First time using 2006C. Is my water really this bad?

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M

Majindro

Member
May 25, 2022
12
Michigan
Pool Size
22000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
So I live in Michigan, just had my pool opened a week ago. It was neon green. My normal process is buy a green to blue kit, run it through and use test strips to balance things and go from there When after a few days, this killed the green, it is now so cloudy I can't see the bottom. So I decided that since we just happened to be driving to my buddy who lives next to a pool store, so I would get a water sample test done. They told me I needed to add 20lbs of Alkaline to my pool. After thinking that was a crazy amount, I got on my old pal Google and it led me here. I did some reading, ordered the 2006C and watched some videos on how to do it. While I waited for it to get here, I continued to add a bottle of liquid chlorine a day, Got my test in, went out and did all the numbers. The first time I ran through, I got 0 FC, under 7PH, 0 CYA and 80 Alkanity. I didn't trust my numbers since it was the first time doing it, so repeated everything again and got 7.4ph the 2nd time. Everything else was the same. So redid the PH test one last time and after it came back 7.4, I figure I botched the first test and the last 2 were correct.

So I added 2 gallons of chlorine and a 4lb bag of Stablizer and went to bed. Woke up this morning and redid the numbers. My FC was 0 again. My CYA still so low I see the black dot with the test tube full after doing 7ml of water, 7ml of the regent. Water is incredibly cloudy. I am assuming at this point, because my CYA is so low, the chlorine is just rapidly burning off? I added one more bag of CYA and one more bottle of cholorine and headed off to work where I'm typing this. According to the CYA I have, 2 bags should be enough to raise my pool ~50ppm. So when I get home, I'll retest that and see if it finally gives me a reading. Does anything seem like a glaring mistake here? I just feel like I'm dumping so much chlorine in the pool, but since the FC is always so low when I test it, I'm assuming it's working.
 
You assumptions are pretty much correct.

Please read "The "ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School. It'll help a lot to better understand what we teach.

You should SLAM the pool (there;s an article in pool school). You will lose a lot more chlorine but that process will get your pool back to crystal clear.

Don't raise your CYA to 50......calculate enough to get it to 30 or so. That will make your SLAM easier.
 
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No big mistakes, in fact you're moving in the right direction by reading in advance, testing with a reliable kit, and treating on your own. :goodjob: But I will say this. When you get home, let us know how you added the CYA and if it has changed. If you still show zero CYA, we'll give you some specific instructions to remedy the situation. Welcome to TFP! :wave:

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Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
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Texas Splash said:
No big mistakes, in fact you're moving in the right direction by reading in advance, testing with a reliable kit, and treating on your own. :goodjob: But I will say this. When you get home, let us know how you added the CYA and if it has changed. If you still show zero CYA, we'll give you some specific instructions to remedy the situation. Welcome to TFP! :wave:

www.troublefreepool.com

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
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I think I can already say I did this wrong. I followed the instructions on the bag, which just say set pool to recirculate and add to skimmer slowly. So I sat there for about 5 minutes and just slowly poured it into the skimmer. Now I see the suggestion about filling up a sock and dropping that in the basket. So I'll wait a few days before doing anything else with the CYA and see where it stabilizes at. So it's pretty normal for your FC to burn off in hours when the pool is this bad and CYA is this low? That's scary when I look back to the last few years where I basically just added a gallon of chlorine every 2-3 days and called it good lol.
 
Majindro said:
So it's pretty normal for your FC to burn off in hours when the pool is this bad and CYA is this low?
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On a hot sunny day - yes. With a low or zero CYA, the FC will disappear very quickly. The chlorine will also be very strong without CYA to buffer it. But when people open in the spring, sometimes we find unusual activity occurred (chemically) over the winter. This sometimes requires a more aggressive FC tactic in a precise timely manner. So we'll wait to hear back from you about the CYA and go from there.
 
Texas Splash said:
On a hot sunny day - yes. With a low or zero CYA, the FC will disappear very quickly. The chlorine will also be very strong without CYA to buffer it. But when people open in the spring, sometimes we find unusual activity occurred (chemically) over the winter. This sometimes requires a more aggressive FC tactic in a precise timely manner. So we'll wait to hear back from you about the CYA and go from there.
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Sounds good. should I continue to have my wife test and add chlorine as the day goes to keep up with SLAM?
 
Majindro said:
should I continue to have my wife test and add chlorine as the day goes to keep up with SLAM?
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Since the granules are just sitting in the filter, I'm a little concerned about the timing and dosage amounts. For today, just have her add one gallon mid day which is only about 4 ppm or so for you. Then this evening check the CYA again to see if there is any movement. I'd hate to take the FC up to a higher SLAM level when the CYA hasn't registered yet.
 
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If you look at the "effects of adding" part in the Pool Math app, adding 1 gallon of 10% bleach will raise your chlorine 4.5. As @Texas Splash mentions, on a sunny day, that can burn off, even with normal CYA. If the CYA is not circulated yet, the chlorine will burn through faster. If you have something growing in the pool, it will burn even faster. That's why the SLAM is mentioned, you need to go through that to get the water to TFP clear.

