NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bottom

[TwoDanes]

First pool in my life. Water came from city fire department. Put in 8 ounces of HTH shock, waited 8 hours and tested. High chlorine, high CYA, high TA and high pH. Waited 24 hours and tested again. Same results. Pool store told me I need to lower the pH with pH Minus. Put half the bottle in. New test results by HTH 6-way test strips:

FC - 1
pH - 8.4
TA - 180
Total Hardness - 400
CYA - 30-50

Water at the current moment is crystal clear and beautiful. Except when you look down at the bottom of the pool, there is this brown stuff scattered all over the bottom like dirt or sand would look if you just threw handfuls in the pool. When I disturb this stuff by stirring the water or getting in and moving my feet through it, it turns into "clouds" of brown and then the pool water is murky brown.

I have put pantyhose over my skimmer basket and over the flow outlet (pushing water back into the pool) and am changing them daily because they become ugly dark dark brown silt. I have rinsed my pump filter out daily as it turns solid brown.

The pool is covered with the debris cover when I'm not swimming and re-covered when I get out. It sits in the direct sunlight all afternoon with partial shade in the morning.

I think that's it. Please ask if you need more. Thanks.

 

[JasonLion]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

Welcome to TFP!

The first thing is to lower the PH to about 7.2 to 7.4, and then keep it below 8.0. Given your high TA, that may well require more acid than you have. Get started on this as soon as possible.

You also need more chlorine in the water. With CYA around 30 to 50, you want to keep FC at 4 or higher all the time.

The dirt on the bottom should be vacuumed up. This needs to be done slowly so it doesn't blow away and escape the vacuum.

 

[jblizzle]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

Wait a minute. Are you saying that you have a pool that was just filled and you only added 8 oz of the HTH powder and half a bottle of pH minus?

IF that is true, there is NO WAY your CYA is 30-50ppm.

You can NOT trust the test strips and I highly recommend you make the best investment for your pool you can ... one of the recommended test kits (see link in my signature).

 

[frogabog]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

Stop looking at the test strip results. They are wrong. I have seen such huge discrepancies on strips that I cannot ever recommend even dipping them in. they will only confuse you and make you adjust things in your pool that don't need adjusted, further messing up the chemistry.

Do get a good kit. Even pool store results are more reliable than strips, so if you want to get started you can take your water to the pool store and post back those results.

 

[jblizzle]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

Even pool store results are more reliable than strips.

Well, assuming the store is not using same crappy test strips ... even if they do have a fancy hi-tech computer to read the color and spit out values to 2 decimal places

 

[techguy]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

I know it sounds far fetched but a little pool requires more attention and better testing than the large pools. The TF100 is the most cost effective tool to manage your pool. Pool stores exist to sell you what they determine you need. It's in their best financial interest to recommend chemicals. You should be looking at ways you can manage your pool on a day-to-day basis. You need to know what to do now to fix any problems with the expectation that your will check it again tomorrow to see what it needs today.

A pool is a lot like a dog, you bring home the dog, set him up in your home/yard and fill his water dish and food dish. Each day you look to see how much food the dog ate and how much water it drank. You then make a decision... do I need more food, water or both. you then act upon that decision and put enough food and water in to last the dog until tomorrow. You also look around for the consequences of feeding the dog in what debris it leaves and where it is. You also act upon that.

Your pool is the same, each day you need to see what food (chlorine and other chemicals) and the condition of the water (low, clear, cloudy, green). You then add the liquid chlorine and other chemicals that are needed, you adjust your filtering process (clean, backwash, run longer, run less time, change media, clean leaves out of skimmer...).

The TF100 kit (or the K2006) is the best tool you can use to see what your pool needs. With the dog, you can see the food and accurately measure it. With the pool, the yellow-cap dropper test can tell you only that you have a little "food" (chlorine in this case) or none. When your pool gets really hungry for chlorine during an algae bloom (green, cloudy water or billowy green silt/slime) you need to feed your pool two to five times as much food/chlorine as you would normally. The OTO cannot accurately tell you if you have added enough chlorine to satisfy the pool's hunger for chlorine in it's battle to kill off algae.

