Hello,
I'm having a heck of a time opening up my pool. Could use some assistance from you experts.
I assure you I have read a lot of the pool school articles. I feel like I am very close, and I'm hoping you can maybe confirm some of my assumptions.
My #1 problem right now I think is that I don't have a FAS-DPD(?) Chlorine test kit. I would order the kit that is recommended here, but I was in such a dire place last week I just bought the medium sized kit from the pool store last weekend because I was tired of dealing with them.
I'm here because without even reading this forum, I could tell that the pool store wasn't really trying to help me look at my numbers, they were just looking for the next product to pool off their shelf for me to spend money on. To me, that has been obvious, and this forum helped me confirm that I wasn't just being paranoid.
Now, onto the pool.
These are my numbers:
Tested earlier this week (with my kit)
CH - 450 I know this is high, not sure I need to worry about this right now in the grand scheme.
Alk - 100
Tested today:
PH - ~7.3/7.4 (in between the color gradients, but this is the highest the PH has gone in the past few weeks)
Free Chlorine - Woke up today to 0. Was using shock for the past few weeks (I think Cal Hypo, need to verify. It was the popular "Turbo Shock" kind at the pool store). Switched to liquid chlorine. Chlorine was disappearing pretty quickly in the sunlight, but seemed to be holding steady overnight (Do NOT yet have the proper FAS-DPD kit). The whole time prior to early this week I had 0 conditioner in the pool. Realized this was probably the main issue I had. Added a jug of liquid CYA either Monday or Tuesday, and had some granular in a sock which still hasn't fully dissolved after over a week in the sock, but is just about there now. Thanks to the forum I started sqeezing the sock so that the white cloud of dissolved CYA would disperse).
CYA reading today is at 30. I know this is on the low end. I still have the granular dissolving and I just added the CYA so I will wait a few more days, test again, and re-add. I will probably just get the liquid. I have a SWG which is currently turned off. I need to get my salt up, I haven't even bothered with this or the SWG as I've been trying to fight the main problem I have right now ...
Cloudiness. My pool was pretty bad. I shocked and killed algae in a very green pool about 5 weeks ago, then my pool motor went out, then I had to do it all over again a week or two later. I feel all this cloudiness is the dead algae. There's a thin white layer settled on my steps.
Problem is I have cartridges. They get full in less than a day and two of my filters have broken when I wasn't paying attention. I have 4 good filters now, but I have not put them back in.
Tried adding Pool First Aid this week after everything was good, I don't notice it clearing anything up, maybe my pool is larger than I think it is. I thought it was ~12,500, but maybe it's closer to the 15,000. It's on odd shape "sport" pool, so I have to estimate it's in between there somewhere.
Two nights ago when I felt there was some CYA in there, I put some liquid chlorine. It held through the next day at just about 5ppm, held good until noon or so before going down to 4 (heavy sun). This morning it was at 0. I'm guessing the sun just ate it up, but can't positively rule out algae except to say that I really believe that I've killed it all (again, need the test). I just dumped a full bottle of liquid chlorine, I know that will take me up to shock level right now.
I think at this point I just need to suck it up and get this dead algae out of my pool, but I don't have a vacuum and I have a cartridge filter so I don't think I can just vacuum it out to waste because I don't know that i have that option.
Any advice?
I'm having a heck of a time opening up my pool. Could use some assistance from you experts.
I assure you I have read a lot of the pool school articles. I feel like I am very close, and I'm hoping you can maybe confirm some of my assumptions.
My #1 problem right now I think is that I don't have a FAS-DPD(?) Chlorine test kit. I would order the kit that is recommended here, but I was in such a dire place last week I just bought the medium sized kit from the pool store last weekend because I was tired of dealing with them.
I'm here because without even reading this forum, I could tell that the pool store wasn't really trying to help me look at my numbers, they were just looking for the next product to pool off their shelf for me to spend money on. To me, that has been obvious, and this forum helped me confirm that I wasn't just being paranoid.
Now, onto the pool.
These are my numbers:
Tested earlier this week (with my kit)
CH - 450 I know this is high, not sure I need to worry about this right now in the grand scheme.
Alk - 100
Tested today:
PH - ~7.3/7.4 (in between the color gradients, but this is the highest the PH has gone in the past few weeks)
Free Chlorine - Woke up today to 0. Was using shock for the past few weeks (I think Cal Hypo, need to verify. It was the popular "Turbo Shock" kind at the pool store). Switched to liquid chlorine. Chlorine was disappearing pretty quickly in the sunlight, but seemed to be holding steady overnight (Do NOT yet have the proper FAS-DPD kit). The whole time prior to early this week I had 0 conditioner in the pool. Realized this was probably the main issue I had. Added a jug of liquid CYA either Monday or Tuesday, and had some granular in a sock which still hasn't fully dissolved after over a week in the sock, but is just about there now. Thanks to the forum I started sqeezing the sock so that the white cloud of dissolved CYA would disperse).
CYA reading today is at 30. I know this is on the low end. I still have the granular dissolving and I just added the CYA so I will wait a few more days, test again, and re-add. I will probably just get the liquid. I have a SWG which is currently turned off. I need to get my salt up, I haven't even bothered with this or the SWG as I've been trying to fight the main problem I have right now ...
Cloudiness. My pool was pretty bad. I shocked and killed algae in a very green pool about 5 weeks ago, then my pool motor went out, then I had to do it all over again a week or two later. I feel all this cloudiness is the dead algae. There's a thin white layer settled on my steps.
Problem is I have cartridges. They get full in less than a day and two of my filters have broken when I wasn't paying attention. I have 4 good filters now, but I have not put them back in.
Tried adding Pool First Aid this week after everything was good, I don't notice it clearing anything up, maybe my pool is larger than I think it is. I thought it was ~12,500, but maybe it's closer to the 15,000. It's on odd shape "sport" pool, so I have to estimate it's in between there somewhere.
Two nights ago when I felt there was some CYA in there, I put some liquid chlorine. It held through the next day at just about 5ppm, held good until noon or so before going down to 4 (heavy sun). This morning it was at 0. I'm guessing the sun just ate it up, but can't positively rule out algae except to say that I really believe that I've killed it all (again, need the test). I just dumped a full bottle of liquid chlorine, I know that will take me up to shock level right now.
I think at this point I just need to suck it up and get this dead algae out of my pool, but I don't have a vacuum and I have a cartridge filter so I don't think I can just vacuum it out to waste because I don't know that i have that option.
Any advice?