You will find a lot of talk about CYA disbursement, the sock method is a favorite. I found a hair net tied to a pole, then dangled over one of the returns to be my favorite. dissolves rather quickly, but I also found it takes several hours, sometimes even a day to get a good reading on the pool. You will also see a lot of recommendations to ease into the amount you should add. You can always add more slowly, but if you add too much at once, you can't take it back. 30 is a good number to start with for the SLAM, but if you get to 50 after you added it all, you just have to adjust your chlorine numbers to match during the process.
 
Texas Splash said:
Since the granules are just sitting in the filter, I'm a little concerned about the timing and dosage amounts. For today, just have her add one gallon mid day which is only about 4 ppm or so for you. Then this evening check the CYA again to see if there is any movement. I'd hate to take the FC up to a higher SLAM level when the CYA hasn't registered yet.
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Will do. I had it set to recirculate when I did it, so more likely the granules are on the floor in my pool. So I'll just message her to make sure and give it a quick brushing every few hours to help stir them up.
 
Majindro said:
so more likely the granules are on the floor in my pool. So I'll just message her to make sure and give it a quick brushing every few hours to help stir them up.
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Yikes! I hope they didn't sit for too long and bleach the liner. If the granules are still somewhat solid, maybe she can scoop them up? Of if you have a vacuum just let them get sucked into the filter?
 

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Texas Splash said:
Yikes! I hope they didn't sit for too long and bleach the liner. If the granules are still somewhat solid, maybe she can scoop them up? Of if you have a vacuum just let them get sucked into the filter?
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I make sure to brush it every few hours when I'm home. So it would have sat over night, but not sure how much hadn't dissolved by then since I put the stablizer in around 7pm and brushed it at 9 and 11 before bed. So I don't think it'd be too bad. I have a robovacuum. Would having it run and suck the granules into the hopper be a good plan? The water should help break it down as it flushes through the hopper.
 
Majindro said:
Would having it run and suck the granules into the hopper be a good plan?
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If the granules are still solid and on the floor, yes. We know from experience solid granules will bleach vinyl.
 
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Majindro said:
Would having it run and suck the granules into the hopper be a good plan?
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Depends on what filter you have in the robot. Some of those particles will be dispersed, others caught in the filter of the robot. You may want to capture some of that anyway in the robot and get it out of the water. If you put enough in to get to 50, and you really want 30 for the ideal SLAM conditions, getting some out would only hurt the wallet as later on you eventually want to get to add more back in after you clear SLAM for the TFP maintain numbers.
 
Okay, pool is being vacuumed. I did some actual math on the CYA I added. I had a full 4lb bag of HTH Stablizar, and one that was a partial ~3/4 full. So all in, I estimate 7lbs. Based on the numbers on the back of the bag, 7lbs in a 22k gallon pool should be enough to raise it around 35ppm ( i thought they were 5lb bags, turns out they are 4lb bags so my initial number in the first post was high). So assuming I started at 0, which I believe it was since I hadn't added any this year and my initial reading was off the chart low. I don't think I messed up too badly and it shouldn't raise the CYA as much as I initially thought. So wife is vacuuming the pool and I will wait until at least tomorrow morning to do a new CYA reading to give everything time to mix in. Meanwhile I'll get her to add one gallon of chrloine added around lunch and go from there.
 
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Texas Splash said:
If the granules are still solid and on the floor, yes. We know from experience solid granules will bleach vinyl.
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One quick question while I'm thinking about it. I'd guess my water temp is currently around 60 degrees. Would running the heater help or hurt this process? And would it even be safe to run the heater with the chemicals out of wack like this?
 
Unless you have a bypass you're using the pool water is already running through the heater, so any issues caused by pool water chemistry will happen whether or not the heater is running.
 
Okay got home, checked my levels. FC was 0, wife added chlorine about 4 hours ago. So I added 2 bottles of Chlorine, went to have dinner and came back after an hour to measure.
FC=7.4
CYA=35
Ph=7
CH=200
TA=100

Wife measured the CYA at 35 around 1:00, so when I measured 5 hours later and it's still at 35, I feel comfortable moving forward for now. Going to aim for a SLAM value of 12. Going to wait hour to see what the FC reads. As long as it's around 7, I'll add at least one more bottle and that should be good. Then I'll make sure and check the CYA again tomorrow and the following mornings to make sure it's leveled off. I guess the question now is is it imperitive to get over that target of 12? I would guess if I add one more full bottle, the value would hit ~11. Should I add a partial, or will that be close enough?
 
You want to go to your SLAM target, but no need to go over it. Note that we round up on CYA so your SLAM level is 16 for 40ppm of CYA. also you can use 10ml of water and count each drop as 0.5ppm of FC to save yourself some reagent.
 
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IceShadow said:
You want to go to your SLAM target, but no need to go over it. Note that we round up on CYA so your SLAM level is 16 for 40ppm of CYA. also you can use 10ml of water and count each drop as 0.5ppm of FC to save yourself some reagent.
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Ah sounds good. 2 full bottles it is then. That should be around 15 and some change. Then back to the store to buy more.. I figured 3 cases would be enough for now lol.
 
Okay had it at 15.5 when I went to bed. Woke up and it's now 12.5. Sounds like it's finally getting under control. Loads of stuff on the bottom this morning and a lot less cloudy. Going to add half a bottle now and half a bottle around lunch time after a good vacuuming.
 
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