What should I do during and after a storm?

[roguegeek]

We've had a ton of rainfall in the last two weeks here. Lots of wind. Lots of debris. The pool clarity was holding up fine for a while, but now it's entirely cloudy. I'll try and get a pic up soon. The spa looks fine, though. Here were the last tests I took when there was a lull in all of the action.

Test	2017-01-03
Free Chlorine	3.4 ppm
Combined Chlorine	0.4 ppm
pH	8.0
Total Alkalinity	70 ppm
Calcium Hardness	290 ppm
Cyanuric Acid	70 ppm
Sodium Chloride (Salt)	3400 ppm
SWG Instant Salt	3400 ppm
Temperature	51 ˚F

After this, I threw in more chlorine (as my generator wont turn on due to the low temperatures) to address FC and more acid to address pH since then, but haven't tested yet. The pool has overflowed several times after I've drained it. I'm actively removing as much debris as I can all the time, but am finding it hard to keep up. We have more rain coming in a couple of days and more next week as well.

So questions. What kind of maintenance should I be doing during a storm? Is there any point in trying to keep it clear during or is it something where you let the storm run its course and then assess afterwards? Knowing there is more rain coming, what should I be doing right now? What should I do afterwards? Just test and address accordingly or is there special care to take right now that's beyond normal maintenance? Just looking to get it all clear again.

Thanks!

Edit: Here's a current measurement. Looks like it ate away all of the chlorine I put in there last time and the constant draining has dropped the salt levels a ton. Help!

Test	2017-01-11
Free Chlorine	1.2 ppm
Combined Chlorine	0 ppm
pH	7.6
Total Alkalinity	60 ppm
Calcium Hardness	240 ppm
Cyanuric Acid	65 ppm
Sodium Chloride (Salt)	2800 ppm
SWG Instant Salt	3000 ppm
Temperature	53 ˚F

 

[roguegeek]

Pics for reference. looked perfect a couple days ago. Now this.

 

[Caco]

Oh mate, that looks awful The water I mean, your pool setup looks beautiful

If it were me I would do the following before a storm
Keep the ph low, like drop it to 7.2. This is because we know the rain could drive the ph up due to aeration and it gives you more of a buffer
Run your chlorine a bit higher than target and keep the level up as much as possible
When you get a break in the weather clear any debris from the pool

Unfortunately with the colour of the pool and the low FC it looks like you have to slam

 

[roguegeek]

Oh mate, that looks awful The water I mean, your pool setup looks beautiful

If it were me I would do the following before a storm
Keep the ph low, like drop it to 7.2. This is because we know the rain could drive the ph up due to aeration and it gives you more of a buffer
Run your chlorine a bit higher than target and keep the level up as much as possible
When you get a break in the weather clear any debris from the pool

Unfortunately with the colour of the pool and the low FC it looks like you have to slam

Ugh. I know it looks horrible. Even with the rain, it looked perfect just three days ago.

Ok, so by slam, I'm assuming you mean shock it. I have not had to shock the pool before, so I have some questions. The chlorinator will not run because of the pool temp right now. Should I get the temperature up and super chlorinate through the cell or should I just leave the temp as is and shock manually? After shocking it, should I expect the clarity to be brought back? Any other feedback is very much appreciated.

 

[Caco]

A shock is half a slam and is missing the most important part, the maintain part. Slam stands for Shock Level And Maintain

A swg cannot shock or slam a pool. It cannot produce enough chlorine fast enough. You will need to treat the pool with liquid chlorine, aka bleach
After your slam, yes the pool will be clear and back to troublefree status

Have a read through the process here and ask away with any and all questions https://www.troublefreepool.com/content/125-slam-shock-level-and-maintain-shockingl

 

[roguegeek]

A shock is half a slam and is missing the most important part, the maintain part. Slam stands for Shock Level And Maintain

A swg cannot shock or slam a pool. It cannot produce enough chlorine fast enough. You will need to treat the pool with liquid chlorine, aka bleach
After your slam, yes the pool will be clear and back to troublefree status

Have a read through the process here and ask away with any and all questions https://www.troublefreepool.com/content/125-slam-shock-level-and-maintain-shockingl

Ok. I'll read though this first before continuing with any other questions.

 

[wjr75]

Your FC is not high enough for a CYA of 70ppm without your T-Cell running. Need to read the CYA/FC chart but you will need to get that pool slammed to clear it up. Good Luck.

 

[roguegeek]

Ok. So the SLAM process makes perfect sense. It's a highly active process and I think I might have a decent amount of fun going through it.

So here's some questions that weren't addressed in the documentation provided. Looks like we have more rain starting tonight (Wed night) and lasting 24 hours (until Thu night). Then a break for four days (Fri-Mon) before another whole week of hard rain (next Tue-Sat). Should I start this process immediately? If not, when should I and what would I do before then beside the draining and debris cleanup?

