Good evening! New user here (and new pool owner), I’ve been scouring this website and forum for the past couple of days and it has been incredibly helpful in learning about how to maintain a pool. I’m still a bit confused on some things though and could use some advice on how to tackle my first SLAM.
So when I bought this house, the pool cover was torn. I had it removed the other day by a local pool company. They also tried to open the pool for me but were unsuccessful. They cleaned the pool, shocked it and then sprayed this stuff called Revive on the surface. The Revive was meant to coagulate the algae and drop it to the bottom (if my understanding is correct). The pool actually started turning blue right after the initial shock. 24 hours later though and it was green again. The Revive treatment didn’t seem to do anything so the pool is still very swampy. Given that they charged me almost $300 and the pool is still a swamp, I am opting to try and tackle this myself, now that I know about the SLAM method.
Today I took a water sample to my local Leslie pool store and the CYA measured at just 5. Is that possible? Also the pH came back very high at 8.5. Finally, copper came back at .4. How concerned should I be about the copper? It is a pretty large in-ground vinyl liner pool. And can I trust the CYA and pH results? I have a Taylor FAS-DPD testing kit on the way to confirm those measurements myself.
If it is safe to assume the above measurements are correct, how do I approach my SLAM? Do I need to lower my pH first or increase my CYA? Will adding CYA lower my pH enough as to not need muriatic acid? If I do need muriatic acid, do I add that first before the CYA or vice versa?
Finally, once my pH and CYA are where they need to be, do I just start adding chlorine to shock levels while running the pump on filter mode, and then brush, skim, vacuum etc. while maintaining the chlorine at shock levels?
Apologies for the long first post and thanks in advance for any help you can provide! And please let me know if you need any more information about the pool.
-Mike
So when I bought this house, the pool cover was torn. I had it removed the other day by a local pool company. They also tried to open the pool for me but were unsuccessful. They cleaned the pool, shocked it and then sprayed this stuff called Revive on the surface. The Revive was meant to coagulate the algae and drop it to the bottom (if my understanding is correct). The pool actually started turning blue right after the initial shock. 24 hours later though and it was green again. The Revive treatment didn’t seem to do anything so the pool is still very swampy. Given that they charged me almost $300 and the pool is still a swamp, I am opting to try and tackle this myself, now that I know about the SLAM method.
Today I took a water sample to my local Leslie pool store and the CYA measured at just 5. Is that possible? Also the pH came back very high at 8.5. Finally, copper came back at .4. How concerned should I be about the copper? It is a pretty large in-ground vinyl liner pool. And can I trust the CYA and pH results? I have a Taylor FAS-DPD testing kit on the way to confirm those measurements myself.
If it is safe to assume the above measurements are correct, how do I approach my SLAM? Do I need to lower my pH first or increase my CYA? Will adding CYA lower my pH enough as to not need muriatic acid? If I do need muriatic acid, do I add that first before the CYA or vice versa?
Finally, once my pH and CYA are where they need to be, do I just start adding chlorine to shock levels while running the pump on filter mode, and then brush, skim, vacuum etc. while maintaining the chlorine at shock levels?
Apologies for the long first post and thanks in advance for any help you can provide! And please let me know if you need any more information about the pool.
-Mike