Green pool - new pool owner

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adadof3

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Aug 3, 2009
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Hi,

I moved into a house with a pool just over a month ago. Pool was going green as we moved in.

Tried shocking it, but left the pool cover on first time by mistake, so tried again the following night. Still no good.

Someone suggested pH reducer; so added this, and got the pH down to around 7.4, but pool was still green.

Someone suggested that maybe we had a bad dose af algae, and so needed a large shock treatment. Added a double dose, colour didn't change.

Someone suggested flocculent, so added some Jolly Gel to the basket in the pump. Still green water.

Took a sample of water to a pool shop last week, and was told that the pH was 'through the roof'. Suggested that I empty a good part of the pool, top up with fresh water, and add pH reducer to get the level back down again.

Took out around 10 inches of water (perhaps 15% of volume), and so far have added arouind 2kg (4.4lb) of pH reducer. Am adding it at around 1lb at a time, with at least 6 hours between additions. pH is coming down (we are now at around 8, as opposed to 8.6), but pool is as green as ever.

Alkalinity is at around 120, and chlorine level is very low (perhaps 0.5).

Water is very green, even a small sample is clearly discoloured.

Slowly losing the will to live, so would appreciate any advice at all.


Thanks in advance.


1) The size of your pool in gallons30000
2) The type filter you have (sand, DE, cartridge) sand
3) If your pool is an AG (above ground) or IG (in ground) IG
4) If it's IG, tell us if it's vinyl, plaster/pebble, or fiberglass Tiled
5) If you know, tell us the size pump and the size (flow rate) of your filter.Size not known but operating at a pressure of around 10psi
 
Hi adadof3,

We could guess at the problem, and we do have suspicions, but we really need a full set of test results to include this info:

FC
CC
TA
pH
CH
CYA

Do you have the full test from the pool store from last week?

Pool School has great info waiting for you. Especially read the articles on "Defeating Algae" and "How to Shock Your Pool".

We will help you take control of your pool :-D

Welcome to the forum :wave:
 
Dad,
first things first...click on pool school and learn about a balanced pool. Second thing...stop taking the pool stores advice. The only thing that will get your pool clean is chlorine and a lot of it. You have to shock your pool. THis means you are doing it to your pool...not putting it(shock) in your pool. You need to know what your Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level is to know what your shock level is. If you do not have a good test kit, you should invest in the one for sale on this web site. It has all you need to know about balancing the water in your pool. But you have to know what your CYA is so you know your target shock level, in my pool it is 16 ppm, but my pool has a CYA of 40 ppm. Your pool may be different and therefore have a different shock level. Go to school and learn from the people here. You will not be steered wrong.

CubbyBeave
 
Hi,

Thanks for the prompt responses.

Am told that the reason that the pH is too high is that we have overshocked it. Is this not correct? Pool store told me this, as did the previous occupants, when I asked their advice.

Have only used the basic litmus type test recently (covering pH, alkalinity and free chlorine), as the advice from the pool store was to get pH correct before anything else. To be fair to them, they didn't try to sell me anything, as I showed them a list of all the chemicals that I had, which covered every option. Their test was a litmus too, rather than anything more scientific.

Previous tests that I have done have covered other areas, and I do recall that CYA was virtually zero. I did wonder about that, but was told that this was ok, as the chlorine tablets were of a type (trichl. ?) that did not require CYA.

Will look in on the pool school tomorrow, and see what I can learn. It is getting on for midnight here though, and my head is spinning!

Thanks again for taking the trouble to respond.
 
if your FC (free chlorine) reading is above 10, the pH will read falsely high. this is true in drop based tests, not sure about test strips. unfortunately test strips are often wrong no matter what the levels are, and you should really stop using them.
trichlor tabs add cya to the water, and a lot of people get way too high cya levels because they don't realize this (myself included) and the only option is to drain water. but with 0 cya, the tabs won't add cya fast enough, so you need to add it separately.
to sum it up, read pool-school/ esp the chemistry section, and get a good test kit. the one from www.tftestkits.net is high recommended because it's the best value and has the right tests you will need.
 
I am a new pool owner also and I read through pool school on advise of a guy I talked to at a kids b-day party. It was the best thing I could have done! My pool was getting greener by the day and within about 48 hours it looked good and clear and now I need to clean up the bottom. But the CCC method has impressed me!
 
adadof3 said:
Hi,

Am told that the reason that the pH is too high is that we have overshocked it. Is this not correct? Pool store told me this, as did the previous occupants, when I asked their advice.
Click to expand...


If I read you previous posts correctly you stated that your FC was perhaps .5 ppm. That is not too much Chlorine. Reebok hit the nail on the head...at 10 ppm your pH may be higher, but even if you dumped in two bags of shock at .5 ppm that may not take your FC to 10, depending on your CYA levels. I still think a good test kit will be your best friend.
 
Hi,

Thanks for all of your patience with me, and for the advice given to date.

Still working my way through pool school, but can advise today's readings as follows:

Hardness 250
Chlorine 0.5
Free Chlorine 0
pH 8.2 (barely changed, despite a kilo of pH reducer yesterday)
Alk 180
Cya 0

Pool definitely doesn't appear to be holding chlorine, so wonder if this is the problem, and that I have algae. Any other suggestions?

Am I wasting my effort in trying to address the pH problem? Should another shock be the order of the day?

