This pool is going to kill me or bankrupt me

[trinculo54]

Okay... I've been lurking on here for about 3 weeks and I've learned a bit here and there. I am new to pools having bought our house last year with a 15 x 30 inground pool (about 22,000 gallons... I think). So far this year I have not been able to get the green out of the pool much to the dislike of my wife and 4 kids. At first I was just throwing chemicals in...I would go to the pool store and I first bought the opening kit (2 of them for my pool size) and it had some algae killer and 4 gallons of shock... dumped it in the murky green black waters and crossed my fingers. It looked like it was working okay but it foamed like crazy... I read here about that and the bad things algae killer can do. I bought some test strips (bad I know now) and balanced the pH and shocked it a a few more times... still was never able to get the green to go away... I even bought the "Green to Clean" which I don't think did anything. I've bought more chlorine than I care to admit to and I am too far down the rabbit hole to call a pro (I tried earlier in the season tried but they are too busy). Now in the last week or so I bought a K-2006 test kit and saw my CYA was low (non existent really) so I boosted that up. I then shocked the pool again... it's a little less green (can see the bottom of the shallow end kind of) and I have been vacuuming and scrubbing the sides. I put in an extra bottle of chlorine and as of about an hour ago I have the following reading:
pH 7.7
TA 130
FC 9.2
CYA 65

Thanks for any thoughts

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! To clear your pool you need to complete the SLAM Process process. Ideally your CYA should be around 30 for a slam, so I would advise a partial drain and refill to drop the CYA level. PoolMath can tell you how much water you should replace to reach 30 ppm. Next you need to be using liquid chlorine, either plain, unscented bleach from the grocery store or the higher strength stuff from the pool store. Liquid chlorine will not add CYA to your pool.

Stop buying the pool store remedies. The Green to Clean you added did do something, it increased your chlorine demand! Hopefully non of the algaecide contained copper. The best thing you can do to clear the pool quickly is to raise the pool to slam levels as often as possible, vacuum and brush the sides daily, and clean the filter after a 20% increase from clean pressure.

 

[greddy09sc]

Pool math suggest to replace about 50% of your water to lower your CYA to 30. I need to do the same since my CYA is at 60. I see this in the pool math
"[FONT=&quot]Note: It can take solid stabilizer up to a week to dissolve. It will also lower your pH"

[/FONT]After refilling, i need to add stabalizer?

 

[cj3737]

Nope.. Stabilizer is CYA and you don't need any more...
Zea is correct.. 30 is ideal so you can work your way up to normal operating levels... Id say if you can get down to 40 youll still be golden

 

[atttech-2]

After refilling, i need to add stabilizer?

CYA is stabilizer so no that is why you did the drain in the first place.

As a general rule of thumb you can see the level of the CYA added reflected in testing 2 days after it's dissolved. 1 week is just to be on the safe side as long as you are sure about what you started with, the volume of the pool, and how much you add you can just assume it raises up to the level predicted in Pool Math.

A CYA of 60 is a bit high for a manually chlorinated pool but well within the range that many manage at. A drain and refill is your choice, I would just leave it and hope it comes down during the drain and refill that the rains will bring. Unless you need to SLAM then perhaps is makes sense but event that could be managed if you were willing.

Edit: that is the second time today cj3737 got the jump on me

 

[cj3737]

"Note: It can take solid stabilizer up to a week to dissolve. It will also lower your pH"

For future reference... Solid stabilizer will dissolve faster in front of the return. You can speed the process along by squeezing the sock a few times to get it all wet. I dissolved 4 lb in under 2 hours by squeezing it. Your CYA test results wont be conclusive until up to 48 hours later

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Edit: that is the second time today cj3737 got the jump on me