Opened to a swamp.

[Acorn]

Hi ,
We didn't cover the pool last fall and boy are we paying for it now! We have an oak tree and a gumball tree that are about 20 feet from the pool and the pool was black. We were scooping leaves and sticks last Saturday and Sunday and finally felt we weren't getting much back. Monday I brought it to a local pool place and had them test the water. I had just gotten my K 2006 kit and wasn't familiar with it. I got their results and did my own results with the K 2006.
I ended up put alkalinity plus in. waited 2 hours, put in ph plus waited 2 hours, added calcium waited 2 hours, then threw in stabilizer. waited 4 hours and then threw in 5 gallons of 12.5 % liquid bleach. Tuesday morning the pool was light greenish white with lots of particles floating around. I couldn't see down at all. I checked the free chlorine late that night and it was 37!!

Tuesday morning, the free chlorine dropped to 25. I was ok with this so still filtering and backwashing frequently. There was no change in the color at all.

Wednesday morning, the free chlorine dropped to 9. I checked the CYA and it was at 32. I added enough 12.5% chlorine bleach to bring it up to 12. It was very sunny yesterday and I checked the free chlorine around 6 and it had dropped to 11. I added 11 ounces of 12.5 % bleach. The pool still looked the same.

Thursday afternoon,(Worked last night and had a meeting after work this morning) I got these numbers:

FC- 9
cc- 3.5
pH- 7.4
TA- 120
CH- 200
CYA- ? maybe 20. the dot disappeared as it was running over the edge.

I thought I had to shock until 12, so added 46 ounces of 12.5 % bleach.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of change yet. I did notice that the multiport valve is leaking a small amount of water in recirculate mode, but not in filter mode. It seems that the flow decreases after about 45- 1 hour. If you hold your hand over the return very little is moving, but after you backwash,it's really fast.

Does anyone have any ideas?? The pool store that I get my bleach from yesterday sold me something called back to blue by poollife. It looked to be powdered shock in 1 tub and questionable (maybe floc, but no label ) in the other tub. returned it today for some more bleach... I'm sorry this is so long, but when I'm tired I tend to ramble.

 

[Texas Splash]

Acorn, since you already have a Taylor 2006 test kit, you should be able to do EVERYTHING on your own. Stay away form the pool store, their magical products, and advice. Get comfortable with the 2006 - especially for testing free chlorine (FC) and stabilizer (CYA) levels. That's most important to you right now. Use the SLAM link in my signature below to implement SLAM immediately! Refer to the chlorine/CYA chart as well to know "exactly" how much FC to maintain. Stick with it and nothing else. SLAM WILL work! Oh, and keep you pump running 24/7, and brush/sweep periodically as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Remember - you must SLAM until ALL 3 things are accomplished:
A. CC is 0.5 or lower;
B. You pass an OCLT (ie overnight FC loss test shows a loss of 1.0 ppm or less);
C. And the water is clear.

 

[Acorn]

Thanks for the quick response! Your directions say that this works best at CYA 30 - 40. Should I add CYA to a sock and place in the pool?

 

[Texas Splash]

You could, just make sure you validate that CYA reading. I noticed in your first post it showed two different CYA indications (0-20 then 32). You don't want to over-shoot and go high. It takes a while (about a week) for CYA to show-up after added to a pool. So if you're at 30 right now, I would leave it there and just implement SLAM with continuous bleach additions to maintain the required FC. Keep doing it until you meet those 3 criteria listed earlier. Good luck!

- - - Updated - - -

FYI - Typically CYA doesn't fluctuate real fast (i.e. overnight), so I suspect there may have been something different that happened during the test. It's the most awkward to do of all of them. Take your time, repeat if necessary, and perform the test outside under ambient lighting (sun at your back) for best results.

 

[Acorn]

Thank you!!