Turn the % to lowest.
Wait 30 minutes with pump running, then do your first test.

Yes to both questions. If you can see the bottom for swimmers safety, you can swim at slam and its less harsh than tap water with 0 CYA and 1 FC. Tap water may have up to 4 FC. Think that through. Maybe don't take a shower.

FC loss may be all over the place depending how much you brush up off the surface. Each pass of the brush removes another protective layer (biofolm) and there's more algae to be killed. It's why brush and vac are daily chores. Then there is the normal UV burnoff which spikes during the day too.

Anywho, when it seems better then gets worse, don't get discouraged. Progress is still progress, even if its 2 steps forward and one back.

I like to look at it as its going to take X gallons to fix. (Every slam is different). Whatever the value of X is, each gallon added brings you closer to X. Focus on that.

PoolStored said:

What SWG do you have?
Do you have automation?

Click to expand...

No automation. Pentair intellichlor i40

Wow, lots of scary stuff going on in this post... dead cats, birds, algae, pool balls and the most scary thing of all Floc.

Did you run the floc through your filter? If so, you likely gummed up your filter.

Just stick to the SLAM and have some patience and your water will be clear in a week or two, probably perfect timing for swim season.

MM32 said:

Uhoh, when SLAMming I think I added too much liquid chlorine. My CYA is about 70 and pool math says to shock I should be at about 28 ppm FC. I am currently at 49ppm. Is that going to cause issues to my pool/equipment or is it ok for now?

Click to expand...

One time event will not be a problem.

MM32 said:

Also, my pool company left me a little bottle of algaecide and said I should add it tomorrow. Is there any benefit in doing that or will the chlorine be enough to kill the algae? I do understand that algaecide is preventative and not the answer to an active algae problem. Thanks as always!

Click to expand...

No. Do not add it. We do not recommend algaecide.

Pas_pool said:

Going to start it now. For SWG. Just pressing the less button until no % shows means it’s off right? (Tried looking in the manual but didn’t see it)

Click to expand...

What SWG do you have?
Do you have automation?

MM32 said:

Uhoh, when SLAMming I think I added too much liquid chlorine. My CYA is about 70 and pool math says to shock I should be at about 28 ppm FC. I am currently at 49ppm. Is that going to cause issues to my pool/equipment or is it ok for now?

Also, my pool company left me a little bottle of algaecide and said I should add it tomorrow. Is there any benefit in doing that or will the chlorine be enough to kill the algae? I do understand that algaecide is preventative and not the answer to an active algae problem. Thanks as always!

Click to expand...

Here is a photo of the algaecide they left me for reference. Thanks!

Uhoh, when SLAMming I think I added too much liquid chlorine. My CYA is about 70 and pool math says to shock I should be at about 28 ppm FC. I am currently at 49ppm. Is that going to cause issues to my pool/equipment or is it ok for now?

Also, my pool company left me a little bottle of algaecide and said I should add it tomorrow. Is there any benefit in doing that or will the chlorine be enough to kill the algae? I do understand that algaecide is preventative and not the answer to an active algae problem. Thanks as always!

Ugh, didnt make it through the day. Something broke. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

With a CYA of 40 (35 gets rounded up to 40), your SLAM Process FC level is 16.
See the SLAM part of the FC/CYA Levels chart.

Each time you test, are you adding enough liquid chlorine to get up to SLAM level again?

I don't believe the CCs. It takes FC to make CCs and they burn off rather quickly.

Have you been adding FC ?

Is the cell working yet or is it still too cold ?

Are you sure the chemicals above are all the pool guys added to the pool ?

PoolStored said:

WHEW!

Great! Fingers crossed. Print out the OCLT directions and follow them. Tests must be AFTER sunset and BEFORE sunrise. Use weather on your phone for the times.
Run pump 24/7, or at least 30 minutes

Click to expand...

PoolStored said:

WHEW!

Great! Fingers crossed. Print out the OCLT directions and follow them. Tests must be AFTER sunset and BEFORE sunrise. Use weather on your phone for the times.
Run pump 24/7, or at least 30 minutes before the tests.

Click to expand...

Going to start it now. For SWG. Just pressing the less button until no % shows means it’s off right? (Tried looking in the manual but didn’t see it)

I believe I am following SLAM steps to the letter, in fact tonight was the first time I've seen the main drain even though the pool is still clloudy.
But I do have two questions:

1) In these first two days I've gone through gallons of liquid chlorine... 13 gals so far. Is that normal, safe?
2) And my FC went down today. Is this to be expected?

• 4/29 @ 15:00 FC: 1.0 / CC: 1.0 (Added 5 gals of Chlorine)
• 4/30 @ 07:00 FC: 2.0 / CC: 1.0 (Added 4 gals of Chlorine)
• 4/30 @ 10:45 FC: 10.0 / CC: 0.5 (Added 1 gal of Chlorine)
• 4/30 @ 13:00 FC: 10.5 / CC: 1.0 (Added 1 gal of Chlorine)
• 4/30 @ 19:30 FC: 7.0 / CC: 1.0 (Added 2 gals of Chlorine)

FWIW, here in the Atlanta area it's been warm and sunny.

As always, I can't thanks this group enough for the assistance and support you've all provided to me.

DonFant said:

I have my electrician coming over tomorrow 5/1/25 to basically run electricity to a storage building that will be where I hook up next to the pool. He is going to install and external outlet on the building. (It will be on a seperate breaker running out of our main breaker box).
He did question me about grounding the pool, I (being totally new to this) have never heard of it. He was going to check with our County building permit people concerning the pool being grounded. Now, Bonding-? I'm clueless, should I go out and buy some copper wire and run it around the edges of the pool? Under it? Attached to it? If so, where does it need to be attached to the pool? I would have thought that there would be more discussion about grounding/bonding.
I am grateful for your insight. Thank you very much!
BTW I will probably get a heater to install, it really doesn't make sense to have a Beautiful but (COLD) pool.

