Bout done with this saltwater thing

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J

Joelin

0
May 14, 2015
42
RedBud,IL
OK things have been going along swimmingly (Pun intended ) til about 2 weks ago.
What was left of Trop Storm bill came along and dumped about 4" of rain on us and within hours my salt water pool went from glass to green.

SO what I figured was an alge bloom turned out not to be. Thinking it was alge decided to shock, Put 3lbs of 75% shock in 10400 gals of water with no effect what so ever. End result was whatever is was was not organic so we ended up pumpin down to a bout a foot and refilled, Put the salt in and as expected it cleared up. NOW I would keep gettting these little grennish-brown spots on the floor and they would come right up with the vac so I was thinkin it was pollen. Had alot of that this spring as well.

Fast forward to 2 days ago. Went green again. tried shock no effect.
Finally I took a sample to the hardware store up town and had them check it.

FC 0.2
TC 0.2
CC 0.0
PH (8.6)
CH 336 ppm
CYA 3
Copper 0.3
Iron 0.5

Now they had some stuff thats supposed to take the metal out ???
And I put in 2 lbs of MA to lower the ph. Will check it later when I get home.

Any ideas? Oh Yeah I still intend to post the pic of the ladder impression thats on my liner. Can't see it right now.:confused:
 
Agreed. had the shock left over from before. Thing is, bleach wouldn't make any difference. Whatever is goin on isn't organic.

Also forgot to mention. I had turned off the SWG the day before wondering if it wasn't what is causing it so that maybe wht the FC was low.
 
Your CYA is 3? Is that a typo because you cannot measure it with that degree of accuracy. Whether the CYA be 3 or 30, the FC is way too low and algae will start to grow quickly. Just because you don't see instant results does not mean there isn't anything growing in your water. Do an overnight chlorine loss test and see whether or not you pass to determine if anything is growing in your pool.

What kind of shock were you using, cal-hypo or dichlore?
 
I used Hypo. The cya was 3ppm.
Also like i said, I had turned the swg off the day before so I'm assuming thats why the FC is so low. Normally it would run around 2-2.5 running about 5 hrs a day.
My Point is that much shock in that little water should make some differnce. If it was alge it would turn white and sink. This isn't. Made no difference at all. I think it's the metal but i'm not sure. All I know is we have had a pool for close to 20 years. 12 years at the old place and 8 yrs with this one. Never had any issues at the old place. Moved here and great for 2 yrs, Then had CH problem twice. Was told switch to saltwater and you'll not have any problems. Talked to one guy here said he has not put anything in his pool for 3 yrs, At all. now this has happened twice in less than a month. I did dis-connect the copper bars after the first time. did'nt make any difference. Bout ready to go back to what I was doing before and just replace the liner every 2 years. IDK, at a loss???
 
Well, since you do not have a good test kit with numbers we can trust ... we are at a loss also.

Post up some good numbers when you have them ... if you desire to learn the TFP methods. Or good luck with what has apparently worked for you in the past.
 
Ok, let's take a step back off the ledge....

1) Forget the numbers the hardware store are giving you---you cannot have CYA of 3, like others have said, CYA cannot be measured to single digit accuracy, all of the tests that I know of have a margin of error larger than that, so 3 is nonsense. You NEED a test kit so you KNOW what your numbers really are. Check out this link -- Test Kits

2)Let's say your CYA is that low---it's probably 0, or at least less than 30...That would mean that your FC will never get up to a sustainable level, because the sun will be burning/oxidizing it before it can do anything, unless your intex pool is indoor, which I doubt.

3) That much cal-hypo in that little bit of water DID do something, but your store readings cannot properly tell that---store readings typically cannot read FC levels above 10, and assuming you added 48oz of 75% cal-hypo (I used 73% since there's no way to type 75% in poolmath), you shot your FC up to 25, but immediately/shortly lost it because of no stabilizer.

4) Just because you spiked your FC once doesn't mean you would be out of the woods, and doesn't mean it's not organic...have you read any of the pool school articles yet? Check out this link -- ABC's of Pool Chemistry

I agree with others who are calling for you to dose the pool until you can get a test kit that is capable of getting you actionable readings---if you are not willing to do this, then the group here will not be able to guide you in any real direction...it goes to the idea that you can follow the pool store, or you can follow TFP, but you can't do both or mix some of each...good luck in your decision.
 
The last numbers I had I'll try to do from memory, Don't have them with me.

FC-2.0
PH 7.8
cya 50 ppm

The kit I have won't do the hardness or the metals. Don't mean to sound irritated but just don't understand whats happening
 
Joelin said:
The last numbers I had I'll try to do from memory, Don't have them with me.

FC-2.0
PH 7.8
cya 50 ppm

The kit I have won't do the hardness or the metals. Don't mean to sound irritated but just don't understand whats happening
Click to expand...

What kind of kit do you have? I'm not too worried about the accuracy of the first two right away (they can be easily and quickly fixed if needed), but we want to make sure the third one is accurate, because if it's not and we base a recommendation on it, two things could happen:

1) it's less than 50 and we don't add enough extra CYA to stabilize the FC --- The CYA in a salt pool should be higher, check out this page related to water chemistry recommendations when using a salt chlorinator like yours: Proper Water Chemistry when using SWGs
2) it's more than 50 and we overshoot, which would mean you're draining water to make things right since you can't remove CYA any other way
 

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What kit tests CYA but not CH? We do not generally care about the metal readings unless you have reason to believe you have metals. The numbers they gave for copper and iron would be high enough to potentially cause discolored water and staining and green hair.
 
Well I must admit, They are the cheap strips that came with the swg. so agreed not the most acurate.
that was the reason I took it to the store.
Why I'm thinkin it the metal is because It started with these spots on the bottom. They didn't look like alge, More like little piles of powder that would collect where the water don't cirrculate real well. I could get them out with the vac and they would just keep showing back up the next day as if the filter wasn't catching them. I did try using a puck on them and they didn't change so that why I think it's not alge but I could be wrong.

Thing is, used the hypo shock for years and never had an issue until I started getting the Calcium build up in it. Everyone I talked to with the swg says there the greatest thing and never have any problems. Just kinda dis-heartening.
 
They are good, but they're not the end-all-be-all...they can only do so much, and if your FC needs temporarily exceed that (like in a torrential storm), you have to supplement them with some other form of chlorine (we recommend liquid in this case, because it doesn't add stabilizer or calcium)...most of the time this doesn't happen, but you have to be prepared to handle it when it does.

I bet what you have is organic since you can vacuum it up---I can't recommend enough the necessity to get a good test kit, because without it, you're just guessing, and that wastes money/chemicals at best, and makes difficult to reverse mistakes at worse.

If you think they're metal, rubbing some vitamin C on them would make them go away and indicate that it's metal.
 
Joelin said:
Thats What I did. Almost twice the amount I used to use. I understand the liquid. Idk?
Click to expand...

What's what you did? Add Chlorine?

At any rate, I think you'll be hard pressed to get anyone to make a recommendation to add anything but liquid chlorine between now and such time that you get a reliable test kit (I know it sounds like a broken record and us being picky, but you'd be amazed at how often other kits and especially strips give out bad readings compared to drop based kits).
 

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