First season, pool turned green after big storm

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C

Cathy9887

0
May 22, 2013
131
St Louis, MO
Pool Size
28000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
Greetings friends!

This is our first season with out pool (both of us have never owned pools before), and while we had our water balanced on Monday, that night we got the edge of the storm that went thru Moore, OK dropping about 4-6" of water in just a few hours. The next morning, our water looked like a muddy catfish pond.

We dumped eight 1 lb powder packets into the skimmer basket. The next AM, it went from a murky green to a murky/cloudy white in the shallow, but still sort of green in the deep (8').

Tested with my cheapy strips around Noon:
TH: 100
FC: 10
pH: 7.6
TA: 80
CYA: 40

ater was then tested by Pool King yesterday afternoon & they said our pH needed to be reduced, so we added their recommended 4.5 lbs of pH reducer.

Today, the water appears more green than it did yesterday, but not as bad as Tuesday. Here are my "cheap test strip" results from 10 minutes ago:
TH: 0
FC: 5
pH: 6.8
TA: 180 (? - The color doesn't really match any of them, but this is closest match)
CYA: 0

What are we doing wrong?? This is awful!!!

Thanks for all your help!!!!
Cathy
 
Welcome to TFP.

What you are doing wrong is having a pool store doing your testing and listening to their advice. Almost all of them are worse than clueless. They believe things that aren't true and almost all of them will claim you need to add things when your water is fine.

Your pH was fine before and they had you lower it to the point that you need to raise it now.

Check out Pool School in general, particularly Defeating Algae
 
First, stop dumping chemicals in your pool until you know for sure what it needs. Read Pool School on this website and get one of the recommended test kits and do your own testing. Don't use strips or the pool store results. Find out what your CYA really is and then do the shock process. The amount of chlorine you will need to add will be dependent on your CYA level. Remember, shocking is a process, not a bag of powder or a pale of tabs. Again, thoroughly read Pool School and you'll be much more knowledgeable than the pool store employees.
 
frustratedpoolmom said:
Also never put a bag of shock product through the skimmer...
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, why not? The product instructions on the bag specifically said to pour into the skimmer for vinyl pools to prevent bleaching the liner.

I went & got the best kit Leslie's keeps in stock (http://www.lesliespool.com/Home/Pool-Ch ... 81330.html).. it isn't the FAS-DPD, but they would have had to order it for me & with the weekend plus the holiday, he said it would likely be Wednesday before I could pick it up. I don't have til Wednesday.

I came home & did my first test:
FC: 5
TC: 5 (is this possible?)
pH: 7.2
TA: 120
CYA: 50

I have read the Algae page and am in the process of reading Pool School and Shocking Your Pool. I am hoping to use bleach instead of "Shock".. now I just need to put my chem geek hat on & figure out the correct numbers.
 
You are on the right track. You should work to get your chlorine to shock level and consistently keep it there. Be patient and stay the course.
 
So, according to the Pool Calculator, it appears I need to get 820oz of 8.25 bleach to reach a shock FC level of 24 (since CYA is 50). Heading to Target to grab some bleach now... if my calculations are wrong, would someone please correct me? Thanks!!!
 
The problem is your test kit is missing the FAS-DPD test. That test will not read a FC > 10ppm (using the dilluted method) and will bleach out so you might think you have 0 FC when if reality you have high FC.

So how are you planning to measure the FC at 24ppm and then test hourly to know how much more bleach is required raise it back up to 24ppm?

There is a method behind our madness ;)

You should order the FAS-DPD test to add to your kit which will give you the equivalent to the K-2006.
http://tftestkits.net/FAS-DPD-Chlorine- ... t-p47.html
 
Cathy9887 said:
Out of curiosity, why not? The product instructions on the bag specifically said to pour into the skimmer for vinyl pools to prevent bleaching the liner.
Click to expand...

The high concentration of chlorine through the system can wreak havoc on your equipment. A much better practice would be to predissolve it in a bucket of water and pour in front of return or even better, just use liquid chlorine because it is the cheapest and doesn't add anything unwanted or unnecessary to your pool.
 

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jblizzle said:
The problem is your test kit is missing the FAS-DPD test. That test will not read a FC > 10ppm (using the dilluted method) and will bleach out so you might think you have 0 FC when if reality you have high FC.

So how are you planning to measure the FC at 24ppm and then test hourly to know how much more bleach is required raise it back up to 24ppm?

There is a method behind our madness ;)

You should order the FAS-DPD test to add to your kit which will give you the equivalent to the K-2006.
http://tftestkits.net/FAS-DPD-Chlorine- ... t-p47.html
Click to expand...

