Hi, thank you in advance for your help! We just purchased our home and are undergoing the daunting task of learning about taking care of a pool this summer.
We opened the pool about a month ago and it was completely green. We followed a lot of your advice and finally got it clear and blue (after a lot of $$ on chemicals). However, we were putting tons of shock in it and the chlorine wasn't going up. (The combined chlorine was staying around .1). So, we had the nitrates and phosphates tested at a pool store.
Nitrates - 20ppm at one store and 30ppm at another store
Phosphates - 1000
We followed the pool store's instructions and put in a bottle and a half of the stuff to remove phosphates. It has been about 5 days and the phosphates are still at 1000. The pool store said to let the pool go (no shocking) for a week (so another 2-3 days). Then backwash and bring a sample in. That should clear up the phosphates, and we would start shocking it again at that point. They also said we will probably have to partially drain/refill the pool b/c of the nitrates.
Here are the current test results for the water:
free chlorine - .04
total chlorine - .18
combined chlorine - .14
PH - 6.8
hardness - 169
alkalinity - 53
cyanuric acid - 59
copper - .1
iron - 0
borate - 1
total dissolved solids - 720
Currently we were using the shock powder (Anthony and Sylvan brand). But, I was reading that we should use bleach (or liquid chlorine) so we don't raise our CYA any higher.
I know we need to get our alkalinity up. We will start on that tonight.
If there is any other advice, or direction you can give us, we would be soooo greatful!!!
Thanks!
We opened the pool about a month ago and it was completely green. We followed a lot of your advice and finally got it clear and blue (after a lot of $$ on chemicals). However, we were putting tons of shock in it and the chlorine wasn't going up. (The combined chlorine was staying around .1). So, we had the nitrates and phosphates tested at a pool store.
Nitrates - 20ppm at one store and 30ppm at another store
Phosphates - 1000
We followed the pool store's instructions and put in a bottle and a half of the stuff to remove phosphates. It has been about 5 days and the phosphates are still at 1000. The pool store said to let the pool go (no shocking) for a week (so another 2-3 days). Then backwash and bring a sample in. That should clear up the phosphates, and we would start shocking it again at that point. They also said we will probably have to partially drain/refill the pool b/c of the nitrates.
Here are the current test results for the water:
free chlorine - .04
total chlorine - .18
combined chlorine - .14
PH - 6.8
hardness - 169
alkalinity - 53
cyanuric acid - 59
copper - .1
iron - 0
borate - 1
total dissolved solids - 720
Currently we were using the shock powder (Anthony and Sylvan brand). But, I was reading that we should use bleach (or liquid chlorine) so we don't raise our CYA any higher.
I know we need to get our alkalinity up. We will start on that tonight.
If there is any other advice, or direction you can give us, we would be soooo greatful!!!
Thanks!