Low CYA, increase that or SLAM?

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L

Littlegiles

0
May 14, 2015
10
Lancaster, SC
I'm not sure what to do. We never had any information provided to us when we had the pool "fixed" as there was a falling out with the PB. All we were told was that with the SWG, as long as we had salt in the water, it was easy to take care of and we shouldn't have to add anything. Well the first couple years things ran great. Last year, had issues with algae at the start of the season and I was told about shocking with bleach. So I did and I eventually was able to clear up the water as well as bleach out the liner apparently. UGH! So it isn't pretty, but still was swimmable and everyone had a great summer last year.

So fast forward to this year. Pool quickly turned into a swamp. SWG was running and I was shocking with bleach....nothing was happening. That was when I discovered that the Aquarite wasn't working so my "shocking" was really just adding the normal chlorine to the water and the algae was using it up really fast and just kept growing. I have probably put in over $150 in bleach at this point. Frustrated is not the word and I'm really thinking it would be a better patch of lawn at this point. I replaced the $3 part from Digi-Key in my Aquarite and it appears to be doing it's job now. I have not added bleach in a week. Algae is not growing, but it isn't going away either.

Finally, I have spent some time on here reading and I ordered a good test kit instead of those dang dipsticks. My TF100 came today and I did all my tests. Here are my results.

FC 3.5
CC 1.0
TA 70
PH 7.2
CH 50
CYA 25

WOW! After reading on here, I see that my CYA is really low for my SWG pool.

This is where my questions come in. I really want to SLAM my pool and get it pretty and able to swim in. It is green and 84 degrees....I should be enjoying a cocktail in it and not just looking at it and wanting to cry.

Should I first raise my CYA and then follow the charts to SLAM it or is there something I can do to battle all the issues at the same time?

I'm really at a loss and quickly running out of cash.
 
A belated welcome to TFP!

I would absolutely completely the SLAM first. You can even shut down your SWG while you are SLAMing anyway since you will be manually dosing. Treat your CYA as 30, SLAM until you pass all 3 criteria, and then raise your CYA up to the proper level and then work on getting your SWG dialed in so you can enjoy your pool without worry.
 
It's easier to SLAM at lower CYA levels. While it's true that CYA protects the chlorine from the sun, it'll get used up killing algae before that happens.

The key is consistency. Don't dump a load of bleach in once a day. It will kill a bunch of algae and cloud the water, but the algae that lived has time to reproduce, so that it's soon green AND cloudy. You want to hit it hard, and then hit it again before it can get back up. Kick it while it's down again and again and again until it's dead absolutely. And don't neglect behind lights and under and inside ladders and steps if you have any.
 
Welcome to the forum. As the others have said, you need to go on and slam it. It's easier with the cya lower. Turn off the swg. The key is to maintain the shock level, unlike the pool store method of just throwing chlorine at it one time and hope you get it. If you work monday-Friday, start after work Friday. You might need to test every two hours and dose it. That will give you all weekend to stay on top of it. Keep track of how much it's using and you can start to spread your testing out. By Monday you may get by with a dose in the morning and in the afternoon. The slam is not done until you met all three goals. You found the right place, so ask questions and learn. You will still need to test after you get your swg dialed in. Nothing is a set and forget thing.
 
Thanks! I'm hoping I can start tomorrow at lunch since I work from home the rest of the week. Will be back at office on Monday so hopefully will have made a big dent by then. it isn't a dark green now and I can see the bottom of the third step into the pool so I'm hoping this won't take long. :) I'll keep you all posted.

UPDATE:
I didn't want to wait so I added 3 gal of bleach this morning about 8:30. Just took some tests and this is the current FC/CC

10:15am ET

FC 13
CC .05

I'll test again after lunch and adjust if needed. Hoping that the Chrlorine will last a bit longer since we are cloudy today. Keeping fingers crossed.
 
This is what the pool looked like this morning when I added the bleach.

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