Tired of never ending cycle - Newbie

[Willandangela]

Hi, we are new here. We have had our IG pool since 2007. It seems each year it is costing us more and more to maintain our pool. We opened the pool approximately 3 weeks ago. Pool was cloudy. Cleared up slightly after shock, polysheen on recommendation of pool store. Thought I would try another pool store and they did some kind of blue tablet test and said our phosphates where very high (turned drk blue). Suggested we use new product Pool Tonic and run for 48 hours. Pool did clear quite a bit because kids said they can see from deep end to shallow, which they couldn't do before. Went back today to retest and said phosphates were still "off the charts". Gave me a bottle of Pro Blue Natural Phosphate remover another $38. We feel like we are just stuck in a cycle and need to stop. Hoping you can all help. The following are the results from pool store today:

CYA :100
FC:.9
CC: 1.1 (I am assuming this is total chlorine on store printout)
PH: 6.8
TA:124 (there is an adjusted total alkalinity on printout 94)
CH: 171

We have sun all day no shade at all.

I am trying to learn how to cut the strings from these people. I know it's their business but its our money and I would rather spend it elsewhere if its possible.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

I suggest you stop listening to that pool store. They don't show any sign of knowing what they are doing, as none of the things they suggested have much of anything to do with your problems.

You have two significant problems. First, the PH should never be allowed to go that low. You want the PH at 7.0 minimum. Second, your CYA level is way too high. Worse, the common CYA tests report any level over 100 as 100, so your CYA level might actually be much higher.

I recommend you stop adding all these chemicals you don't need, raise PH to at least 7.0, and then replace water until CYA is down to something reasonable, preferably around 50 or 60. Only after doing all three of those things will you be able to start clearing up the water.

 

[roadking00]

Welcome to TFP....ditto on all above...you have found the right place...stay out of the pool store and get your own TF100 test kit....then read pool school 3-4 times..then read it a few more times throughout the week and post questions and theses fine folks WILL get you all fixed up in no time....

Sent from my DNA using Tapatalk

 

[DebbieO]

If you really want to cut the pool store strings, spend your money on a good test kit. I have the TF100. I don't have the link in my sig line but JasonLion along with many others do. The kit was the best investment I EVER made concerning my pool. I keep Borax and muratic acid on hand for adjuments if needed and use regular unscented bleach for sanitizing. I have not shocked my pool nor used any algaecide for 2 years (going on 3 now) because there has been no need to do so.

So--grab a kit, ditch the pool store and post up some test results. These experts will chime in and get you where you need to be.

 

[techguy]

I feel your pain. I was going to the LPS (local pool store) getting "advice" and it didn't matter what I added, it was cloudy and green. Then I learned about CYA and over-stabilized pools. When your CYA (stabilizer/conditioner) gets too high, the chlorine can no longer effectively kill off the algae and you get an unruly pool that never clears. Chlorine is just about the only thing that kills off the algae.

So, as said above, to rid yourself of the LPS you need a good test kit (like the Tf-100) liquid chlorine (aka... bleach) and knowledge (see the Pool School link above). There isn't a quick and easy answer to over stabilized pools outside of replacing enough of the existing water with new, clean water. This process will require effort and learning and the ability to NOT go to the LPS. They are not normally your friend, they are looking to make a sale to recover the cost of "free testing" that is frequently inaccurate.

 

[Isaac-1]

I hate to bear bad news, but your story is all too common around here, sometimes we see it multiple times per day, pool store sells you stabilized chlorine usually in the form of "easy to use pucks" over time your CYA stabilizer level builds up to the point where your free chlorine is mostly bound to the CYA stabilizer and can't do its job fighting algae, the pool store keeps selling you more stabilized chlorine, but now want you to add some type of expensive algaecide to help the chlorine out, this works for a while, then CYA keeps getting higher, and FC keeps being less and less effective, so the pool store tells you your phosphates are too high (phosphates are algae food, and are a moot point in a well balanced pool that has no algae in it), they sell you phosphate remover with the algaecide all in an effort to continue to cover the base cause of the problem which is the use of too much stabilized chlorine driving your CYA stabilizer sky high. The next step after this is everything comes tumbling down the pool store likely gives you some line about water being stale or you have chlorine lock, and the solution is to dump and replace your water, then they want you to start back on the stabilized chlorine treadmill. The only point they have right here, is the next step is to replace most of your water to lower CYA stabilizer to a manageable level, our method differs from theirs at this point, as we then teach the use of unstabilized chlorine (liquid chlorine / bleach usually) while testing and maintaining stabilizer in a narrow range, for more information on what we teach here read the pool school link in the upper right.

