Summer opening, 3 days in and water is still green

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S

stev

0
Jun 4, 2016
44
New Brunswick, Canada
Fired up the equipment Friday, put in 2 gallons of Chlorine (10.9%) on Saturday am and pump has been running ever since and the water is still green.

Vacuumed, brushed the last two days. Did a couple of backwashes as well. Small if no change to color of water as it was previously to starting all the equipment.

This morning I put in another gallon of chlorine in and 12hours later no change again.

Not sure whats going on this year and why it isn't clearing up. I was sure that previous years I was seeing change already. Put in some PH plus to raise my PH level as it was around 6.6..

Please enlighten me if I'm doing something wrong here.
 
Are you testing your water with a good test kit, like the one in my signature?
 
If the pool is really green and gooey, your chlorine probably all got used up within minutes of adding it.

Next possibility: you have no CYA and the sunlight got all the chlorine within a couple hours. Or worse: you had CYA and it broke down into Ammonia over the winter, which will take enormous quantities of bleach to neutralize.

Third possibility: You have such high CYA that you didn't approach anything close to shock level. This happens if you normally chlorinate using trichlor pucks.

What you need to be doing is a logical organized approach, where you keep the chlorine level high enough long enough to kill algae faster than it can reproduce until it's all dead and filtered out. We call the process a SLAM Process. It's not a one-time megadose, nor a random amount of bleach at random intervals. It requires frequent testing and dosing. You are somewhat handicapped living in Canuckistan, where one company holds the monopoly on the Taylor test reagents we prefer and charges accordingly.
 
As you are in Canada it is difficult to get a proper test kit.

You cannot SLAM using pool store tests. I assume from the previous posts you need to SLAM.

You need your own test kit. In Canada you can order from Lowry & Associates in Newmarket, Ontario (905-836-0505) or [email protected].

Or, if you are near the US border, you can have a TF100 shipped to a mail drop and you drive in to the US to pick it up.

Take care.
 
mknauss said:
As you are in Canada it is difficult to get a proper test kit.

You cannot SLAM using pool store tests. I assume from the previous posts you need to SLAM.

You need your own test kit. In Canada you can order from Lowry & Associates in Newmarket, Ontario (905-836-0505) or [email protected].

Or, if you are near the US border, you can have a TF100 shipped to a mail drop and you drive in to the US to pick it up.

Take care.
Click to expand...

And why is that? I don't see how a store that sells pool equipment would have a improper testing kit that sells products to god knows how many customers and they keep coming back so clearly their pools are working. So please enlighten me why this 'other' test kit is needed.
 
Actually, if the customers keep coming back it’s more likely the stuff they are being sold isn’t working!

If you took samples of the same water to a few different pool stores, you’d likely get different results from each. Sometimes it’s due to their testing method, sometimes their equipment, sometimes rookie students working summer jobs.

It’s so much easier to be able to test your water yourself, and then know exactly what you need to do or add. Not only that, but a SLAM requires frequent testing... kind of inconvenient to run to the pool store every two or three hours to get new test results.
 

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kellyfair said:
Actually, if the customers keep coming back it’s more likely the stuff they are being sold isn’t working!

If you took samples of the same water to a few different pool stores, you’d likely get different results from each. Sometimes it’s due to their testing method, sometimes their equipment, sometimes rookie students working summer jobs.

It’s so much easier to be able to test your water yourself, and then know exactly what you need to do or add. Not only that, but a SLAM requires frequent testing... kind of inconvenient to run to the pool store every two or three hours to get new test results.
Click to expand...

What I meant by coming back is in to purchase their products for the coming season.

Anyways, I took my sample in and baed on the above results I put in more liquid chlorine. The algae cleared out the water is turning blue. It's hazy/foggy but thats probably because my chlorine was at 12ppm last night.

I did a vacuum to waste this evening, going to run the backwash and rinse. Then set he filter Hayward 180T to Filter again. I'm hoping the haziness disappears.

One thing I'm always confused about whether vacuuming should be performed while on filter or waste. Because when on waste the water level obviously drops so I can only vacuum for so long before sucking is lost due to the water level dropping below the skimmer.
 
You can vacuum either way. If it is a LOT of gunk, usually better to just go to waste as quickly as you can before the water level drops.

I will have to point out that you are on a path to failure if you continue to try to trust the pool store testing.
IF you want to trust their results, How often are you willing to drive there to get your FC level varified?
You need to follow the SLAM Process process and that might be testing ever couple hours at the start.
 
jblizzle said:
You can vacuum either way. If it is a LOT of gunk, usually better to just go to waste as quickly as you can before the water level drops.

I will have to point out that you are on a path to failure if you continue to try to trust the pool store testing.
IF you want to trust their results, How often are you willing to drive there to get your FC level varified?
You need to follow the SLAM Process process and that might be testing ever couple hours at the start.
Click to expand...

Yah the vacuuming real quick is quite the concept.

The store is a minute walk from my work.. so its not too bad. And i understand that testing is needed on a hourly basis at the start but it makes me wonder how all these other people around me do it that have pools. They certainly don't look like the guys that have special testing kits? But then I could be wrong.
 
jblizzle said:
Perhaps they just have more $ than sense to throw at the pool store ;)
... or they do not have crystal clear balanced water all summer like us TFPers :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

Hehe, well the pool store tests are free. When they ask if I need chemicals I tell them I stocked up the week before (so they think they forgot) then I go to the local store and buy the products where its on sale or cheaper :)

Hard to believe, but there is a method to my madness ;)
 
stev said:
Hehe, well the pool store tests are free. When they ask if I need chemicals I tell them I stocked up the week before (so they think they forgot) then I go to the local store and buy the products where its on sale or cheaper :)

Hard to believe, but there is a method to my madness ;)
Click to expand...

You get what you pay for. You will have consistent and accurate results while testing at home.
 
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