 

[Caco]

The effects from the rain will be some upward movement on your ph up from aeration. Rain has very little dilution effect on chemicals.
After all when you top up your pool with an inch of water it doesnt throw your chems out of whack.

There is no absolute need to drain the pool. You can slam at a CYA of 70, we always round cya up to the nearest 10
A high CYA just means you will go through a lot of testing reagents testing to an FC of 28 and the initial doses of chlorine will be quite large

If you want to do a partial drain to get your CYA lower, to make your slam levels lower, then about 50% would be ideal. This would get you to a CYA of approx 30-40 with a slam level of 12-16

Clearing your pool of debris first is important. Get as much out as you can before you start and keep on top of it with daily brushing and debris removal

I see no issue with starting now, apart from you may get a little wet getting water samples. In breaks in the weather get out and brush/clean your pool. A bonus of having clouds around is that you will lose less FC to uv burnoff, so one bonus of rain

The other thing to keep in mind is the longer you leave it the longer it will take to clear the algae from your pool

If it were me I would drop your ph to 7.0-7.2, clear the pool as much as possible and start the slam.

 

[needsajet]

 

[needsajet]

For the "During a storm" part of the question, for a pool that's in good shape, here's my suggestion.

Number 1: don't worry, chemistry doesn't change that much. Keep FC at 10% of CYA during really bad weather.

Keep the cleaner in it and going, and also keep skimming. Keep the debris and dirt out as much as practical.

I have an overflow, but a friend doesn't and his salt pool repeatedly overflowed into garden beds and onto the lawn. It's now two years later and still hard getting lawn and plants to grow in those areas. Admittedly this was a lot of saltwater (like 7" rain in 36 hours, two winters in a row). Takeaway is to drain the pool to skimmer midpoint before it overflows.

During lulls in the weather, I'd scoop what I can off the surface, and if I haven't brushed lately, I'd give it a brushing as well. I'd also check if the filter is more than 25% above clean pressure, and clean it if necessary.

Sorry to hear about the algae bloom

I hope the rain is good for California overall, but very sorry to hear about all the strife people are experiencing.

 

[roguegeek]

The effects from the rain will be some upward movement on your ph up from aeration. Rain has very little dilution effect on chemicals.
After all when you top up your pool with an inch of water it doesnt throw your chems out of whack.

Cool.

There is no absolute need to drain the pool. You can slam at a CYA of 70, we always round cya up to the nearest 10
A high CYA just means you will go through a lot of testing reagents testing to an FC of 28 and the initial doses of chlorine will be quite large

If you want to do a partial drain to get your CYA lower, to make your slam levels lower, then about 50% would be ideal. This would get you to a CYA of approx 30-40 with a slam level of 12-16

Clearing your pool of debris first is important. Get as much out as you can before you start and keep on top of it with daily brushing and debris removal

I think you might be thinking I'm draining to remove some of the murky water. That's not the reason why. The pool is constantly overflowing right now and flooding the rest of the yard. It's A LOT of rain. I've had to drain it a couple inches every day for the last several days just to stop it from flooding the yard at this point and ruining some of the landscaping. If it's about to overflow, I need to keep doing that, but I don't think the rain is going to be that bad from this point forward.

I see no issue with starting now, apart from you may get a little wet getting water samples. In breaks in the weather get out and brush/clean your pool. A bonus of having clouds around is that you will lose less FC to uv burnoff, so one bonus of rain

The other thing to keep in mind is the longer you leave it the longer it will take to clear the algae from your pool

If it were me I would drop your ph to 7.0-7.2, clear the pool as much as possible and start the slam.

Ok, cool. pH is currently at 7.6, so it's not going to take much to get it down to 7.0. In terms of the actual debris, there is virtually none. I've been extremely proactive in removing anything physical from the pool during this storm. I'll get the pH in line and then start the slam.

 

[roguegeek]

For the "During a storm" part of the question, for a pool that's in good shape, here's my suggestion.

Number 1: don't worry, chemistry doesn't change that much. Keep FC at 10% of CYA during really bad weather.

Keep the cleaner in it and going, and also keep skimming. Keep the debris and dirt out as much as practical.

I have an overflow, but a friend doesn't and his salt pool repeatedly overflowed into garden beds and onto the lawn. It's now two years later and still hard getting lawn and plants to grow in those areas. Admittedly this was a lot of saltwater (like 7" rain in 36 hours, two winters in a row). Takeaway is to drain the pool to skimmer midpoint before it overflows.

During lulls in the weather, I'd scoop what I can off the surface, and if I haven't brushed lately, I'd give it a brushing as well. I'd also check if the filter is more than 25% above clean pressure, and clean it if necessary.