How about the cyanuric acid? Others have advised against it, but I wonder whether the inability to hold chlorine is due to the lack of cyanuric acid. Pool school seems to indicate that this can take a week or so to take effect.

Any advice on where to start, or any other info that I could provide, would be gratefully appreciated. In the meantime, I will continue to browse pool school.


Thanks in advance.
 
you absolutely need cya. 30-50ppm.
shocking is a process, not a one time addition of some chlorine. pool-school/shocking_your_pool
I don't now the granular stuff you're using, but use more or get muriatic acid instead. you need to get it down. 8.2 is bad. I wonder if your test only oes up to 8.2 max? maybe your ph is above 8.2 and you haven't seen any results because it's still 8.2 or above, even though it was lowered somewhat. add your stuff and test in 30 mins. keep going until you're in the mid 7's. you don't want your pool at such a high ph.
I recommend the articles under the chemistry section of pool school.
 

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Thanks for the post reebok.

pH has definitely been coming down. Was up to 8.6 at least toward the end of last week. Doesn't seem to have shifted at all over the past day or so though.

This is the pH reducer that I have been using, I have been adding it at around 1 lb per go:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/pH-Minus-Reducer- ... .m14.l1262

I still have around 5 kg left.

Poll calculator indicates that I need to add around 1.9 kg to get down to pH 7.5. It wasn't suggesting much more than that on Saturday, and I have added 2kg since.

Would you suggest that I add it at 1kg per time?

Thanks again.
 
well, are you sure the test is right? I had a bad ph reagent that always read really high. I would never have known (and would have run a really low ph) if I didn't get my kit from www.tftestkits.net around the same time I got the bad reagent.
I'm not really familiar with that stuff. if you're sure the ph reading is correct, add and measure in 30 minutes increments, or as much as you can. your ph needs to come down, esp for pool-school/shocking_your_pool
 
ok, we finally have some progress to report.

Added around 3lb of shock (correction: pH reducer) his evening, and took a test around 45 mins later. Used a different set of strips, that only test pH, alc, & FC, and the results were:

pH 7.6
FC 0.5
alk 120

pH is what I was hoping for, but am a little surprised at the big drop in alk.

So, the question is, where do we go from here? Is the next stage a further shock, or do I need to consider the cyanuric acid first?

Pool shop last week suggested that I use chlorine granules initially, once the pH was down, so think that I will put some of those in until morning.
 
Apologies, my last posting was probably quite confusing. It was late in the day again.

For 'shock' please read 'pH reducer'!

Sorry.

Appreciate the point re test strips but, on the assumption that the strips are accurate (I am now using two brands, that both show 7.6), then where do I go from here?

Thanks in advance.
 
adadof3 said:
ok, we finally have some progress to report.

pH 7.6
FC 0.5
alk 120

pH is what I was hoping for, but am a little surprised at the big drop in alk.

So, the question is, where do we go from here? Is the next stage a further shock, or do I need to consider the cyanuric acid first?
Click to expand...

Glad you got some good news to report! :) Your pH is spot on. I'm not surprised that your alkalinity dropped. If you read the info on the pH reducer you'll see that it also lowers TA (total alkalinity).

Get some CYA in there. Start with about half what the PC (pool calc) says you need then start shocking with liquid chlorine. Hold it a day then do an overnight chlorine drop test. Keep the shock going till you lose less than 1 ppm per night (I shoot for zero loss) AND you have .5ppm CC or less.

You can bring your CYA up to the recommended level after your done shocking, or if you'd prefer you can do it during the shock process. Just be aware that as you increase your CYA level you'll have to increase your shock level to match.
 
Bama,

Remember Dad said he used a new set of test strips...his old strips could have been way off and pH was never really as high as they said. I still worry about the test strip reading 0 FC At this point you will have to raise your shock to about 10 ppm that is based on CYA of 20 not 0. But it may difficult to tel when you have it there if you are using test strips. They are very difficult to ensure accuracy. Dad, you really need to think about getting a test kit that will read FC levels up to atleast 16 ppm or better. Some of the smaller less expensive brands you can get don't do well with testing at those parameters...I have a Taylor test kit that tests FC up to 6 ppm...but it gives directions on diluting to give you accuarate readings up to atleast 20. You might want to look at something like that. It will give you a fighting chance... in my pool (13500 gallons) I would have to add 628 ounces of 6 % bleach to get up to an FC of 10...Then you have to hold it there at 10 until it holds for atleast 24 hours with only a minor decrease. Just adding granules once does not do it. You have to keep it at shock values until all algae is killed. As was said earlier...shocking is a process not one time thing. :goodjob:
 
Hi,

Thought I should give an update, and ask whether anyone has any further advice.

Firstly, on the cyanuric acid, I have found it impossible to get hold of over here (in the UK). None of the pool places that I have contacted seem to sell it, and all have advised against adding it.

I have got the pH down to 7.2 to 7.4, and have constantly been shocking to excess of 10ppm. Over the last week for instance, I have shocked every evening but one. FC drops down to around 5ppm by morning; some mornings I have boosted back up to 10ppm before work, I have not done this every day though, as I appreciate that the sunlight negates this.

Filter is running constantly, although pump never seems to get above 8psi (is this low?)

Pool still as green as every, am at a complete loss as to where to go from here.

One pool shop has suggested phosphate starver, although I don't see why this would succeed wher shock has failed.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.
 

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