I am a lifegaurd at a private pool in a neighberhood. My boss recently quit and I took on the job of maintaining the pool chemicals. I have some basic experience, having been a gaurd for six years. In the past I've shocked pools, backwashed, vacuumed, etc. Countless times, and never really had much of a problem before.
The pool in question was built in the early 80's and has had the same two pumps since. The former caretaker of the pool used the test kit which has two tubes which take a pool sample and 5 drops of reactant to test for chlorine and ph. No other levels are possible to test with this kit, but there are some walmart test strips. Only thing is they are a coupla months old and I've heard they're inaccurate. The pool is in an L shape with a 12 foot deep end and 3.5 shallow. The deep end leg of the L is about 20 ft wide and around 50-60 ft long. The shallow end of the L is roughly 60 by 30. The pool has had some green moments on and off this summer, but now it isn't doing so good. The water in the shallow end is realtively blue, but a little cloudy. The deep end is a cloudy, green mess. Three days ago the area recieved a heavy rain, and it got progressively worse since. This morning I added about 2 cups of shock ( I know, not enough), and around 10 tonight I added about 10 cups. Yesterday evening I added a bottle of clarifier via a bucket of diluted pool water and another bottle directly into the pool around 2 today. Over the course of today I also added about half a bottle of algecide. The pumps both have chlorinators that I keep stacked with pucks, the deep end pump havng a much, smaller, seemingly less efficient chlorinator stack (which I think is why the shallow end isn't as green as the deep end.)
I'm supposed to be going out of town for 6 days, starting tomorrow. What should I do to get the pool back into reasonable shape? I know that I have to completely kill the algae before it will start to lose the greenish color. How much shock should I use, and how long will it take? Is it possible to completely kill the algae with a single dosing of shock? I have swimmers come on and off all day, with an average of about 5-10 people in the water at a time. I do spend many hours there by myself though.
Also, a chemical exposion took place about 12 miles north of my pool. 70000 people were told to evacuate the neighboring town which is due north and literally shares a border with the town my pool is located in. Although the pool was south of the evacuated area, could this chemical fire have an effect on my pool? It rained pretty hard the day after, which made me think about it. The chemical fire mainly consisted of ammonium nitrate.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to gave as detailed a description of the situation as possible. Any quick advise would be awesome. I've already read quite a bit of info on this site and others, but I feel a response to my specific situation would be more useful than somebody elses scenario.
The pool in question was built in the early 80's and has had the same two pumps since. The former caretaker of the pool used the test kit which has two tubes which take a pool sample and 5 drops of reactant to test for chlorine and ph. No other levels are possible to test with this kit, but there are some walmart test strips. Only thing is they are a coupla months old and I've heard they're inaccurate. The pool is in an L shape with a 12 foot deep end and 3.5 shallow. The deep end leg of the L is about 20 ft wide and around 50-60 ft long. The shallow end of the L is roughly 60 by 30. The pool has had some green moments on and off this summer, but now it isn't doing so good. The water in the shallow end is realtively blue, but a little cloudy. The deep end is a cloudy, green mess. Three days ago the area recieved a heavy rain, and it got progressively worse since. This morning I added about 2 cups of shock ( I know, not enough), and around 10 tonight I added about 10 cups. Yesterday evening I added a bottle of clarifier via a bucket of diluted pool water and another bottle directly into the pool around 2 today. Over the course of today I also added about half a bottle of algecide. The pumps both have chlorinators that I keep stacked with pucks, the deep end pump havng a much, smaller, seemingly less efficient chlorinator stack (which I think is why the shallow end isn't as green as the deep end.)
I'm supposed to be going out of town for 6 days, starting tomorrow. What should I do to get the pool back into reasonable shape? I know that I have to completely kill the algae before it will start to lose the greenish color. How much shock should I use, and how long will it take? Is it possible to completely kill the algae with a single dosing of shock? I have swimmers come on and off all day, with an average of about 5-10 people in the water at a time. I do spend many hours there by myself though.
Also, a chemical exposion took place about 12 miles north of my pool. 70000 people were told to evacuate the neighboring town which is due north and literally shares a border with the town my pool is located in. Although the pool was south of the evacuated area, could this chemical fire have an effect on my pool? It rained pretty hard the day after, which made me think about it. The chemical fire mainly consisted of ammonium nitrate.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to gave as detailed a description of the situation as possible. Any quick advise would be awesome. I've already read quite a bit of info on this site and others, but I feel a response to my specific situation would be more useful than somebody elses scenario.