Newbie trying to clear a swamp during winter

[dough88]

To everyone who makes this site, Thank you very much. I have been clueless on my first pool since we moved here.

Hello from Texas. I have been researching this site for a couple of weeks and pretty well guessed my main problems by reading pool school and how to clear a swamp before my test kit showed up.

Specs:
40000 gallon in ground rectangular (mostly) with vinyl liner
2.5 hp Hayward pump
DE filter freshly serviced according to the DE article here
CYA 150 ish (off the scale of the Taylor k-2006 kit)
CH 375 ppm
pH 7.9 (may be a little higher, I'm a bit colorblind)
TA 125 ppm
FC 0
CC 0 (assumed, couldn't get FC to show anything to start with)

So obviously after the 2.5 years of tablets used, my CYA is out of control, I gave up at the end of summer because chlorine didn't seem to be doing anything, now I know why. Right now, I'd just like to clear her up a bit to make the wife happy. Would it be okay to use up the granular chlorine I have left (about 25 lbs) just to get me to spring when I can start with the BBB method? Or does that have CYA also? I'd love to have my pool looking halfway decent for our annual Easter party just for looks. If I have to go through partial drain/refill it's not out of the question right now, but can I just limp along without causing myself a problem when it is time to open her up for swim season?

 

[duraleigh]

To everyone who makes this site, Thank you very much. I have been clueless on my first pool since we moved here.

Hello from Texas. I have been researching this site for a couple of weeks and pretty well guessed my main problems by reading pool school and how to clear a swamp before my test kit showed up.

Specs:
40000 gallon in ground rectangular (mostly) with vinyl liner
2.5 hp Hayward pump
DE filter freshly serviced according to the DE article here
CYA 150 ish (off the scale of the Taylor k-2006 kit)
CH 375 ppm
pH 7.9 (may be a little higher, I'm a bit colorblind)
TA 125 ppm
FC 0
CC 0 (assumed, couldn't get FC to show anything to start with)

So obviously after the 2.5 years of tablets used, my CYA is out of control, I gave up at the end of summer because chlorine didn't seem to be doing anything, now I know why. Right now, I'd just like to clear her up a bit to make the wife happy. Would it be okay to use up the granular chlorine I have left (about 25 lbs) just to get me to spring when I can start with the BBB method? Or does that have CYA also? I'd love to have my pool looking halfway decent for our annual Easter party just for looks. If I have to go through partial drain/refill it's not out of the question right now, but can I just limp along without causing myself a problem when it is time to open her up for swim season?

Welcome to the forum. :lol:

but can I just limp along without causing myself a problem when it is time to open her up for swim season?

I would say "A little bit Yes and mostly No".

First, what kind of granular chlorine do you have? "Cal Hypo" adds calcium (and you have plenty) and "trichlor" or "dichlor" adds CYA (and, of course you already have too much) so none of the granular will be very helpful to you.

I know it's a big pool but I think my first order of business if I was clearing it up is to start doing partial drains and refills to get your CYA down to about 50ppm. Water is cheaper than most folks think and your pool is essentially unmanageable with your current CYA.

Once that's done, everything becomes easier and you can have your pool sparkling at Easter and be able to keep it that way.

You can likely limp along by pouring a ton of bleach in there (and keeping a ton of bleach in there) but your underlying CYA problem will still be there to haunt you on a daily basis.

 

[Bama Rambler]

I agree with Dave, but will add.

If the granular is Cal-Hypo you can use it, but realize that it is going to add about 40 ppm CH which would put you at over 400. That's not too high but it's getting up there. Since you're going to have to drain some water to get the CYA down in the spring, I'd say go ahead and use it and you'll lower it in the spring. It would be better to go ahead and lower it some now but I understand if you don't want to or can't. One thing I'd absolutely do is keep the pH in check. Try to keep it in the mid 7's.

In order to get to a shock level of 30 you'll use up half of your cal-hypo in one dose and you might get 1 or 2 more doses out of it, so you need to get a good bit of bleach to supplement it. I'd start with about 30 gallons. So you see that it's going to take a lot of chlorine with CYA that high.

 

[dough88]

It's cal-hypo. My refill will be with hard water to start with, so hopefully my CH won't get any worse. My water supply is about 30 grains per gallon hardness, I cant remember the conversion to ppm. I had a feeling that I couldn't get away with it.

Another quick question, I can get 10% bleach in a 55 gallon drum for $.98 a gallon but I have to buy the whole drum. Im assuming from what I have read here that the bleach percentage will drop to basically useless before I use it up, but since I'm pretty swampy already, do you think I should do it? I am going to do the partial drain and refill anyway, but I like to have my supplies ready before I start a project.

Thank you for the help, I have been struggling with my pool and bad advice for 2 1/2 years. It's really nice to see a system that people are using instead of just being told to keep shocking.

 

[dough88]

Btw, I am using the pool calculator, but I like to plan ahead a bit and I'm still unclear about how much chlorine I'll be using daily/weekly. I know that its not possible to calculate FC loss, but my pool gets direct sunlight all day in Texas (commonly 100+ highs all summer). Any guesses?

 

[jblizzle]

Once you have the pool cleared, by completing the shock process, a typical pool uses 2-3ppm of FC per day. You can use the calculator to see how much that is in your pool.

I would not say that the chlorine in the drum would become worthless, but it will lose some strength. Note that some people clearing a swamp (yours may nut be that bad) use week over 55 gallons. So it may be worth it trying the barrel to start when you will need to clean the pool.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short