Sorry to hear about the algae bloom

I hope the rain is good for California overall, but very sorry to hear about all the strife people are experiencing.

Alright, cool. You guys are making me feel confident that I'll solve this. Sound like next time there's a storm like this, I should keep the FC more on the high side to combat what's happening. It's honestly kinda strange to me that it dropped so quickly. It started at 3.4 a week ago and I added enough back to bring it up to 5.0. Then in the last three days it went from clear to what you see about and it tests today at 1.2. Would you guys be able to tell me why it did this so quickly so I can combat it next time?

 

[needsajet]

Storms and little kids birthday parties both bring with them more organic contamination than normal (dust, bugs, leaves). Rain brings nitrogen along with it from the sky, especially when there's lots of lightning in the storm cell or upwind of the storm cell, and in metro or industrial areas where combustion and other activities contribute nitrogen to the atmosphere. The chlorine gets used up battling organic contamination brought in by wind and ammonium compounds in the rain, along with whatever is normally lost to sunshine and bather load.

As far as why a pool turns green all of a sudden, it often goes something like this. The pool has been great, crystal clear. The owner has the normal instinct to not over-use chlorine, and they've migrated to water chemistry levels that are just barely doing the job and/or they're using trichlor or dichlor and their CYA level is gradually building up. Free-floating algae is probably always there in small numbers, growing a bit then being knocked back near zero every time the pump runs or chlorine is added. You can't see free-floating live algae cells when the level is low. Also there may be algae hiding places that stay small while FC is high enough

Then something happens to drop the FC level lower and algae gets the upper hand. It's multiplication rate exceeds the kill rate. The extra algae causes more FC depletion, and the water may be zero FC near where algae is establishing on the surfaces, or around those hidden algae farms. The new algae cells also multiply, so the algae growth rate accelerates exponentially. Algae also forms into clusters and develops bio-film (around the time you might start to notice it) which make it even more successful, so the growth accelerates further. Then seemingly overnight, you have a full-blown algae bloom, but it actually started before you could notice it.

TFPC uses adequate FC levels to stop this from happening, but you also learn indicators that might give you a heads-up. For example, testing for combined chlorine can provide a warning sign. But probably the best defense is knowing roughly what your normal FC depletion rate is. You will know it as a result of good testing, knowing how much FC you're adding, and therefore how fast it's getting depleted. When you see your depletion rate rise for no apparent reason such as a kids birthday party or super hot weather / warm pool water, then you have the heads-up that it might be algae. When that occurs, we do a simple test called an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test (OCLT) and we know for sure.

A contamination event can also cause FC to drop suddenly, and is often a good reason to check FC and/or do an OCLT and/or bring the pool to SLAM shock level. This could be anything from coming home from vacation to a drowned rat in the pool, a nappy (diaper) that got away, or a lot of runoff from the garden.

 

[roguegeek]

Thanks for taking the time to answer. That was extremely comprehensive and I was able to digest it easily.

Alright. Here's the plan of attack. pH to 7.0. Should I bring the CYA to 70 or just leave it at 65 and operate as if it's at 70? Clean all debris out of the pool. Clean the filter. Start the SLAM process.

 

[tim5055]

Leave the CYA where it is. Higher CYA requires more chlorine is required to SLAM Process.

 

[roguegeek]

One more questions before I start. I've been using dichlor to raise FC when I wasn't able to just use the SWG due to cold water temps. The documentation says it's best to use bleach or liquid chlorine instead. PoolMath says I'll need 1225 oz of 6% bleach to raise my FC from 1.2 ppm to the shock level of 28 ppm. What kind of bleach? Just the plain old unscented bleach you can pick up anywhere or is it a specific type of bleach?

Edit: I figured it out. It's all about the percentage of sodium hypochlorite in the product. Found some liquid chlorine at 10%, so now I only need 754 oz to hit 28 ppm of FC (plus however much extra to maintain it).

 

[Caco]

Plain old unscented bleach from anywhere
Check the % label on the side and make sure you change the value for the type you buy in poolmath too

 

[roguegeek]

Plain old unscented bleach from anywhere
Check the % label on the side and make sure you change the value for the type you buy in poolmath too

Yup. Looks like most of it was at 8.25%, but found some liquid chlorine at 10% which was the same price per ounce. No brainer, went with the liquid chlorine.

 

[Caco]

I've been using dichlor to raise FC when I wasn't able to just use the SWG due to cold water temps

There is nothing wrong with using dichlor in maintenance mode, if you realise the effects that adding it will have on your pool. If you added 53oz of dichlor to your pool, it would raise your FC by 10 but also raise your CYA by 9 and at the moment we do not what to raise your CYA. Your CYA would get unmanagable very quickly using dichlor for a slam

Bleach just adds FC and a trace amount of salt, nothing else to the pool.