Hey y'all. I'm new to this forum. Last year we purchased this home in the middle of pool season and it was being maintained by a pool service. The pool is an in-ground vinyl liner 36x18 with diving well (unsure of volume). It has a 1.5 hp Hayward Century pump and Pentair FNS Plus 60 Sq ft. DE Filter. The pool came with a very old suction side Kreepy Krawly vacuum, which I removed because there is only one skimmer and no other inlets so the water line couldn't skim with the vacuum being used. Now I use a Aquabot Pro IG robotic cleaner instead.
Here's a photo album: TFP - Album on Imgur I can't figure out how to attach more than 2 photos directly.
I took over and read some online materials, but hadn't found TFP yet. There were still lots of chemicals in the closets when we bought the house: clortabs, powder shock, DE powder, alkalinity down, and muriatic acid. I immediately bought a bunch of baking soda and borax to deal with raising Ph and alkalinity. After the shock was used, I sourced a local pool store that sold liquid chlorine (13%) as a cost savings measure. I was able to keep the levels balanced and everything was fantastic. In the Winter as a direction of my pool store, I shocked the pool every 2 weeks instead of every week. Well, our weather wasn't as cold as usual (didn't even freeze once) and I ended up with this awful mustard algae bloom. I put off getting rid of it and last week I tried Doheney's Super Algaecide. That didn't work. I just read about the SLAM, but I've been having some issues getting the Alkalinity and Ph up to normal levels (not sure if this is because of the algae directly) and because the Ph and alkalinity are low, I've been shocking twice a week to keep TC and FC at normal levels because the chlorine breaks down faster.
Any idea why the baking soda and borax aren't bringing up the levels?
Here's a photo album: TFP - Album on Imgur I can't figure out how to attach more than 2 photos directly.
I took over and read some online materials, but hadn't found TFP yet. There were still lots of chemicals in the closets when we bought the house: clortabs, powder shock, DE powder, alkalinity down, and muriatic acid. I immediately bought a bunch of baking soda and borax to deal with raising Ph and alkalinity. After the shock was used, I sourced a local pool store that sold liquid chlorine (13%) as a cost savings measure. I was able to keep the levels balanced and everything was fantastic. In the Winter as a direction of my pool store, I shocked the pool every 2 weeks instead of every week. Well, our weather wasn't as cold as usual (didn't even freeze once) and I ended up with this awful mustard algae bloom. I put off getting rid of it and last week I tried Doheney's Super Algaecide. That didn't work. I just read about the SLAM, but I've been having some issues getting the Alkalinity and Ph up to normal levels (not sure if this is because of the algae directly) and because the Ph and alkalinity are low, I've been shocking twice a week to keep TC and FC at normal levels because the chlorine breaks down faster.
Any idea why the baking soda and borax aren't bringing up the levels?