Ike

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

My advice is to order a test kit and spend the next couple days reading pool school while you wait for the kit. In the meantime, I would plan to add about a jug of 8.25% Chlorox every day. That's only 4 ppm for a pool your size, and if it's greenish, it probably isn;t enough, but it shopuld keep things from getting worse.

 

[harleysilo]

Welcome! You need to drain and refill a bunch of water and then give your pool the shocker. Keep up the pink (color of your water sample when chlorinated) to wipe out the stink (that nasty green water)!

Seriously read the links in my sig line.

 

[SkyKid]

Willandangela
Welcome to TFP
I'm a newbie here and to owning a pool
At the end of April I had a very green pool and I had no clue what to do
I logged onto the internet and did a search and I found TFP.com
It was the best thing that could of happened to me
My pool went from Green to Sparkling Clear in about 12 days
I listen to the advice here and it worked like a charm
I bought the TF-100 with the xl option(should of gotten the speedstir :grrrr
At first it seemed very complicated
Now I feel like I've been doing this for years

 

[Willandangela]

Ok being new to this forum my husband wants to know how much pool water we need to drain. Says its gonna take a long time to refill and doesn't want to mess up liner.
We r taking water to pool store again tomorrow for a retest as it is really clear today like it used to be.
Thanks again for all your responses

 

[Richard320]

Ok being new to this forum my husband wants to know how much pool water we need to drain. Says its gonna take a long time to refill and doesn't want to mess up liner.
We r taking water to pool store again tomorrow for a retest as it is really clear today like it used to be.
Thanks again for all your responses

Quite frankly, we don't know. The CYA test showed high, which is why we recommend draining, yet the results are doubtful.

Have you drained any yet? Have you backwashed? Have you added any dichlor or triclor shock since the last readings? If the answer is no to all three questions, your CYA should read the same as last time. Let's see what they say tomorrow at the pool store!

 

[Willandangela]

We added 3 bags of burnout past night. If that's what you mean by the chemicals.

 

[Richard320]

We added 3 bags of burnout past night. If that's what you mean by the chemicals.

That's lithium chloride, so no CYA.

Ooh, I can hardly wait to see if they're even close! Now, don't you tip them off what you expect to see. That's cheating.

 

[Isaac-1]

That is exactly the kind of dry chlorine product we warn against using, do you know which "burnout" you used, BioGuard lists at least 3 products with burnout in the name. With luck the one you used is based on Cal-Hypo or Lithium Hypo and not Dichlor, if Cal-Hypo it will raise both your FC and CH, Dichlor will raise FC and CYA.

I looked up the MSDS on 2 of the BURNOUT products ( Burnout Maintain, and Burnout 30, one was Cal-Hypo the other Lithium Hypo)

 

[doncaruana]

Ok being new to this forum my husband wants to know how much pool water we need to drain. Says its gonna take a long time to refill and doesn't want to mess up liner.
We r taking water to pool store again tomorrow for a retest as it is really clear today like it used to be.
Thanks again for all your responses

You definitely want to be careful and not float your liner or dry it out, so maybe "drain" sounds a little heavy. The intent is to remove some percentage of your water and replace it. The general idea (correct me if I'm wrong folks) would be that if you remove, say 10% of your water, you would remove 10% of the actual CYA. After you replaced that water your CYA would be 90% of what it was, so (assuming that 100 was a good number) it would be down to 90.

If you want to get over-analytical (like me ) you can do the math and figure out some percentages (for example, 5" off the top of my pool would be 10% of the total volume) or you can just pick a target and go for it (6", 12" whatever you're comfortable with). The important thing you need to remember is that this will likely be a process, not a quick fix. So you may have to do this cycle a few times (depending on how much you can do each time and how high your CYA actually is). That's one of the problems with the pool store - they always want you to think that if you add product x, it will fix the issue - one shot and you're done. And, once you have issues, that's almost never the case.

So, just be patient and start working through this stuff (pool school, etc, as recommended above). And I cannot tell you enough to get your own test kit - I struggled with this so much myself. I actually took water samples to 3 pool stores (all very close to me) one day and got 3 entirely different sets of results. Pool store test results are just not reliable because they don't care - bad numbers mean they get to sell you something.

Plan on two things:
1) This will be a *process*
2) If you follow the advice you get in this forum, you *will* eventually put your issues with water and money behind you