Hi All,
I'm new to this group but have been stalking the site for awhile now. Every summer it seems for the past 2-3 years we deal with mustard alge once it gets super hot. We live in Texas and have a shallow pool so the water temp heats up quickly despite the 2 shades we have hanging above. Oddly, the algae doesn't grow in the shady areas. I'm pretty sure it's algae as there are yellowish brown spots mainly on the walls of the pool and the water gets cloudy. We have a 15k gal IG plaster pool that has been here since before we bought the house 10 years ago. Prior to 2 weeks ago we were using chlorine pucks and powder shock to maintain our pool. Our pump runs 10-12 hours a day and we have a cleaner that runs 2 hours a day. From my research it looks like our CYA is likely the problem. I bought a Taylor FAS-DPD K-2006 kit 2 weeks ago and have been testing daily. My most current results are:
FC - 10
CC - 0
PH - 7.8
TA - 110
Ca - 300
CYA - 100. The pool store tested it and said it was 80. The CYA numbers are from 2 weeks ago.
I switched to bleach about 2 weeks ago and have been keeping my target FC at 11. The lowest it dipped was 8, most days it's 9.5-10 before adding chlorine. Do I need to keep the FC higher to prevent it from coming back? Is it necessary to drain the pool to fix the CYA before the algae will go away for good or can we shock it? We were hoping we'd lose enough with splash out as we have kids that are constantly in and out of the pool. After the last shock, we bleached all the toys and floats that go in the pool and washed all the suits in the washer. I'm at a loss and would greatly appreciate any advice! Thanks!
Teresa
Dallas, TX
I'm new to this group but have been stalking the site for awhile now. Every summer it seems for the past 2-3 years we deal with mustard alge once it gets super hot. We live in Texas and have a shallow pool so the water temp heats up quickly despite the 2 shades we have hanging above. Oddly, the algae doesn't grow in the shady areas. I'm pretty sure it's algae as there are yellowish brown spots mainly on the walls of the pool and the water gets cloudy. We have a 15k gal IG plaster pool that has been here since before we bought the house 10 years ago. Prior to 2 weeks ago we were using chlorine pucks and powder shock to maintain our pool. Our pump runs 10-12 hours a day and we have a cleaner that runs 2 hours a day. From my research it looks like our CYA is likely the problem. I bought a Taylor FAS-DPD K-2006 kit 2 weeks ago and have been testing daily. My most current results are:
FC - 10
CC - 0
PH - 7.8
TA - 110
Ca - 300
CYA - 100. The pool store tested it and said it was 80. The CYA numbers are from 2 weeks ago.
I switched to bleach about 2 weeks ago and have been keeping my target FC at 11. The lowest it dipped was 8, most days it's 9.5-10 before adding chlorine. Do I need to keep the FC higher to prevent it from coming back? Is it necessary to drain the pool to fix the CYA before the algae will go away for good or can we shock it? We were hoping we'd lose enough with splash out as we have kids that are constantly in and out of the pool. After the last shock, we bleached all the toys and floats that go in the pool and washed all the suits in the washer. I'm at a loss and would greatly appreciate any advice! Thanks!
Teresa
Dallas, TX