First post so go easy on me! Been reading a lot on this site and would appreciate some input from the experts before I proceed much further. It's been quite the year for our pool. This is our third season. We purchased our pool used, tore it down, moved it 200 miles and re-errected at our place. We put a brand new liner in 3 years ago. New sand filter and sand at that point also. The first 2 years the pool was clear and great. We've have a pool place at the end of our road that really seems to know what is going on.
This year though has been different. From when we opened the pool around Memorial day until about the end of June, the water was perfect. Then we started to loose water faster than what we could put in with our hose. We are on well water, but are running softened water into the pool. We also have an iron filter on our water supply. So no water is pretty good going into the pool. Any how, we found the skimmer housing was cracked, we we replaced that. Also found 4 holes in the liner (1 found by me and 3 found by a leak detector company). The holes we think came from our brush. It came with the pool and the edges had been modified and were sharp for some reason. So we think the pool is holding water like it should now but hard to tell since we have been backwashing alot. But the water has been very cloudy and green since the beginning of July. The pool people at the end our our road told us to hit it hard with liquid chlorine at once. Which after reading the SLAM article, it sounds very similar to what we did. Though we didn't maintain it like the article speaks of. Or test to see if we got to the proper FC level. The water did turn more bluish, but never got clear. We've just been using just test strips to check the pool balance, so never could confirm what the actual FC was after we dumped all this liquid shock in. Since July, we've been to the pool place dozens of times. Most of the time they say the pool is balanced, keep the FC high and backwash. Last time there they mentioned that we might have a phosphate issue and when was the last time we changed the sand.
Probably 2 weeks ago, we noticed when we back washed that the sight glass showed the water being the color of milk. The pool place said it was dead algae and keep doing what we have been doing and when was the last time the sand was changed? Reading the article on this site about deep cleaning the sand, I did that this past weekend. Man you should have seen the white water come out of the filter for at least an hour. Back washed after that and the site glass became clear (well cloudy since that is what our water is in the pool.)
Our T-100 kit showed up this week and have tested the last 2 days.
Here are last nights test taken about 10:20
FC = 5 ppm
CC = 1 ppm
TC = 6 ppm
CH = 250 ppm
TA = 110 ppm
CYA = 45
PH = 7.8 - 7.9
I retested the FC, CC, and TC this morning to see if algae were gone using the OCLT test. All numbers were the same as last night. Which I would have thought if we had an algae issue that the FC would have dropped.
The previous day's number were all the same, but FC was at 9, CC still at 1 and TC = 10. We did get a lot of rain yesterday do thinking that's why the FC number dropped.
I guess my plan is today to get the PH down to 7.2-7.4 then SLAM it with the proper amount of bleach, brush and maintain. And hope that takes care of things. Hopefully we can get the PH down today to start the SLAM either tonight or 1st thing tomorrow morning. My wife is at home during the day so can keep an eye on the FC level and add more bleach if need be. The problem is we will be away from home from Friday evening until Sunday evening. Would it be better to wait until we are back home to start the SLAM?
Any other suggestions? HELP!
Thanks,
Greg
This year though has been different. From when we opened the pool around Memorial day until about the end of June, the water was perfect. Then we started to loose water faster than what we could put in with our hose. We are on well water, but are running softened water into the pool. We also have an iron filter on our water supply. So no water is pretty good going into the pool. Any how, we found the skimmer housing was cracked, we we replaced that. Also found 4 holes in the liner (1 found by me and 3 found by a leak detector company). The holes we think came from our brush. It came with the pool and the edges had been modified and were sharp for some reason. So we think the pool is holding water like it should now but hard to tell since we have been backwashing alot. But the water has been very cloudy and green since the beginning of July. The pool people at the end our our road told us to hit it hard with liquid chlorine at once. Which after reading the SLAM article, it sounds very similar to what we did. Though we didn't maintain it like the article speaks of. Or test to see if we got to the proper FC level. The water did turn more bluish, but never got clear. We've just been using just test strips to check the pool balance, so never could confirm what the actual FC was after we dumped all this liquid shock in. Since July, we've been to the pool place dozens of times. Most of the time they say the pool is balanced, keep the FC high and backwash. Last time there they mentioned that we might have a phosphate issue and when was the last time we changed the sand.
Probably 2 weeks ago, we noticed when we back washed that the sight glass showed the water being the color of milk. The pool place said it was dead algae and keep doing what we have been doing and when was the last time the sand was changed? Reading the article on this site about deep cleaning the sand, I did that this past weekend. Man you should have seen the white water come out of the filter for at least an hour. Back washed after that and the site glass became clear (well cloudy since that is what our water is in the pool.)
Our T-100 kit showed up this week and have tested the last 2 days.
Here are last nights test taken about 10:20
FC = 5 ppm
CC = 1 ppm
TC = 6 ppm
CH = 250 ppm
TA = 110 ppm
CYA = 45
PH = 7.8 - 7.9
I retested the FC, CC, and TC this morning to see if algae were gone using the OCLT test. All numbers were the same as last night. Which I would have thought if we had an algae issue that the FC would have dropped.
The previous day's number were all the same, but FC was at 9, CC still at 1 and TC = 10. We did get a lot of rain yesterday do thinking that's why the FC number dropped.
I guess my plan is today to get the PH down to 7.2-7.4 then SLAM it with the proper amount of bleach, brush and maintain. And hope that takes care of things. Hopefully we can get the PH down today to start the SLAM either tonight or 1st thing tomorrow morning. My wife is at home during the day so can keep an eye on the FC level and add more bleach if need be. The problem is we will be away from home from Friday evening until Sunday evening. Would it be better to wait until we are back home to start the SLAM?
Any other suggestions? HELP!
Thanks,
Greg
Yes - SLAM. Raise FC to "20" based on a CYA of 50 and don't stop or let the FC drop until you pass ALL 3 SLAM criteria. Let us know if you have any questions. Nice to have you with us.
