Hi all
So I bought a house and moved into the property last week Saturday.
Having viewed the house a few months before, the pool was perfect. Blue and crystal clear.
We live in Johannesburg South Africa, and the area was hit by a massive hail storm... when we moved into the house the pool was green and cloudy. Couldn't even see the first step (about 1ft deep)... pic attached. About 6 floaters on the surface( which I pulled out immediately)
The pump wasn't running (which I fixed), backwashed and rinsed, and bombed the pool with about 12 cups of chlorine
Then i took a sample to a pool store down the road from me. The guy sold me about 3 litres of clarifier and 3 litres of something else to toss in the pool. Also fixed my barracuda mx-8 while I was at it. His test said chlorine was too high (obvious), stabiliser was way too high (from those floater things), and ph was a bit low.
I got home, and the mx-8 was stuck. The whole pool floor was covered in leaves and debris from the hail storm. Not being able to see the bottom I scooped and vacuumed as much of the rubbish up as I could, and then added the chemicals according to directions.
By Tuesday, the pool hadn't even budged colour, but the mx-8 was getting stuck less and less, must have emptied the filter baskets at least 100 times in two days. Lol. Topped up the pool with borehole water.
A friend arrived, with two products from HTH. Green to Blue, and Clarifier. Tossed all of that in the pool one shot. Pic of the result in action...
I tested (HTH pool kit as sold here http://www.hth.co.za/index.php/hth-products2/equipment),
free chlorine was at about 5 ppm, suddenly almost no stabiliser, and ph below 7, total alkalinity bottom of the scale.
Went to the pool shop and bought alkalinity up, threw in what was supposed to be enough, and after 24 hours, I noticed a tiny change after test, but not nearly enough to get it in the correct range.
Anyways, the mx-8 was still getting stuck all the time, so I thought I would spend the time getting rid of all possible debris rather. Got an inline filter on the vacuum line to make emptying easier, and set to work with the vacuum attachment on filter for about a day. Pulled another ton of leaves and sticks out of the pool doing that.
Must have backwashed 40 times in the last week to get rid of all the muck that was settling to the bottom from those clarifying products.
Now, the pool has turned blue slowly. I'm going to the shop after work to get the stabiliser and alkalinity products I need to get those levels right, but heres my problem now. (pic is about 2 days old, its even bluer now)
The pool is murky, maybe 3-4ft visibility at best from the surface. There seems to be remnants of the clarifying products still in the water, because at both outlets there is light frothing of the water all the time. When I throw chlorine in in the mornings, it seems to be held in suspension, I can see it floating around on top and in the water...
I was advised to throw in HTH extreme flocculant (but after reading here have decided not to). Left the pool running all day, so will see when I get home what it looks like...
Has anyone got any advice for me? I can't seem to get these nice testing kits like you get in the states, but the HTH kit gives me FC, PH, Acid Demand, and TA levels...
So I bought a house and moved into the property last week Saturday.
Having viewed the house a few months before, the pool was perfect. Blue and crystal clear.
We live in Johannesburg South Africa, and the area was hit by a massive hail storm... when we moved into the house the pool was green and cloudy. Couldn't even see the first step (about 1ft deep)... pic attached. About 6 floaters on the surface( which I pulled out immediately)
The pump wasn't running (which I fixed), backwashed and rinsed, and bombed the pool with about 12 cups of chlorine
Then i took a sample to a pool store down the road from me. The guy sold me about 3 litres of clarifier and 3 litres of something else to toss in the pool. Also fixed my barracuda mx-8 while I was at it. His test said chlorine was too high (obvious), stabiliser was way too high (from those floater things), and ph was a bit low.
I got home, and the mx-8 was stuck. The whole pool floor was covered in leaves and debris from the hail storm. Not being able to see the bottom I scooped and vacuumed as much of the rubbish up as I could, and then added the chemicals according to directions.
By Tuesday, the pool hadn't even budged colour, but the mx-8 was getting stuck less and less, must have emptied the filter baskets at least 100 times in two days. Lol. Topped up the pool with borehole water.
A friend arrived, with two products from HTH. Green to Blue, and Clarifier. Tossed all of that in the pool one shot. Pic of the result in action...
I tested (HTH pool kit as sold here http://www.hth.co.za/index.php/hth-products2/equipment),
free chlorine was at about 5 ppm, suddenly almost no stabiliser, and ph below 7, total alkalinity bottom of the scale.
Went to the pool shop and bought alkalinity up, threw in what was supposed to be enough, and after 24 hours, I noticed a tiny change after test, but not nearly enough to get it in the correct range.
Anyways, the mx-8 was still getting stuck all the time, so I thought I would spend the time getting rid of all possible debris rather. Got an inline filter on the vacuum line to make emptying easier, and set to work with the vacuum attachment on filter for about a day. Pulled another ton of leaves and sticks out of the pool doing that.
Must have backwashed 40 times in the last week to get rid of all the muck that was settling to the bottom from those clarifying products.
Now, the pool has turned blue slowly. I'm going to the shop after work to get the stabiliser and alkalinity products I need to get those levels right, but heres my problem now. (pic is about 2 days old, its even bluer now)
The pool is murky, maybe 3-4ft visibility at best from the surface. There seems to be remnants of the clarifying products still in the water, because at both outlets there is light frothing of the water all the time. When I throw chlorine in in the mornings, it seems to be held in suspension, I can see it floating around on top and in the water...
I was advised to throw in HTH extreme flocculant (but after reading here have decided not to). Left the pool running all day, so will see when I get home what it looks like...
Has anyone got any advice for me? I can't seem to get these nice testing kits like you get in the states, but the HTH kit gives me FC, PH, Acid Demand, and TA levels...
.
