I am a first time pool owner, but with the help of this forum, my new test kit and many gallons of bleach I was able to turn our newly inherited 30000 IG liner pool into a sparkling oasis. It was a black swamp of death when we first opened it.
With my new found confidence I set out to help a buddy, who purchased a above ground pool. He filled it with water from the farm we work at. He complained of the water becoming dirty yellowish and the chemicals they were buying from the pool store not really helping. I felt like superman and told him we were going to fix it asap with a couple of gallons of 12.5 % chlorine we use to clean equipment on the farm. Without testing and without verifying the amount of chlorine or the size with the pool with the pool calculator I poured two gallons in the pool (he thought it was around 12000 gallons) then had him repeat this 6 hours later before bed. When I poured the first two gallons in the water went from cloudy very weak tea color to a coffee with cream color. I went from barely seeing the bottom at four feet to only being able to see about a foot into the pool. I was pleased because I figure the chlorine was really duking it out with the organics and the algae. I took a water sample pre treatment, so I went home with that to test and told him to sock another 2 gallons to it just before he went to bed.
Test results on pre shock water
FC 2.5
CC .5
TC 3
pH 7.2
TA 90
CYA 20
I talked to him this morning and he reports no change in color or cloudyness. My experience with bleach was each time I added I expected to have some positive change. I got nervous and started asking some more questions. Seems as if he told me the water was pretty much tea colored from day one, which I thought was something that developed post fill (guess I wasn't really listening to him I was so excited to see chlorine fix pool). Then he tells me that the pool is 15 foot round AG, so I figured it to be under 6000 gallons instead of the 12000 we orginally talked about, so our already excessively high shock was now out of the park. Then he tells me that his wife has been working with a pool store and they have used some "shock powder" (thus the CYA in his water already) and some form of metal out agent for iron.
Tonight the pool looked the same as last night. Tested FC only it was at least over 25, which is where I ran out of reagent. Did I just make this iron problem 100 times worse or what? How can I help fix it? The only metal agent we can get to in the next 48 hours is HtH metal control.
Please advise and I promise not to just willy nilly add bleach without calculating again.
Monkey Love
With my new found confidence I set out to help a buddy, who purchased a above ground pool. He filled it with water from the farm we work at. He complained of the water becoming dirty yellowish and the chemicals they were buying from the pool store not really helping. I felt like superman and told him we were going to fix it asap with a couple of gallons of 12.5 % chlorine we use to clean equipment on the farm. Without testing and without verifying the amount of chlorine or the size with the pool with the pool calculator I poured two gallons in the pool (he thought it was around 12000 gallons) then had him repeat this 6 hours later before bed. When I poured the first two gallons in the water went from cloudy very weak tea color to a coffee with cream color. I went from barely seeing the bottom at four feet to only being able to see about a foot into the pool. I was pleased because I figure the chlorine was really duking it out with the organics and the algae. I took a water sample pre treatment, so I went home with that to test and told him to sock another 2 gallons to it just before he went to bed.
Test results on pre shock water
FC 2.5
CC .5
TC 3
pH 7.2
TA 90
CYA 20
I talked to him this morning and he reports no change in color or cloudyness. My experience with bleach was each time I added I expected to have some positive change. I got nervous and started asking some more questions. Seems as if he told me the water was pretty much tea colored from day one, which I thought was something that developed post fill (guess I wasn't really listening to him I was so excited to see chlorine fix pool). Then he tells me that the pool is 15 foot round AG, so I figured it to be under 6000 gallons instead of the 12000 we orginally talked about, so our already excessively high shock was now out of the park. Then he tells me that his wife has been working with a pool store and they have used some "shock powder" (thus the CYA in his water already) and some form of metal out agent for iron.
Tonight the pool looked the same as last night. Tested FC only it was at least over 25, which is where I ran out of reagent. Did I just make this iron problem 100 times worse or what? How can I help fix it? The only metal agent we can get to in the next 48 hours is HtH metal control.
Please advise and I promise not to just willy nilly add bleach without calculating again.
Monkey Love
