Pool was great until I left for a week

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Brendon

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Aug 13, 2015
26
Lac La Biche, Alberta
Hello! First time poster (aside from introducing myself). Things had been going great with my pool since I put it up in June. I left for a week in late July and came back to a very green pool. I shocked it (reading some posts here I obviously should have SLAMmed it), and the green disappeared, but the pool stayed very cloudy. Tried a coagulant from the pool supplies store. That did not help. The pool is getting quite green again, so I am considering a SLAM now.

A concern I have is that my CYA is higher than my test strips were leading me to believe. On the Taylor kit it it measured greater than 100 (Middle of letter CYA on the Taylor kit :). Some posts I have read talk about draining some water. Water is fairly cheap here, so not a huge concern if I need to do that. Also, I will likely be closing this pool within a month.

I am looking for any advice on what to do next. I have gone from completely overwhelmed with the information :( to simply confused about my next steps :confused:.

Thanks in advance!

Here are my test results:

PH: 7.7
CYA: Unknown, but >100
CC: .6
FC: 5.4
TA: 100
CH: 130
 
Run another CYA test but this time dilute the test. You want to use half pool water and half tap water and then add the CYA reagent and run the test like you normally would. The result will need to be doubled and this will give you an idea how much over 100 the CYA is.

You will want to drain enough water out of the pool to reduce the CYA to be between 30-50 so it will make the SLAM go faster and use less bleach.
 
Depends on how high your CYA level is. You need to replace the same % of water that you want the CYA level to drop.

Although with a vinyl pool, you should leave at least a foot of water in the shallow end. So, I would just do that, refill, circulate, and re test to see if you need to do it again.

You can see the diluted test method in the Extended Test Instructions.
 
There are many threads. Wooo! Some of the experts can reply with specific water removal ratios against predicated CYA loss. It's amazing. Me, not so much. ha I try to keep it very simple... in my mind anyways. If someone has a confirmed CYA of 100, and they need to lower it to a CYA of 50, that should imply removing/exchanging about 50% of the water. That's easy math for me. :) I can get a little more specific at times (25%, 30%, etc), but it's a general rule to get in the ballpark. So after a diluted test, if you believed your CYA to be 150, then by removing 50% of your water s should drop to about 75. Still higher than what we like, but better than way over 100. Also important to note is that some pools cannot be drained too much at one time because of a high water table (pool popping out) or fear of messing-up the vinyl liner. Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the help! I have exchanged enough water to bring my CYA to 30. Here are my results from this morning before I started a SLAM:

FC: .4
CC: .4
PH: 7.3
TA: 100
CH: 110
CYA: 30

I brought FC up to 15 ppm this morning, and have been testing every two hours. The FC has not decreased in 6 hours. Does this mean the chlorine is not working?
 
Alright! :goodjob: As for the lack of FC loss, keep with it for another day or so to see if there is any change in FC. Let us know how the numbers fluctuate. Based on what you added to your pool when you returned from your trip (post #1), is there any chance your water is actually a clear, emerald green as opposed to a murky/cloudy green?
 

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Okay. Looking at your pic with the ladder and the water also appears to be cloudy, and that when you first returned from your trip you (shocked it) and the green disappeared and left it cloudy for short period, we'll go off of the premise that it needs to be SLAMmed.
Using the two links below, adjust your FC to the corresponding CYA level (should be FC 12):
Pool School - Chlorine / CYA Chart
Poolmath calculator
Take a pic each day about the same time, especially near the ladder where you can see the difference. We should see a transformation over the next few days. If you don't, or if anything changes, let us know.
 
I tried to upload photos, but no matter what size I make them, I get a warning about exceeding my quota.....

Pool still looks murky and blue - but is a little better than yesterday. What makes the water blue and murky?

Here are some numbers (CC got missed - sorry, but, based on recent testing I estimate around .5-.7)

Overnight chlorine loss (8:30 pm until 8 am): 2.5

After adding some chlorine....

FC: 13
TA: 110
CH: 140
 
Have you tried linking your photos from Photobucket? That's what many of us do here on TFP. Upload your pics to Photobucket (free), then copy & paste the IMG code for that pic from Photobucket to your TFP post. Works great.

Based on your slightly elevated (estimated) CC level, and your OCLT that exceeded 1ppm, I suspect your pool is still slowly trying to complete the SLAM which is why it's still a bit cloudy. Stay with it and maintain. The bleach is doing its job.
 
The photos themselves didn't embed into the post, but the link did take me to them so that's good. The fact that your water changed some much from that bright green to the more recent cloudy blue is still very good progress. Looking back to your first post, you were away for almost a month on your trip (late July through most of August), so it had a lot of time to get thick green on you. Plus, it's only been 5 days on this SLAM, and while it may seem to be dragging-on forever, some SLAMs take a week or two depending upon how much organic material was thriving in the water. Keep doing what you're doing (Maintain the FC level, sweep, clean filter, etc) and take a pic each day. Hopefully just as quick as it went from green to blue, it will do the same from blue to clear. We'll keep an eye on this thread to watch your progress.
 

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