems to be broken...
 

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Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

Isaac-1 said:
You need a good test kit and to read the section on shocking and clearing a swamp. Without a good test kit you are flying blind and not getting the best benefit for all those chemicals you have added. Think of this as a war against algae, and the chlorine level is your number of troops. If you dump a whole lot in and don't keep them resupplied they get wiped out and soon your back to the starting point, a good test kit like the TF test TF-100 will let you know where your standing in this war, or at least when more troops are needed. Putting too much in wastes chlorine also and can cause damage to your pool liner, etc. I know a good test kit is a big investment at this point, if you can't afford the TF-100 they also offer a smaller TF-50, but I think everyone here will tell you these type of kits will pay for themselves quickly in time and effort saved as well as in dollars saved on wasted chemicals.

Ike.
Click to expand...
Thanks so much! I'll check out the kits.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

stephanie4136 said:
Yeah, what they said. ;)

You definately need a good test kit, it's impossible to properly shock your pool without it. Mine is the best investment I've made in the pool since we had it installed. It's worth every cent!

Read Pool School - How to Shock Your Pool and follow what it says, and it WILL happen. Take a look at how my pool looked at the beginning of the season....

http://www.troublefreepool.com/opening-pool-day-25-work-your-magic-proteam-s-mm-t32363.html

ETA: I did end up having metals, so had to use some sequestrant for that, but you can see from the pictures what just lots of plain old 6% bleach did for our pool (and some muratic acid since my pH was high at the very beginning). And brushing and vacumming. ;)
Click to expand...
thanks for the link! that's very encouraging!
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

I had some friends that were using test strips to try and clear their algae problem...wasn't until we started using my TF-100 that we were able to clear it up. They spent 4 weeks trying with strips first, then 1.5 weeks getting it done with the tf-100 reagents.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

The TF-100 at TFTeskits.net is going to be the best value for a quality kit (more tests per $)

Your PH problem is most likely caused by lots of trichlor use - pucks. They are acidic and will push PH down. The PH up probably appears to do nothing because the test bottoms out at 6.8 - so your true PH is quite a bit lower. That's really not good.

If you haven't already started shocking I would wait for the test kit. Your pool is already far gone so it wont get worse. The best course of action may be to drain because of CYA - so no need to waste chems until you know. The more water you drain the more algae you drain the less chlorine you'll need to clean it up.

Once your pool is back from the dead you can expect to spend about $20/mo on chemicals, check and add chlorine daily or every other day and probably add some acid once a week (when you stop with the Trichlor your PH drift up by default not down).

Good luck
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

You see a lot of advice around here about use of acid, acid use depends a lot of your location, fill water, type of dust, etc. that may be blown into the pool, etc. I have an indoor pool surrounded by sliding glass doors which limits amounts of dust and dirt, and my pH is very stable, for ease of use I tend to use dry acid, but in the past when using Muriatic acid my consumption would be about one quart per year, or so.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

lightingguy said:
The TF-100 at TFTeskits.net is going to be the best value for a quality kit (more tests per $)

Your PH problem is most likely caused by lots of trichlor use - pucks. They are acidic and will push PH down. The PH up probably appears to do nothing because the test bottoms out at 6.8 - so your true PH is quite a bit lower. That's really not good.

If you haven't already started shocking I would wait for the test kit. Your pool is already far gone so it wont get worse. The best course of action may be to drain because of CYA - so no need to waste chems until you know. The more water you drain the more algae you drain the less chlorine you'll need to clean it up.

Once your pool is back from the dead you can expect to spend about $20/mo on chemicals, check and add chlorine daily or every other day and probably add some acid once a week (when you stop with the Trichlor your PH drift up by default not down).

Good luck
Click to expand...
Thanks! I'll get the kit then. If I drain some of the water and put a hose there to add water at the same time, will it help clearing it up?
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

Snowball said:
If I drain some of the water and put a hose there to add water at the same time, will it help clearing it up?
Click to expand...

Not really. Algae will grow until it reaches a certain "density" in the water. If you drain some water and replace without immediately shocking it you wont get much benefit on the algae side. You get rid of some algae but then provide the remaining algae clean water to grow into.

If it were me I would wait for the kit, post the results and then gather all your supplies before hitting it hard.

I would get that PH up to 7 or so now.
 
Re: Desperately need advice. Green pool won't clear up!

This is the way to a sparkly and trouble free pool!
TF-100 kit, lots of bleach or liquid chlorine, possible partial drain, some elbow grease, read pool school daily and some POP! (Pool Owner Patience)
A lot of our pools were just like yours, we did it, yours will be no different! :)

Chuck
 

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