I think I've won, but drop CL levels when?

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PrivatePilot

PrivatePilot

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Jun 13, 2013
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I'll spare everybody the story, but suffice to say that I slacked on my maintenance last week and while checking the pool on Friday morning (before heading away for a long weekend) I found it a wondeful shade of green. Yep, algae bloom. It was a bit unexpected after an entire summer of crystal-clear water with minimal maintenance (thanks TFP!) but my CL levels must have crashed at some point and I didn't catch it in time.

Anyhow, I hit the pool pretty hard with shock (12% liquid) on Friday but unfortunately I was going to be away for the weekend so I had a friend enlisted to come and do some of the maintenance for me Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning. The challenging part was of course getting somebody who wasn't overly familiar with pool maintenance to do things on my behalf (over the phone) and I think the long and the short of what happened was that the chlorine levels where not quite sufficient to fully kill the bloom – I came home last night to a still light green murky pool.

I backwashed and then SLAM'd it last night as well as adding a hefty dose of poly, as well as refilling with fresh tap water. Yes, I've read the negatives around here about Poly, But the more I read over the weekend it seemed to be a mostly "nothing to lose" (except for perhaps the cash out of my wallet) proposition, so I went for it. My filter has been running full time since Friday morning, and after finishing with the pool last night I crossed my fingers and went to bed.

This morning I woke up to beautiful blue water again. :)

So, it appears that I'm ahead of the game now – but how long should I maintain the SLAM CL values for before starting to reduce the chlorine levels? I've read in some places that once the green tinge is gone (and the water is just milky/cloudy from the suspended dead algae) that you've won the battle and can start to reduce chlorine levels, but I've read the opposite here in places that they need to be maintained high for a day or so afterwards. I want to avoid a re-bloom, of course.

I had had my stabilizer levels comfortably around 30 all summer, relying mainly on liquid chlorine vs pucks. All other levels are smack on, and have remained that way all summer thanks to what i learned here. PH was a bit low this morning (7.0'ish) but I've read that such can be somewhat beneficial in this situation so I'm reluctant to worry about it at the moment.

So...when's it safe to start bleeding down my CL levels so I can hopefully get things back to normal? :)

Thanks all.
 
PrivatePilot said:
I'll spare everybody the story, but suffice to say that I slacked on my maintenance last week and while checking the pool on Friday morning (before heading away for a long weekend) I found it a wondeful shade of green. Yep, algae bloom. It was a bit unexpected after an entire summer of crystal-clear water with minimal maintenance (thanks TFP!) but my CL levels must have crashed at some point and I didn't catch it in time.

Anyhow, I hit the pool pretty hard with shock (12% liquid) on Friday but unfortunately I was going to be away for the weekend so I had a friend enlisted to come and do some of the maintenance for me Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning. The challenging part was of course getting somebody who wasn't overly familiar with pool maintenance to do things on my behalf (over the phone) and I think the long and the short of what happened was that the chlorine levels where not quite sufficient to fully kill the bloom – I came home last night to a still light green murky pool.

I backwashed and then SLAM'd it last night as well as adding a hefty dose of poly, as well as refilling with fresh tap water. Yes, I've read the negatives around here about Poly, But the more I read over the weekend it seemed to be a mostly "nothing to lose" (except for perhaps the cash out of my wallet) proposition, so I went for it. My filter has been running full time since Friday morning, and after finishing with the pool last night I crossed my fingers and went to bed.

This morning I woke up to beautiful blue water again. :)

So, it appears that I'm ahead of the game now – but how long should I maintain the SLAM CL values for before starting to reduce the chlorine levels? I've read in some places that once the green tinge is gone (and the water is just milky/cloudy from the suspended dead algae) that you've won the battle and can start to reduce chlorine levels, but I've read the opposite here in places that they need to be maintained high for a day or so afterwards. I want to avoid a re-bloom, of course.

I had had my stabilizer levels comfortably around 30 all summer, relying mainly on liquid chlorine vs pucks. All other levels are smack on, and have remained that way all summer thanks to what i learned here. PH was a bit low this morning (7.0'ish) but I've read that such can be somewhat beneficial in this situation so I'm reluctant to worry about it at the moment.

So...when's it safe to start bleeding down my CL levels so I can hopefully get things back to normal? :)

Thanks all.
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You need to be able to pass the OCLT (overnight chlorine loss test) before you ease up on the CL levels. I believe the details are in Pool School and numerous other threads. The water needs to be clear, your CC needs to be .5 or less and your over night chlorine loss is 1.0ppm or less.

