Newbie here with a green pool

Jump to latest Follow Reply
P

pool maid

0
Jul 20, 2009
7
Atlanta
Our pool became green last week and of course we put in the "shock" bags, the copper based algaecide, etc and our pool is still green.

I found this forum this weekend and went to walmart and bought bleach and baking soda. My pool supply store tested my water this morning and these are the results:

CYA: 100
Tot. Chlorine: 5 Their test only goes to 5, so it may be much higher than that.
Free Chlorine: 5
Tot. Alkalinity: 110
Adj. Total Alkalinity: 80
PH: 7.4

He advised me to add 21 lbs. of baking soda.

I am going to order a test kit this week, but until then, is there anything else I should be doing? I have no idea how much chlorine is actually in the water, but it is still green!

Thanks for any help!
 
Do not add the Baking Soda. Your TA is fine.

Did they test your PH?

Edit:

How do you normally chlorinate the pool? Tablets and powder shock can cause the CYA level to get too high, which your's now is.

You need to lower the water level down by 1/3, refill, recirculate and retest the CYA level. Repeat this process if necessary to get the CYA down to a manageable level. We recommend 30-50 for normal situations - if you can get your's down to 60-70 it will slowly lower over time thru backwashing the filter.

I would do the drain/refill dance before you try to do anything else.

I recommend a good test kit, one with an FAS-DPD test that can test the FC up to 50ppm, sooner rather than later....

Hope this helps. :wink:

End Edit.
 
You don't need the baking soda, your TA is fine.

I'd also suggest you avoid the copper algaecide. It works, but has undesirable side effects.

You can start by reading this article in Pool School http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/defeating_algae to learn about algae issues.

Your biggest water problem is the high CYA. The only way to deal with that is to replace some of the water. It will always be an issue with fighting algae until you can get it down around 50ppm, which will require replacing half the water.
 
No need for that baking soda, just yet, unless your PH seems to drop very often? By the way, what is the PH reading?

I think you main problem is the CYA...chances are it may be higher than 100 since pool stores usually call anything at 100 or more...you guessed it 100 :grrrr:

Before adding a ton of bleach...you would benefit from a partial drain an fill to lower your CYA number....shocking and FC mantenance will then become a much easier task once you are armed with a taylor k2006 or tf100 test kit.

edit...sorry for the double post...John T and FPM beat me to the punch
 
dmanb2b said:
No need for that baking soda, just yet, unless your PH seems to drop very often? By the way, what is the PH reading?

I think you main problem is the CYA...chances are it may be higher than 100 since pool stores usually call anything at 100 or more...you guessed it 100 :grrrr:

Before adding a ton of bleach...you would benefit from a partial drain an fill to lower your CYA number....shocking and FC mantenance will then become a much easier task once you are armed with a taylor k2006 or tf100 test kit.

edit...sorry for the double post...John T and FPM beat me to the punch
Click to expand...


I was trying so hard to follow the rules and post everything! Sorry I left out the PH.

PH = 7.4
 
Your biggest problem seems to be the CYA of 100. Some tests only test up to 100 and the actual # could be higher.

I suggest a series of drains/refills to lower your CYA to around 50. If water replacement is an issue, if you could at least lower it to 60 or 70, it would help tremendously.

Does your pool get full sun?
 
frustratedpoolmom said:
Do not add the Baking Soda. Your TA is fine.

Did they test your PH?

Edit:

How do you normally chlorinate the pool? Tablets and powder shock can cause the CYA level to get too high, which your's now is.

You need to lower the water level down by 1/3, refill, recirculate and retest the CYA level. Repeat this process if necessary to get the CYA down to a manageable level. We recommend 30-50 for normal situations - if you can get your's down to 60-70 it will slowly lower over time thru backwashing the filter.

I would do the drain/refill dance before you try to do anything else.

I recommend a good test kit, one with an FAS-DPD test that can test the FC up to 50ppm, sooner rather than later....

Hope this helps. :wink:

End Edit.
Click to expand...
Up until this weekend when I found this site, I used tablets and powder shock. We have an automatic thing that we keep the tablets in. I have it shut off now and have added nothing but bleach since this weekend. I didn't realize until this morning that the water test from the pool store would only read up to a 5 on the chlorine level, so I have no idea how much chlorine in actually in the pool. I have added 5 of the large bleach containers from wally world since Saturday.
 
There is an article in Pool School comparing test kits that we recommend.

The most popular, and the best bang for the $, is the TF100 sold by duraleigh at http://www.TFTestKits.net.
Excellent customer service and he is always around to help.

If you lower your CYA to 50 (rather than the 60 or 70), it will take less bleach/liquid chlorine to clear your pool because the shock level is lower.
See the Chlorine/CYA Chart in my sig and also in Pool School.

Post back all your questions concerning clearing your pool in this thread.

As you can see, lots of folks around to help you. :-D
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Okay...I ordered the test kit a couple of weeks ago and this is the first chance I've had to test the pool. (I am now a Grandmother for the first time, so have been a little pre-occupied!)

FC 0
CC 0
pH 7.4
TA 120
CYA 85-90

My question is this: I read here that the CYA can read high when testing cloudy water. Should i go ahead and get the chlorine to shock level or try to drain more water first? The CYA was above 100 and we have drained/added water several times. This morning was the first time it has read under 100.

Thanks for your help
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply