Made a mistake w cya and chlorine

[Cylon]

I opened my pool on Saturday and the water was black and little worm looking things floating..thousands of them. I didnt panic, I started the shock process but this is my big mistake. When I closed the pool I had 50 CYA so I was shocking based on that number. I was consistently at 20-25 ppm of chlorine.

As of 2 days ago the water is now cleaner, I can see bottom but still cloudy. I also noticed that I was losing chlorine way faster than I would imagine based on previous experience, I tested CYA and it was 0!

Did I do any damage to my pool liner/equipment? That is was too high chlorine.

4-5 days of keeping 20-25 ppm at cya 0.

 

[duraleigh]

Help us understand how quickly you are now losing chlorine? Can you give us a time frame during which you lost a specific amount? i.e.

"dosed 10 ppm FC at 10:00AM and retested at 11:00 ppm and FC was down to 3 ppm" That'll really help us not jump to a conclusion.

 

[Cylon]

Help us understand how quickly you are now losing chlorine? Can you give us a time frame during which you lost a specific amount? i.e.

"dosed 10 ppm FC at 10:00AM and retested at 11:00 ppm and FC was down to 3 ppm" That'll really help us not jump to a conclusion.

I shocked every morning and night only, before and after work. On weekend when I was off (Sunday & Monday) I also added mid day. The water went from black to blue around Wednesday morning.

I would shock pool to 20-25ppm in the PM (8pm) everyday.

In the mornings I would bring it back up to 20-25ppm, in the earlier days I was losing alot overnight, past 2 days very little.When I get back from work at 7pm it would be at 0, and I brought it to 20-25ppm


Started shocking Saturday night, stopped tonight. I brought the pool to 25ppm about 6 different times since then...mostly overnight

Positive note, Ive had nothing but sun during the day everyday...bad thing I brought it to 25ppm after sunset


last year I didnt lose CYA this year my cover ripped so that is why my water was black and I must have lost CYA somehow...I assumed CYA doesnt go down...bad assumption

 

[Texas Splash]

Normally CYA doesn't just vanish, but in the winter, if environmental conditions are just right (or wrong) and FC drops too low, it can convert and disappear. You have a couple choices that I would recommend: NOTE - (You can do option 1 first or try option 2 first, whichever you prefer based on water availability)
1 - Do a partial drain to remove some of the bad water (about 50% perhaps) then refill to help kick-start the cleaning process better (then start option 2)
2 - Add only enough bleach to get your FC to 10. Test it again in 10 minutes. If your FC help between 5-10, then increase it to 12, add stabilizer for a target of 30, and perform a SLAM (link below). If your FC fell below 5 after 10 minutes, increase it back immediately and test again in 10 minutes. Continue this cycle until the FC holds after 10 minutes.

As you can see it's very important to stay on-top of the FC testing in this early stage - every 10 minutes. It's required to allow the FC to hold better and overtake what's in the water. Like I said above, you can drain a little first, or go straight to option 2 and just start the 10-min drill, but either way you need to watch the FC very closely for the first few hours until it breaks this "fever" it has. Don't add stabilizer until you see the FC is holding on its own. Let us know if you have any problems or questions.

 

[Richard320]

Short answer: probably not. Worse you would have done is bleach the liner a little, and it's too late to do anything about that anyway.

 

[duraleigh]

I do not see ammonia in the test results. OP is holding a residual (just not much).

Cylon, have you read the SLAM article in Pool School? I am pretty sure it's what you need to do to your pool. You have been doing some of it but you haven't been precise enought to get your pool clear. Can you post a complete set of current test results?

 

[Cylon]

I do not see ammonia in the test results. OP is holding a residual (just not much).

Cylon, have you read the SLAM article in Pool School? I am pretty sure it's what you need to do to your pool. You have been doing some of it but you haven't been precise enought to get your pool clear. Can you post a complete set of current test results?

Last night (8pm) it was at 14ppm of chlorine

This morning (8am) it was at 11.5ppm of chlorine and .5ppm of CC

I did not test Ph level, as I added CYA (liquid) last night, this morning I got a reading of 20+ CYA, I added some more to hopefully get it to 30CYA

I am at 120ppm of alkalinity

I was more concerned with damaging my liner than anything, I do not see any bleaching. I hope I did not jeopardize the integrity of the liner or the pool equipment in any way,