Click to expand...

The pool equipment will be grounded and the pool needs to be bonded! HOW'S THAT FOR CONFUSION!!

Seriously, the filter pump, salt water generator and heater need to be plugged into grounded outlets. The pool has to be bonded - basically there is a ring of copper that is buried around the perimeter of the pool, I think it's around 18 inched deep. The water has to be bonded and all the equipment is bonded to the loop and water - the equipment should have bonding lugs on them. Any metal ladders and/or pool accessories also need to be bonded. The pool wall is interesting as I have a steel wall pool and it is on a resin bottom rail so it didn't need to be bonded; resin wall pools don't get bonded. 20+ years ago my pool just had a wire running from the pool wall to the pump for bonding. Your municipality should have the codes needed for the pool, I think the ring around the pool has to be a certain distance from the pool wall and the bonding wire needs to be copper and a certain guage. Our electrician did all the electrical after the pool was up. Remember the spot for equipment needs to be accessible to the pool ... can't cut the grass too well if you have pipes for the filter in the way!

Transformer output is the blue and white wires on the right side,

Did you test that?

Alright I'll add the LC tonight, retest and get up to level throughout the day tomorrow, and find some muriatic acid and more LC tomorrow evening. Can I add the MA any time between leveling my SLAM?

I agree, this might be the last really good weekend to do the drain. I too drain into my cleanout. I use the HD rental which gets the job done in 4-5 hours. Rent it for the day. They will give you two 25' 2" hoses. The problem with Harbor Freight is that I don't think they even have a 2" pump to buy, at least not when I looked a month ago.

WHEW!

Great! Fingers crossed. Print out the OCLT directions and follow them. Tests must be AFTER sunset and BEFORE sunrise. Use weather on your phone for the times.
Run pump 24/7, or at least 30 minutes before the tests.

reaton said:

I thought directions said to buy twice as much as was necessary to reach SLAM

Click to expand...

That's a start point. You have a green pool which will be on the higher side of the slam spectrum to clear.

PoolStored said:

We don't want to raise CYA until after we do OCLT. Higher CYA makes SLAM harder and more expensive.

Did you add it?
How much did you add in ppm?
How did you add it?

Click to expand...

I did not add stabilizer yet. Was going to add it to a skimmer socks and about 2 pounds. But I will wait. Added the muratic acid about 45 min ago. Now adding two bags of salt. Then I’ll do my first test for the overnight test

For a 20K pool, 8-10 is fine to start. You may need more or less.

proavia said:

Normally, we don't check the pH during a SLAM as an FC > 10 invalidates the pH test. But since you already know the dose of MA to lower the pH to the recommended range, you could add it tomorrow. Just don't test the pH until after the SLAM is complete and the FC drops below 10.

You will need about 3.25 gallons of 10% liquid chlorine to attain SLAM level FC.
My bet is you will need at least 20-ish gallons to clear the pool - maybe more, maybe less.
Since you need to get MA , you may want to get more liquid chlorine as well.

Ace Hardware, Menards, Ocean State Job Lots should have 31.45%
HD or Lowe may only have 14.5% (in which case you need to add twice as much to lower the pH the same amount - use PoolMath to double check that).
In a pinch - you could even try Leslies.

Click to expand...

20 gallons? Really? I thought directions said to buy twice as much as was necessary to reach SLAM levels. So since it's roughly 3.5 gallons to reach it I figured 8 would be enough. Why so different from the SLAM directions do you think?

We don't want to raise CYA until after we do OCLT. Higher CYA makes SLAM harder and more expensive.

Did you add it?
How much did you add in ppm?
How did you add it?

PoolStored said:

It is low. BUT DO NOT ADD ANYMORE RIGHT NOW. LET'S DO THE OCLT TONIGHT. Adding more now will make slam harder.
We want to rule out algae before you add more CYA.
Link-->Overnight Chlorine Loss Test

Click to expand...

Sounds good. I’ll message you

Did you fertilize recently by chance? It does look like Iron to me as well, but check out this article especially the Vitamin C test to test for Iron stains.

Normally, we don't check the pH during a SLAM as an FC > 10 invalidates the pH test. But since you already know the dose of MA to lower the pH to the recommended range, you could add it tomorrow. Just don't test the pH until after the SLAM is complete and the FC drops below 10.

You will need about 3.25 gallons of 10% liquid chlorine to attain SLAM level FC.
My bet is you will need at least 20-ish gallons to clear the pool - maybe more, maybe less.
Since you need to get MA , you may want to get more liquid chlorine as well.

Ace Hardware, Menards, Ocean State Job Lots should have 31.45%
HD or Lowe may only have 14.5% (in which case you need to add twice as much to lower the pH the same amount - use PoolMath to double check that).
In a pinch - you could even try Leslies.

Thanks. So the version of my ProLogic Board cant do what i need. I was kinda thinking the same but hoping i was just missing something.

I am going to just disconnect the valve from the board. Valve4 is useless for me now.
And i am going to wire in a current sensing switch that will tun the valve on when the spa pump is on, and off when its not.
I suppose this is the only way i can automate it with my current system.
If anyone else has any better ideas please do share.
Here is a schematic. If anyone notices anything wrong please do let me know.



Maybe in the future i will upgrade my controller board. But if i can get this to work like i think, not worth changing it yet.