First test results...now what?

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Chewey

Chewey

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Bronze Supporter
Sep 8, 2014
10
Tucson, AZ
Background: I bought the house 15 months ago and had a pool guy taking care of the pool. Wife wrecked her car in Dec, had to buy a new one, couldn't afford the pool guy any more, so we took care of it ourselves. Previous pool experience was a 10K gallon salt water pool in FL. This pool has used chlorine tabs in a floater since before we bought it. Had the calcium buildup blasted off the tile in March. I deployed in April. In July wife reports algae that won't come off the wall even with a steel brush (wide). Got home early August. Found a narrow steel brush that got 90% of the algae off (looks like black algae to me). Shocked it. Pool looks nice for awhile. Algae comes back. I found it impossible to maintain chlorine in the water with just the tabs, and end up shocking it every few days. Found this website and ordered the TFT kit. Checked the numbers (below). Now here I am verifying what I think I need to do.

Test Results:
Chlorine: 0
CH: 900ppm (36 drops to turn the water blue-ish. Is this right? Leslie's said 400, but we have hard water here in Tucson)
TA: 90
CYA: 120

Questions:

I put 2 bags of Clorox 20k lb pool shock in the pool 48 hours ago and now I have no chlorine. My understanding is the algae is using it all up, is that right?

Could I really have 900ppm CH or is the test off because the other numbers are off?

CYA: I had to use the dilution method and think this is right. Leslie's said 100, but that's also the top of their 'ok' scale just like the CH was. I live in Tucson with 330 days of sunshine a year so I understand I need more CYA than most folks, but how much is too much? I realize I need to drain some of pool and refill it, but how much? If I drain half of it and refill with city tap water (auto filler on the pool), then I think my end result CYA should be 60 right? Is that good enough?

Thanks for the help, I'm looking forward to getting away from the pool stores. I certainly miss my salt water pool, but I'm not gonna spend $1k on a pool I'll own for another 3 years until the Air Force moves me again.
 
Well, the bad news....

Your CYA shouldn't be above 50. I see you said you used the dilution method, but came up with 100 - am i reading that right? In any case you have to stop using tabs and powered shock. They add more stabilizer (or some add CH which you also don't need). Chlorine is your friend.

Your fill water out of the hose is going to probably be high CH to begin with so that is going to be another lingering problem to watch and deal with. As water evaporates (but CH doesn't, it stays in the water) you keep adding high CH water and the CH just keeps going up. Yes, 900 is believable.

You need one of the recommended test kits. You can buy a kit at a pool store, but again the pool store kits generally won't cut it. To effectively practice the TFPC methods, the FAS/DPD chlorine test is essential. All these kits contain that test while very few other kits do.

FAS/DPD is going to be more important to you because with algae you need to follow the directions on SLAMing your pool in the How To section of Pool School and follow that procedure completely to the end.

While speaking about the Pool School, How much have you read? Start with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to Chlorinate Your Pool

Welcome to TFP and thanks for your service!!
 
Greetings Chewy and welcome to TFP,
First off I would like to thank you for your service to our country.

As you stated that you already ordered the TF-100 test kit, congratulations on that, you are off to a great start.
As Tim5055 has stated, you need to do a water change to lower the CYA. Draining at least half will bring you down to 60, but this will i believe have to be done in stages. Someone from that area can chime in on the water table and if they think you could do it all at once and not damage anything.

Next step will be to post some more test results so we will have some up to date results.
While your refilling the pool, read, read, then read some more, all of your questions have been answered in Pool School. You will very soon grasp the knowledge of how to maintain a cheap, sanitary, and crystal clear pool.

Pssst,,, to answer your questions,
Yes the algae is eating it up that quick.
Yes 60 would be ok, but getting it to 50 might be a little better. It would give you a little more room in case you absolutely had to use the pucks if no one could attend to the pool in your absence.
Now dont tell anyone i gave you the answers to the test.. go read and pretend like you found them all on your own.....
 
Thanks for the responses guys. I did look through the info guides and really was looking for a 'sanity check' I guess on what I thought that I had learned since this is my first time at this.

When you talk about water table and damage to the pool with draining in stages, are you referring to 'floating' the pool out of the ground? Out here in the desert I'm pretty confident that's not a concern, especially since I'm up on a hill...is there something else I need to be worried about when draining half the water (other than the water bill next month!). Thanks again for the guidance.
 