:brickwall: OK, I knew I'd get "tsk tsk'd" for not getting the exact test kit, but like I said, I was simply too afraid to wait til Wednesday-ish for it to get sent to me. I was hoping this one would be a decent enough patch to get me back on track to a clean pool (considering the strips were working sort of well prior to this disaster)... but then smarty pants Jason :wink: just HAD to point out that I have no way of knowing not only if I've reached 24 ppm (or 16-20 as Butterfly pointed out), but also needing to somehow maintain this level. Pfft... In my slight defense, while in the store, I read the descriptions of both tests and the FAS-DPD didn't mention being able to go over 10ppm, so the panicky mom in me pulled the trigger on the one they had. I'll order the additional test. *feeling shame* :oops:

In the meantime, what do you recommend I do about our swamp? I purchased close to 900oz of 8.25% bleach and am itching to pour it in so I can stop the growth/kill the Crud in our pool.. but now I'm afraid to do anything since I don't have the ability to test high enough. Surely you aren't suggesting I do nothing until I get the right test..... are you??? :shock:

I'm willing to be a faithful servant, but am nervous the ick is gonna take over. You've gotta understand.. I have a 6 yr old and a 3.5 yr old who are begging to swim... and I'm about to let them!! LOL.

*cue music* I need a hero...
 
Sorry to burst your bubble :)

I actually would have suggested waiting to do much of anything until you had the kit. If you can not accurately maintain the shock FC level, then you will end up using more bleach than you may have needed to (which means more $). That is not so say that you can't do your best and add some bleach which will still be killing some of the algae, just not as fast a you can with the right test.

Is your FC really 5ppm, or was that the max and it could be more?

Using the poolcalculator, one 121oz bottle of the 8.25% bleach you have will raise the FC by 2.8ppm. So 5 bottles will raise the FC by 14ppm.

You could add the 5 bottles which should be close to shock level, and then wait until the FC drops to something you can read (this is tricky as the test may stay clear if the FC is still high). And then add more bleach. You will make some progress.

Here are some more details about your tests:
extended-test-kit-directions-t25081.html

Looking at the DPD instructions:
This test normally reads from 0 to 5. You can test from 0 to 10 by using 4.5 ml of pool water and 4.5 ml of chlorine free water (typically distilled water) and multiplying the result by two. You can also test from 0 to 20 by using 1.8 ml of pool water and 7.2 ml of chlorine free water (typically distilled water) and multiplying the result by five.
Click to expand...
So if you dilute the pool water a lot, you can get a rough estimate up to 20ppm.
 
First thing to do is order the FAS-DPD test. Since you already have graduated cylinders from the other test kit, all you need is the chemicals and the little blue measuring scoop.

In the mean time get a gallon of distilled water. Use 4 parts distilled water to 1 part pool water and multiply the result by 5. This should measure your Chlorine level up to 25 ppm. If you over shoot with your bleach and the test shows 0 Chlorine, double check with the OTO test (match yellow color). The OTO test will be a bright to dark orange when your in the 20 ppm range. If you can stay around that 20 range you will make a serious dent in that algae till your FAS-DPD chems arrive.

Dilution affects the accuracy of any test but should be sufficient to get a jump on clearing up the pool.

R-0871 (2 0z) Reagent for FAS/DPD Test
http://tftestkits.net/R-0871-2-0z-Reagent-for-FAS-DPD-Test-p53.html
I would get two bottles. They'll last you into next season for opening and then some.

R-0870 DPD Powder
http://tftestkits.net/R-0870-DPD-Powder-for-TF-100-and-K-2006-p43.html
Again I would get two of these.

R-0003 DPD #3 Reagent
http://tftestkits.net/R-0003-DPD-3-Reagent-for-K-2006-or-TF100-p8.html
This reagent tests for CC's and will last awhile. You only use 5 drops every test. Personally I would grab an extra.

Scoop
http://tftestkits.net/Scoop-For-all-Kits-p24.html
 
OK... FAS-DPD ordered. I'll get some distilled water this evening & start an attack on this junk either tonight or first thing tomorrow. Thanks, everyone!!

Oh.. and to answer your question, Jason.. the FC color maxed out at 5. So yeah, or could be 5.. it could be 15. :-/See, i TOLD you I needed that better test kit!! lol
 
Just want to add that any chlorine added after the sun is off the pool will work totally on the organics and none will be lost to the sun.

So, chlorine that you add in the evenings/night will do more work than what you add during the day. Just saying, you might wanna get a dose in there tonight if you can :wink:
 
Ok, I just did a diluted test & it would appear, even after an overnight "soak", my FC is still maxed out.. the diluted color matched the 5 mark - I even had my 6 yr old double check the color match.

Dang. This is maddening.
 
I know it should alarm me, but HOW alarmed should I be that I've dumped at least 120+ roly poly bugs from the filter skimmer basket? I haven't seen a roly poly anywhere in the pool before this disaster...
 
FAS-DPD test finally arrived!! Here are my first results!!

Water Status: better than yesterday, but still murky enough to not see the deep end clearly. Still cannot see main slope edge like usual.
FC: 43 ( :shock: YIKES!!!)
pH: 7.5
TA: 80
CH: 120
CYA: 40

Whatever this is in the pool still settles on the floor, steps, slanted floor edges at night. I've been brushing 4-5 times a day.. we just put the Pool Cleaner in to vacuum for a bit. As soon as it stops raining, I'm going to vacuum to waste.

Two questions... If our FC is still so stinkin high, why isn't this stuff dying?!! And how can I lower the chlorine - just let it burn off??
 
Did you do the CC portion of the test?

With FC that high (if true), likely most everything is dead and just needs to be filtered out.

Can you confirm what you did to get the FC number ... let's just make sure that is correct.
 

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