Strip tests are even worse than incomplete information from dropper tests. The dropper kits from Wal-Mart or Leslies will not give you enough information during an algae bloom but what incomplete information they provide is accurate. i would guess the accuracy range of test strips is plus or minus 20% but some of the ranges, like CYA 30-50, crazy

 

[TwoDanes]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

Okay guys.....took water to pool supply store today and had it tested. I ordered a TF100 test kit last night. Here are my results:
Free Available Chlorine = 3.03 OK
Total Chlorine = 6.68 HIGH
Combined Chlorine = 3.65 HIGH
Total Alkalinity = 196 HIGH
Ph Level = 8 HIGH
Calcium Hardness = 213 OK
Cyanuria Acid = 14 LOW
Copper = 0
Iron = 0
Total Dissolved Solids = 500
Saturated Index = 0.7 SCALING

Today, with cover on, pump running, water is crystal clear but with what looks like same dirt/sand scattered on floor bottom. Did not disturb it.

What to do, what to do?

 

[techguy]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

I am not sure is they are very accurate but it seems you have two things that have been consistent.

I would say to only focus on PH and CL at this time. Your PH is high, you should address this first. After you lower it, you should shock the pool. I am going to guess your clumpy brown silt is algae and you are almost controlling it's growth with your 3+ CL. Assume you have no CYA and bring it to a shock level of CL (10 PPM).

Assuming you have 5000 gallons, this would be 8 oz of Muriatic acid, wait 30 minutes and then add 73 OZ of 6% bleach if you are starting with a 3 PPM. Leave your pump running this whole time and report back what you see. Without high CL accurate measurements (impossible with test strips) we will see if we can't get you moving while the test kit is being delivered. If all goes correctly, you should see the brown stuff tunr white/gray and your pool may get cloudy (milky blue would be a good thing).

 

[TwoDanes]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

Sorry this has taken so long to get back but life is happening here and there just hasn't been time.

First....let me say that I know what follows isn't anything you guys told me to do, but I felt like I had to do SOMETHING as I knew the pool was not going to get any attention for a week or more. Ergo.....I completely vacuumed the bottom of the pool and it looked like every bit of anything was gone from the bottom of the pool. The water was beautifully and perfectly clear. I stuffed a sock full of cotton balls and attached it to the inflow of the pool. I dumped 96 ounces of 6% bleach in the pool and covered it. Once or twice a day (when I could grab 15 minutes) I went out and changed the cotton balls (which were absolutely BLACK) and rinsed out my filter in the pump (which was also BLACK). Kept the pool covered with a floating chlorinator and two 3" pucks in there. After 9 days of this, the cotton balls are getting lighter and lighter and my filter just barely needs rinsing anymore. I took off the cover today and my water is STILL beautiful, crystal clear and there is a "trace" of "dirt" on the bottom of the pool which looks exactly like what the algae looked like when this whole thing started.

I got my TF100 kit a few days ago but used it for the first time today. Here are my readings:
Cl = 5+ (it was a darker yellow than 5)
Br = 10+ (same as above)
pH = 7.2
CC = .4 or .65. When adding the drops in to make the water go clear, at 8 drops 1/2 of the column went clear while the bottom half stayed pink. At 13 drops, the entire column was clear.
CYA = 20? This is the test where the black dot is supposed to disappear but it never does. I did this test 3 times, the last time waiting more than 4 minutes. I emptied the mixing bottle entirely into the tube and I could STILL see that black dot. Does this mean I have a reading of 20 or more?

That's all I have at the moment. My questions....
1. Do I need to address what appears to still be algae FIRST before worrying about my levels?
2. Are the above levels close to what "normal" should be? And, if not, what and how do I need to correct them?

Thanks so much for all you do and all of your patience with the "newbies". Have a great day.

 

[jblizzle]

Re: NO Chlorine, NO CYA, high TA and pH, brown "silt" on bot

I think you need to reassess how you are doing the FAS-DPD chlorine test. You did not report FC and only CC. If you were selling the water in the vial, the color should not have separated. There are more detailed instructions in a sticky in the Testing section of the forum.

At this point you need to figure out the chlorine test ( ignore the yellow one for now), and then follow the shock process outlined in Pool School to confirm that all the algae is indeed gone.

Then you can adjust the CYA up and make any other adjustments.

Did you do the TA and CH tests?

Posted with Tapatalk ... sorry if I sound short ... hate typing on phone