We moved to Northeast West Virginia (it still makes me laugh to say that), and the house had a pool covered in a green cover anchored to concrete. Removing the cover revealed a dark green opaque mess in mid-June. I’ve never owned a pool; the previous owner said they usually use about 12 lbs of shock. I spent a couple of days learning the plumbing, pump, etc., and I started to add shock. It started to clear slowly, but not by much. The internet searches began, and I bought a test kit that only measured Chlorine to 5ppm and had enough to check CYA twice. Staring down the tube, trying to figure out if I could see the dot, I thought, “This can’t be right. There aren’t numbers that far down the tube.” My best guess is that the CYA was well over 200, which I now think would be unsurprising if they kept throwing shock powder at it.
Cycle draining the pool with the skimmer alone took a while, as there was no floor drain. Thankfully, there is a second well just for the pool. Even running on off cycles with the water would eventually get silty brown water. A week later, I got a light green, slightly cloudy pool, but I could see the bottom.
I had a bottle of Clorox algaecide, and still being a noob, I thought, "Oh, this will probably help," and it did… sort of…
It became a blueish, mostly clear pool, but the chlorine levels were down… so I added more chlorine. I’m sure some of you are shaking your head and laughing. The way I would describe the color was Statue of Liberty green. I should have just returned to Trouble Free Pool, but no, I had dumped copper algaecide in my pool and then oxidized it with chlorine. I reached for the Clorox stain metal and scale but did not open it. I did SLAM instead and then vacuumed the floor as the metal fell out of suspension twice daily. The pool started turning blueish again, and I returned to Trouble Free Pool and read some more. I ran across a post about polyfill and iron, picked some up, and packed the skimmer baskets full. I kept checking them every few minutes at first, imagining polyfill getting sucked through the basket into the pump, but it stayed, and so I waited. The following day, I pulled the polyfill out, and it was dark rusty brown in both skimmers, but the pool was finally blue.
My total alkalinity is still a bit high, so I need to lower the pH and aerate, but it’s swimmable, and looking at the clear blue pool makes me smile.
I expect to make many more mistakes, but I could not have done this without this site and the community that holds it together. I just wanted to say thank you to all of you.
-Trisen
Cycle draining the pool with the skimmer alone took a while, as there was no floor drain. Thankfully, there is a second well just for the pool. Even running on off cycles with the water would eventually get silty brown water. A week later, I got a light green, slightly cloudy pool, but I could see the bottom.
I had a bottle of Clorox algaecide, and still being a noob, I thought, "Oh, this will probably help," and it did… sort of…
It became a blueish, mostly clear pool, but the chlorine levels were down… so I added more chlorine. I’m sure some of you are shaking your head and laughing. The way I would describe the color was Statue of Liberty green. I should have just returned to Trouble Free Pool, but no, I had dumped copper algaecide in my pool and then oxidized it with chlorine. I reached for the Clorox stain metal and scale but did not open it. I did SLAM instead and then vacuumed the floor as the metal fell out of suspension twice daily. The pool started turning blueish again, and I returned to Trouble Free Pool and read some more. I ran across a post about polyfill and iron, picked some up, and packed the skimmer baskets full. I kept checking them every few minutes at first, imagining polyfill getting sucked through the basket into the pump, but it stayed, and so I waited. The following day, I pulled the polyfill out, and it was dark rusty brown in both skimmers, but the pool was finally blue.
My total alkalinity is still a bit high, so I need to lower the pH and aerate, but it’s swimmable, and looking at the clear blue pool makes me smile.
I expect to make many more mistakes, but I could not have done this without this site and the community that holds it together. I just wanted to say thank you to all of you.
-Trisen
