Hi, First time poster from New Zealand here. After recent outbreaks of algae in the pool, I discovered this site and quickly realised my pool care maintenance was all wrong. For the past 2 years up until a week ago, I was using a trichlor feeder loaded with tabs and also shock dosing with dichlor. I realise know that all along I had been increasing the CYA levels to a point where the chlorine being added was not effective, hence the algae outbreaks. The problem now is I couldn't find anywhere in NZ that sold a FAS-DPD test kit so have ordered one from the US, this might take some time to get here and until then I need to get this algae under control. My current test kit only measures FC up to 10ppm and is now useless.
This is what I have done so far to try and combat the CYA and algae problem.
1/ Ordered a Taylor K2006C online from poolvacparts Arizona
2/ I ditched the Trichlor & Dichlor, turned off the feeder and bought a big drum of liquid chlorine.
3/ I did multiple partial drains & refills (about 1/2 the pool was drained) lowering the CYA to approx 40 according to my testing.
4/ I balanced the PH to 7.5 and Alkalinity to 100
5/ Used the pool calculator to slam the pool with liquid chlorine, raised FC to 15ppm as suggested, ran pump constantly, brushing every few hours which unsettled lots of fine yellow/brown powder which was sitting on the pool floor.
6/ As I have no means of testing overnight loss I have been guessing by adding liquid chlorine each day and checking clarity of the water/brushing & filtering 24/7. The pool cover is on all the time I am not cleaning etc to help prevent sunlight chlorine loss.
The situation after a few days.
Water is fairly clear in the mornings before brushing but still has a green tint. There is a lot of this yellow/brown powder covering the whole pool floor and every time I brush it or vacuum the pool water becomes very cloudy, i'm sure it's too fine for the glass filter and comes back in the pool. The filter pressure hasn't increased at all even after running 24/7 for a few days.
Not sure what to do now as I can't do an overnight loss test to check whether the algae is dead or if chlorine is being used up.
1/ Should I therefore keep adding chlorine each day and checking the water clarity?
2/ If so any idea how much to add as an educated guess? is it safe to keep adding chlorine until the test kit arrives or algae clears up?
3/ Should I keep Brushing, vacuuming and filtering 24/7 as it doesn't seem to have made any difference so far?
Any help or advice would be much appreciated.
This is what I have done so far to try and combat the CYA and algae problem.
1/ Ordered a Taylor K2006C online from poolvacparts Arizona
2/ I ditched the Trichlor & Dichlor, turned off the feeder and bought a big drum of liquid chlorine.
3/ I did multiple partial drains & refills (about 1/2 the pool was drained) lowering the CYA to approx 40 according to my testing.
4/ I balanced the PH to 7.5 and Alkalinity to 100
5/ Used the pool calculator to slam the pool with liquid chlorine, raised FC to 15ppm as suggested, ran pump constantly, brushing every few hours which unsettled lots of fine yellow/brown powder which was sitting on the pool floor.
6/ As I have no means of testing overnight loss I have been guessing by adding liquid chlorine each day and checking clarity of the water/brushing & filtering 24/7. The pool cover is on all the time I am not cleaning etc to help prevent sunlight chlorine loss.
The situation after a few days.
Water is fairly clear in the mornings before brushing but still has a green tint. There is a lot of this yellow/brown powder covering the whole pool floor and every time I brush it or vacuum the pool water becomes very cloudy, i'm sure it's too fine for the glass filter and comes back in the pool. The filter pressure hasn't increased at all even after running 24/7 for a few days.
Not sure what to do now as I can't do an overnight loss test to check whether the algae is dead or if chlorine is being used up.
1/ Should I therefore keep adding chlorine each day and checking the water clarity?
2/ If so any idea how much to add as an educated guess? is it safe to keep adding chlorine until the test kit arrives or algae clears up?
3/ Should I keep Brushing, vacuuming and filtering 24/7 as it doesn't seem to have made any difference so far?
Any help or advice would be much appreciated.