That way you know all the organics are dead. Ease up tool soon and you get to do it all over again.
 
YUp, you should keep your FC high until you pass all three section of the OCLT. If you have a cloudy pool, you do not pass and should continue to filter and keep your FC up. If you stop early, the green may come right back.

What type of filter to you have? Model and size can be added to your profile.
 
Ok, pool water is about 90% clear today. I vacuumed by hand, put my robot in and let it run for a few hours, then scrubbed the entire pool top to bottom with the brush before sunset. Just checked and I'm at 16PPM FC, didnt' add any this evening and all sources of CL are now removed to do the OCLT tonight. Stabilizer is down to about 10-15% after much backwashing/refills in the last few days. Should I be adding more stabilizer now, or worry about it after I'm all done with this?

At 16PPM with mostly clear water I shouldn't have any fears of the bloom getting a foothold again overnight, right? I'm almost afraid to do the OCLT for fear of waking up to a sea of green again in the morning. ;)

Assuming the OCLT show a non-significant drop overnight, I'm safe to start bleeding down my CL levels then, right? And if it does, SLAM again first thing in the morning, correct?
 
We can discuss the next step after this step is complete.

When you are SLAMing the pool, Focus on the FC until you can pass the OCLT, then let your FC stabilize to the correct range based on your current CYA and then make other adjustments. PH is usually the first to be adjusted, if needed.
 
Ok, just tested the water (no sun on the pool yet) and I passed the OCLT with flying colours. Since my CL is still quite high in the grand scheme of things I'm not going to introduce any CL this morning whatsoever, but my teens will be home and I'll have them test the water a few times through the morning and afternoon to keep an eye on the CL levels just in case it starts to crash for some reason.

I plan to run my solar today as well to take advantage of the forecasted stinking hot and sunny day ahead. I haven't run it much in the last few days as I figured that a pea-soup 90 degree pool was probably counterproductive to getting rid of the algae, so my temp has dropped back to about 26 degrees (78'ish), aided by the fact that I haven't put my cover on since discovering the issue on Friday. I definitely want to start getting the temperature back up as fast as possible so long as there's no reason I shouldn't, or running the solar will introduce some unforeseen problem I'm not aware of.
 
I definitely want to start getting the temperature back up as fast as possible so long as there's no reason I shouldn't, or running the solar will introduce some unforeseen problem I'm not aware of.
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My suggestions are that you run the solar with high FC levels now JIC there is some algae hiding in there; and, you can clean the cover with a dilute bleach solution or soak it in the pool while it is at shock level to remove possible algae.
 
On another note, I started contemplating the reality that I need to get my cover back on soon – however I haven't done anything with it since it was rather hastily rolled up while the pool was Still green – I'm guessing I need to take some precautionary measures to make sure that I'm not reintroducing algae back into the pool again?

What is the best plan of attack here? Will just rolling it out and letting the sun beat on it until it's dry take care of things, or will I have to scrub it down with bleach or something?
 
If you cleaned it off the pool, brought the pool to a Shock level and then added the cover, that would be a good plan, in my opinion.

To be extra sure, do an OCLT to see if you have any overnight losses.
 

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FC held all day (even in the sun with the cover off) and as of a few minutes ago is at about 14PPM still, so I suspect my recent CA addition is taking hold (levels are increasing) and obviously the CL isn't fighting anything now whatsoever since FC held steady for over 24 hours now with zero chlorine added. Water is crystal clear and sparkling again.

I rolled out the cover onto the grass this evening....I'll leave it off to dry out tomorrow (there was a lot of probably algae-infested water) trapped in it so I don't want to risk anything. Tomorrow after work I'll brush it with the dilute bleach solution (what percentage bleach/water, assuming I'm using my 12% pool chlorine?) and replace it tomorrow evening. I'm not willing to take any risks here by putting it back into the pool beforehand, even with my FC where it is. Perhaps I'm being too cautious, but I really like seeing my pool shining again vs what it was only a few days back. ;)
 
Finally got back in it tonight, glad it's all over. My old cover was due for replacement anyways and the scrubbing would have just about finished off what was left of the intact bubbles, so I invested in a new one tonight...so no worries about the old cover going back on.
 
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