Pool has taken over my summer

[donspublic]

Ok I have a salt pool and am tired of the thing going out and constantly costing me a fortune for parts. So I decided to switch to Chlorine. I made the switch at the beginning of summer after I had already brought the conditioning up to 60 CYA. Everything went fine until we went on vacation for a couple of weeks and the chlorninator ran out of pucks (wife forgot to refill before she left). Since then I have been battling the ****ed thing and have several spots of black algae and am getting the green fuzz after 1 week. Throughout the summer I was using the powdered chlorox shock during the week to get things under control, but now it can go for a few days and it is starting to turn green again. I found this site so I ordered the Taylor 2006 kit so I could start the slam process. I just walked back inside after doing the CYA test and noticed that my sample wasn't even to 100 when I couldn't see the black dot, so I drained the applicator to 7ml and filled it to 14ml with tap water and sure enough it goes to about 70. So I am guessing that that puts me right at 140 CYA. So my question is would it be better for me to go ahead and drain off part of the pool to reduce the CYA before starting the SLAM process, is this something that is going to be causing me to fight it year round? FYI since finding this site I have been using liquid chlorine as my source of shock. I live in Houston so the temp is starting to fade down here and my pool is a 25K gallon sunstone peal (aggregate with Portland cement).
Thanks for any input

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! Yes drain and adjust the CYA level to about 20-30 ppm for the slam. You will use less chlorine to reach and maintain slam level when your CYA is in the 20-30 range. Use only unscented liquid chlorine/bleach for the slam. Once your slam is complete you should stick with the liquid chlorine to prevent the CYA from getting out of hand again.

You can use PoolMath to plug in your current test results and see what your shock level for the slam would be, then change the CYA to 20 for the "now" column and see what a difference it makes in the amount of bleach needed to reach slam level. You can also compare your current daily FC target level with current test results and results based on a lower CYA to see how much bleach would be used in either situation.

 

[pwrstrk]

Welcome to TFP !
Even if you get your CYA level to 40-50 the SLAM can be done there. It'll just take a little more bleach in the beginning to get to the shock level as compared to 20-30. You'll have to drain less though. Your call. ?

 

[donspublic]

zea3, I see you are in Houston also. My concern is are there any issues draining a pool this time of year. If I need to drain a portion it, I am tempted to just fully drain it and acid wash it to get rid of all the black algae. There are also some darker blue spots where the sunstone pearl outer finish didn't completely come off so it is a darker blue. I am in north Houston in the Cypress area. My soil is pretty much clay and as you know we haven't had too much rain this year even though we have gotten some over the past few weeks. Also I have been getting the KemTech liquid bleach at Lowes for about $3.60 a gallon, have you found a better place in Houston to buy it? Going to probably start on this next week. Also my pool is plumbed to backwash to the street, is that the best way to drain it or is it better to rent a sump pump? I have 2 drains in the bottom of the pool and can cut off both skimmers with valves. Again thanks for the help here

 

[pragmatic]

I'm South of Houston as well. I certainly don't want to discount what zea3 recommended, but in my pool, I've found that CYA between 50-60PPM works best. Regarding bleach purchases; out of convenience, I use the concentrated bleach from Sams (+/-6%) 3-120oz bottles for $8.98. I’m sure it can be found cheaper, but good ol Clorox seems consistent. Also, CYA does degrade over time, not just from splash out and rain-overflow and you know we get our share of rain. So much so, that I have gone back to supplementing FC with the in-line chlorinator & pucks (very low setting) to maintain CYA & FC; from information I found on TFP (ChemGeek), some causes of CYA degradation may be attributed to higher water temps / higher FC levels. I can't address the Black-Algae issue (no experience yet). Good luck and Heat that pool for winter swimming!!
Oh yeah, here is all you need to know about Bleach prices and locations:
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/71808-Bleach-Prices-2014/page20