Help stabilizing please

uhohh · May 17, 2009

I am wondering if I should just drain and start over.

I have a 15 x 24 oval 12,000 gallons. Here is where we are.

Using trouble free pool kit
13 FC
1 CC
60 T/A
pH is high, dark pink over 8.2 on the kit
NO CYA (when I fill up the tube I can see the black dot on the bottom with the tube all the way full.

My wife threw 7 bags of shock in the pool. Water is clowdy now but not green. She thought that was a good thing. I have been working like crazy and was planning on doing it this week. Anyway can someone give me a hand here?

Thanks in advance.

duraleigh · May 17, 2009

Welcome to the forum.

1. Lower your pH down around 7.4 using muriatic acid....Learn how in Pool School.

2. Continue to run your pump 24/7 and clean your filter so it doesn't get clogged up.

3. Purchase enough CYA to get your pool to around 40ppm

4. You must have patience.....YOu cannot clear you pool overnite....sometimes it takes days.

5. Read all you can in Pool School

6. Shock is not a product (pool stores don't tell you that). It is a process that you do to your pool

7. Keep adding chlorine to your pool to keep it up around that 13ppm level. You must add chlorione constantly to do that.

frustratedpoolmom · May 17, 2009

uhohh said:
I am wondering if I should just drain and start over.

I have a 15 x 24 oval 12,000 gallons. Here is where we are.

Using trouble free pool kit
13 FC
1 CC
60 T/A
pH is high, dark pink over 8.2 on the kit
NO CYA (when I fill up the tube I can see the black dot on the bottom with the tube all the way full.

My wife threw 7 bags of shock in the pool. Water is clowdy now but not green. She thought that was a good thing. I have been working like crazy and was planning on doing it this week. Anyway can someone give me a hand here?

Thanks in advance.

When your FC is above 10, the PH will read false high. You should not try to adjust the PH when the FC is above 10!.

You do need to shock your pool, but it's important to know what you are shocking with. Can you tell us the active ingredient in the powder "shock"?

In most cases it's perfectly safe to shock your pool with liquid chlorine, it's preferred because it's cheap and it doesn't add anything unwanted to your pool.

If your powder shock is Dichlor you have added some CYA that way. If it's Cal-Hypo you have added some calcium. If it's Cal-hypo, that could explain the cloudiness, which is likely temporary. What color was the water before the powder was added? Was it green?

You know you are done shocking when:

You lose less than 1ppm FC overnight;
your CC is .5 or less;
Your water is clear.

Untill these three criteria are met, keep the FC up.

If that was Dichlor, in a couple days retest the CYA level and then add enough CYA seperately to raise it to 30-50. If it was Cal-hypo, that's okay and you just need to use the CYA seperately.

Without CYA, you will lose ALL your FC to sunlight, and you won't clear your pool. But only add enough to bring it to 50, you don't want it to get too high.

uhohh · May 17, 2009

I am using cal hypo, yes the water was green and a little brown. Im still getting debris off the pool floor we had some leaves get in under the cover this winter. Im sure that has something to do with it also.

I will continue to use the hypo cal to shock the pool. And then once FC is .5 and the water is clear I will stop and test again.

Now running in to another issue with my Hayward EC 40 D.E filter with 1.5 HP motor . I have been bumping it every couple hours to get pressure back to normal. Well its not so much the pressure (only around 20 psi) but the flow basically stops out the return. It cranks for about 2 hours and then seems like no water is filtering. low suction at the skimmer and the return basically just spits out.

Thanks for all your help

JasonLion · May 17, 2009

When you have algae growing in the water, DE filters get filled up with debris very quickly. That is the way it is, DE filters better, so more debris more quickly, so more frequent cleaning.

uhohh · May 17, 2009

OK so I really shouldnt worry if I am doing this every couple hours?

Thanks for all the help and advice.

frustratedpoolmom · May 17, 2009

uhohh said:
I am using cal hypo, yes the water was green and a little brown. Im still getting debris off the pool floor we had some leaves get in under the cover this winter. Im sure that has something to do with it also.

I will continue to use the hypo cal to shock the pool. And then once FC is .5 and the water is clear I will stop and test again.

Now running in to another issue with my Hayward EC 40 D.E filter with 1.5 HP motor . I have been bumping it every couple hours to get pressure back to normal. Well its not so much the pressure (only around 20 psi) but the flow basically stops out the return. It cranks for about 2 hours and then seems like no water is filtering. low suction at the skimmer and the return basically just spits out.

Thanks for all your help

Using Calhypo is fine provided your CH level is low or in range - you didn't list CH in your test results above. Follow the CH test instructions very carefully, it is one of the more time consuming tests. You don't want it to get too high and you want to keep the PH below 7.8 to prevent scaling. Is your pool and above ground? If so, Calcium is not necessary in a Vinyl pool, but it can be a problem if it gets too high.

You want the FC to hold overnight and you want the CC to be .5 or less. "Once FC is .5" - typo?
:wink:

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