Green Swampy Mess

[hrgdane]

So I've been working on opening up my pool for the summer and cannot seem to get my cyanuric acid under control. I have had a sock filled with this for about 3 weeks now (and from what I read understood I'd see some amount of difference by a week), and my readings continue to stay at 0. What can I do? It'd be nice to get this green nastiness out of there, but I know I need to get this under control first so I know how much bleach to start adding. Could it be the sock I'm using isn't putting enough into the pool? Should it empty out from the sock daily or over several days? The sock seems about the same as when I added to it this past Saturday.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

 

[BoDarville]

The granular CYA will get dispensed from the sock into the pool, although it may take several days. Giving the sock an occasional squeeze will speed things up a bit. Also, make sure you do not backwash until all of the CYA is completely dissolved. Otherwise the CYA granules will be flushed out of the system.

Also, That would be helpful.

 

[Butterfly]

What kind of sock are you using?

But, the sock should be a couple of knee highs (doubled up is my preference) or old cotton socks (no holes).

The sock should be hanging in front of a return to keep it agitated. As Bo said, giving it an occassional squeeze will help, too. If you use this method, you can backwash as needed.

 

[crokett]

I use a woman's stocking. You can get them cheap at Walmart. I let the stocking soak in the skimmer for an hour or so, then give it a few squeezes every hour or so. What comes out of it is too small to be filtered by at least my sand filter. I can get the stocking empty in a day or two that way and the readings will change pretty quickly. What kind of test kit do you have?

 

[philly23]

2 bags of shock,brush the sides and bottom,run pump for 24hrs.add a floc to skimmer while on recircleate for an hour and shut down for 24hrs.vac dead alge from bottom,adjust chemicals,go swimming.

 

[jblizzle]

2 bags of shock,brush the sides and bottom,run pump for 24hrs.add a floc to skimmer while on recircleate for an hour and shut down for 24hrs.vac dead alge from bottom,adjust chemicals,go swimming.

Why 2 bags of "shock" and not 1 or 4 or 10? What kind of "shock"? Dichlor? Trichlor? Cal-hypo? Which strength?
Clearly your plan leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

We recommend the Shocking Your Pool PROCESS because it ALWAYS works and it will not damage the pool.

We also rarely ever recommend the use of floc as it can cause more harm than good ... and just should not be needed.

 

[crokett]

Another suggestion is to get some DE and add some to your sand filter - just pour it into the skimmer. It will improve the filtering capability of the sand filter. It does get washed out when you backflush, so you will have to add more after each backflush.

 

[hrgdane]

Been out of commission for a while. Thanks very much for everyone's responses. I'm still struggling, have bought 2-9lb. containers of stabilizer and CYA is still registering as zero. This morning, while testing, it finally looks slightly foggy, but no enough to block out the black dot at the bottom of the tube. I filled up my pantyhose stocking with stabilizer last night and this morning it was gone. The temperature here in Missouri is in the 90's this week, so I'm sure it dissolves much quicker than it had when I first wrote. I'm hoping that's a good thing. I work full time, so I can't go out there and squeeze the stocking every hour, but hope to just continually add the stabilizer as soon as I'm home. I really would love it to be sparkling clean again. I know that after you get it to a reasonable level, you need to shock it with the bleach and continually keep it above shock level, while vacuuming and scrubbing, but in doing so, I would be releasing water of course, so wouldn't that lower my CYA again (once I get to that point anyway). Just want to make sure I do it all correctly. Oh, I also threw in some of my chlorine tabs (stabilized) just to add a bit of chlorine in there and hopefully speed up the levels of the stabilizer (is that okay? just trying everything I can). Note that these are leftover tabs from when I used to do things differently, before finding this forum. I don't generally use them, but considering I have some leftover, I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm also wondering if we possibly need to add more sand to our sand filter. We have a Jacuzzi Laser Sand Filter, 190L model. It looks like it says we need 200 lbs of sand. Does that sound right? My husband seems to think that he put in less than 100 lbs of sand, per the pool store guys' recommendation (we don't go to the pool store anymore, btw). I always felt like there were troubles with the filter since last year it seemed that every 2-3 days we were vacuuming up build up of brown dirt like stuff on the bottom of the pool. I just want it functioning, as does my whole family.

Tested my levels this morning.

FC=.5
CC=0
TC = .5
TA = 60 or 70 (is it really supposed to be red or bright pink?)
CYA = 0

Thanks again everyone!