Yes, that was a caution not to float it if you have a high water table. You also have to be careful with a plaster pool that you don't bake the plaster too much in the sun. Try to keep,it damp & cool with a mist of water all the time.

Another option that may be available in your area is a reverse osmosis treatment, but that would probably be more expensive if it is available. You can google it and see. RO would clear the CYA and the CH.
 
OK, first SLAM shock complete, but now I'm getting weird results. I shocked the pool for 4 days and after the 4th day, the pool lost 2.5 ppm of FC overnight including almost 3 hours of sun (cause I slept in till 9:00) and had <.5 CC, so I thought I was done. That was yesterday. Today, the CC is showing 1.5 and FC was down from 28 to 15 (CYA is now 70 after a partial drain/refill). I figured the extra 1.5 FC loss could be accounted for due to the direct AZ Desert blazing sunlight eating it up while I slept in...but now I'm wondering why my CC spiked up. Did I stop the shock too early?
 
Chewey said:
OK, first SLAM shock complete, but now I'm getting weird results. I shocked the pool for 4 days and after the 4th day, the pool lost 2.5 ppm of FC overnight including almost 3 hours of sun (cause I slept in till 9:00) and had <.5 CC, so I thought I was done. That was yesterday. Today, the CC is showing 1.5 and FC was down from 28 to 15 (CYA is now 70 after a partial drain/refill). I figured the extra 1.5 FC loss could be accounted for due to the direct AZ Desert blazing sunlight eating it up while I slept in...but now I'm wondering why my CC spiked up. Did I stop the shock too early?
Click to expand...
I'm going to guess yes.

Did you follow teh directions on SLAMing your pool in the How To section of Pool School and follow that procedure completely?

Chlorine to at least 28 or above -
test & adjust multiple times a day -
brush the pool once a day -
backwash the filter when pressure rises 25%

You said the Overnight FC Loss Test (OCLT) lost 2.5 ppm, so right there you failed the SLAM. You can't "guess" that it was because of taking the morning test after the sun got on the pool, you have to test and determine that all the bad stuff is dead.
 

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I tested it twice cause I was so surprised that I got a 1.5 CC the first time.

I followed it exactly except where noted with the 2.5% OCLT due to the 3hours of direct sun.

I'll head to Safeway, get some more bleach and start again...hopefully they've restocked cause I've cleaned out 2 stores already...
 
No, the filter does not remove CC. But from "just over" to "just under" could be within the margin of error for the testing.

You lost 1.5 FC so the SLAM should still be on. It look like you did end a little too soon. Getting close though.
 
Went back and SLAM'd for a couple more days starting the 24th to pass the OCLT. The pool looks the best it ever has and I haven't had a hint of Algae. I'm getting used to going out and testing every night and adding 2 quarts of bleach every dang day. Lately my ph has been up at 7.9 even after dumping in MA every night. Maybe my acid was old. Gonna get a new bottle and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks for the help here in the forum and on the website with the education. Now I just need to find a reliable liquid chlorinator to make life easier on me and install a new pool light and I'll be a happy pool owner!
 
Here are my latest results as of this morning:

FC: 6
CC: 0
CH: 400
TA:90
CYA:60
ph: 7.6
temp: 80

I know the CH is still high (but it's a heck of a lot better than the 900 it was!). I recenly installed a water softener and confirmed it is outputting water with 0 CH, so that 400 should work its way down through splashout and backwashing replacement over the winter. I have added multiple iterations of MA to get the ph down from 7.9 to 7.5. Each time I added the amount that the calculator told me to add, but it took 3 times doing it to get it there. O well. CYA is also a bit high, but from what I understand, it's preferred as Tucson gets 330 days of intense sunshine a year. My goal for FC is 7 since Pool School says it should be 5-7 (for 60 CYA) or 5-8 (for 70 CYA). Not sure why that is a different number than the calculator, but it seems to be working. I check the levels every night before I go to bed and add the appropriate bleach and run the pump for a few hours. Incidentally, I'm losing about 2.5-3.5 on the FC every night so I end up adding about 2 quarts a night...is that normal? Any issues with what I think I understand? Thanks guys,
 
I hope you mean from the previous nightly result. If you're losing that between when you test at night and the next morning. That's an indication you have a problem. If you're only losing that from one night to the next, then that's really good for all that sunshine. Please clarify that for us.
 

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