Need help for a friend to get his pool clear

[Stylez78]

So my buddy has a 6000 gallon pool. Two days ago it went really cloudy and he we to a pool store and was sold hundreds of dollars in chemicals. 2 days and his pool is still a mess and they want to sell him more.

I went today with my test kit to try and help him out. His PH was 7.5, CYA is 22, FC was 3 but Combined Chlorine was 4.5.

Now he has one of those smart ionizer things which I doubt does much but I told him he needs to keep his filter on high 24/7 and we should add more chlorine and do the SLAM method till the pool is clear.

Now according to SLAM FC for the cya and size was 10. I also read that if CC is high you should super chlorinate the pool and make the FC 10x the CC. If that is right does that mean putting his FC to 45, is that right?? I had him add 12.5 bleach this morning to get FC to 15, filter been on all day pool still cloudy but I'm gonna have him test tonight but what should I have him get his FC to to rid this pool of the CC issue?

 

[jesse-99]

Don't put the FC to 45. Ugh. If the CYA is 20, SLAM FC is 10. If CYA is 30, SLAM FC is 12. I'm not sure how you get a reading of 22 on a TF or Taylor kit. That's not really possible.

So get the FC to 10 or 12, depending on the true CYA, and do an OCLT. Keep SLAM levels and filtering until you meet the 3 criteria that are needed to -pass- the OCLT.

 

[Bperry]

So my buddy has a 6000 gallon pool. Two days ago it went really cloudy and he we to a pool store and was sold hundreds of dollars in chemicals. 2 days and his pool is still a mess and they want to sell him more.

I went today with my test kit to try and help him out. His PH was 7.5, CYA is 22, FC was 3 but Combined Chlorine was 4.5.

Now he has one of those smart ionizer things which I doubt does much but I told him he needs to keep his filter on high 24/7 and we should add more chlorine and do the SLAM method till the pool is clear.

Now according to SLAM FC for the cya and size was 10. I also read that if CC is high you should super chlorinate the pool and make the FC 10x the CC. If that is right does that mean putting his FC to 45, is that right?? I had him add 12.5 bleach this morning to get FC to 15, filter been on all day pool still cloudy but I'm gonna have him test tonight but what should I have him get his FC to to rid this pool of the CC issue?

Read the SLAM process again.

How did you get a CYA of 22? The kits only read in increments of 10ppm.

 

[Stylez78]

The CYA reading was from his digital test he had done at the pool store. I redid the CYA test with my kit and to be frank it is subjective putting cloudy water into a tube until you barley see a black dot then read the line. Either way it was at 30 on the tube and the black dot was somewhat blurry but I could still see it so made sense 20ish cya is where he is at.

I read SLAM I did it with my pool but I didn't have CC levels at 4.5ppm and ultra cloudy water. I set his Free chlorine level a bit above 10 because it was morning, I knew sun would burn some and he wasn't going to be home until late at night.

I asked about the super chlorination because other articles outside the SLAM method kept saying 10x the CC level which seemed insane hence why I asked.

 

[Bperry]

The CYA reading was from his digital test he had done at the pool store. I redid the CYA test with my kit and to be frank it is subjective putting cloudy water into a tube until you barley see a black dot then read the line. Either way it was at 30 on the tube and the black dot was somewhat blurry but I could still see it so made sense 20ish cya is where he is at.

I read SLAM I did it with my pool but I didn't have CC levels at 4.5ppm and ultra cloudy water. I set his Free chlorine level a bit above 10 because it was morning, I knew sun would burn some and he wasn't going to be home until late at night.

I asked about the super chlorination because other articles outside the SLAM method kept saying 10x the CC level which seemed insane hence why I asked.

Ignore any digital test from a pool store.

The CYA test on the Taylor kit is either 20 or 30, there’s no ish numbers between them. so you always round up if in doubt. That means you SLAM at a CYA level of 30ppm, which means your FC should held at 12ppm until:
1. The water is perfectly clear
2. The CC is 0.5 or less
3. You pass an overnight chlorine loss test.

If all three of those criteria don’t pass, then the FC needs to be kept at 12ppm day and night until it does. It may take a few weeks.

The 10X thing must be some other internet magic potion you don’t need to worry about. I’d also check the CC again. It’s extremely unlikely to be 4.5ppm unless he was using non-chlorine shock (MPS).

 

[Stylez78]

Ignore any digital test from a pool store.

The CYA test on the Taylor kit is either 20 or 30, there’s no ish numbers between them. so you always round up if in doubt. That means you SLAM at a CYA level of 30ppm, which means your FC should held at 12ppm until:
1. The water is perfectly clear
2. The CC is 0.5 or less
3. You pass an overnight chlorine loss test.

If all three of those criteria don’t pass, then the FC needs to be kept at 12ppm day and night until it does. It may take a few weeks.

The 10X thing must be some other internet magic potion you don’t need to worry about. I’d also check the CC again. It’s extremely unlikely to be 4.5ppm unless he was using non-chlorine shock (MPS).

I did the chlorine test 3 times with 3 different water samples. I used 10ml water added the 2 scoops of powder water turns pink. I added the drops till it was clear, at the time it took 6 drops to be clear so that was 3 ppm. I then added the 5 drops of the other solution and it got really dark pink. It took 9 drops to get back to clear each time. So at .5pp per drop it was 4.5ppm.

I can't be at my buddies house all day but I told him he needs a test kit, strips don't cut it and to clear that pool he gonna need to keep on top of this all day every day keeping that FC at 12 all day and night to get it fixed. His water is like Milk at the moment it really bad.

 

[duraleigh]

I can't be at my buddies house all day but I told him he needs a test kit, strips don't cut it and to clear that pool he gonna need to keep on top of this all day every day keeping that FC at 12 all day and night to get it fixed. His water is like Milk at the moment it really bad.

.........Allowing me to use my favorite saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Time and again, attempts at helping others seems to fail because they won't learn and won't spend the money on a kit that works. Well, you have made a good effort.

 

[Bperry]

I did the chlorine test 3 times with 3 different water samples. I used 10ml water added the 2 scoops of powder water turns pink. I added the drops till it was clear, at the time it took 6 drops to be clear so that was 3 ppm. I then added the 5 drops of the other solution and it got really dark pink. It took 9 drops to get back to clear each time. So at .5pp per drop it was 4.5ppm.

I can't be at my buddies house all day but I told him he needs a test kit, strips don't cut it and to clear that pool he gonna need to keep on top of this all day every day keeping that FC at 12 all day and night to get it fixed. His water is like Milk at the moment it really bad.

Ok, sounds like you know the drill. He may have added something to the pool water causing the elevated CC. The pool store guy recommended I use non chlorine shock (before I discovered TFP) and that’ll cause it to read high. I guess if the water is milky, that’s possibly a good cause as well. He’s going to need a lot more chlorine to clear it up.