Open green pool - Chlorine - Low CYA

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Pool-owner

Active member
Jul 12, 2015
43
Edison/NJ
Hi Mates:

For those who needed to open their pools, hope you had a good opening season!

Need to pick your brians - Opened the pool last weekend in Central NJ. Pool is subject to both the NJ stormy weather and other environmental factors (trees around the pool).

Problem: Pool was green (medium green, not the worst kind).



Actions taken to SLAM the pool.

Day 1 - I applied 2 bags of Walmark shock; and 1 bag of KEMTEK supershock. (I chose tri-chlor due to the low CYA).

Initial Readings after Day 1 -

FC: 1
CC: 3.5
PH: 7.7
TA: 140
CYA: << 30 (not sure how low, but close to zero)

Day 2 - Readings were better. Pool was turning blue. At night, a bad passing storm dumped 1-2 inches of rain plus debris.
Day 3 - Cleaned up the pool, but Pool was turning green again after the storm.

Day 3 - Day 6: Continued to SLAM. Due to low CYA, I continued to use powder shock.
Thus far, dumped 7 bags of supershock and 3 bags of regular shocks.
Also placed 2 tablets in the chlorinator.

Current readings:
FC: 9.5
CC: 1.5
PH: 7.2
TA: 140
CYA: < 30 (Can't tell the exact level)


My plan: Due to the low CYA, I will continue to use Tri-Chlor to SLAM to pool till CC = zero, clear pool, overnight test, etc. Am I on the right track? Any advice?

Note: Pool is very temperamental. In the past, despite adding many many gallons of liquid chlorine, SLAMMING took a very long time. Sometimes pool was still green after several weeks! I tried to follow the steps closely but the environmental changes made it difficult it very difficult to SLAM.
 
You might have had ammonia with that level of cc, as you do have fc if you had it's gone.

I'd keep the FC at 10 until you get to 30 cya. Too late to point this out but adding 30 ppm of cya and slamming with bleach would have been much easier and not wasted a bunch of cya tests.

Have you kept track of how many oz or tri clor you used so you can guess when 30 ppm cya should show up?

What are the environmental changes?
 
Thank you so much for quick response Casey!

You might have had ammonia with that level of cc, as you do have fc if you had it's gone.

[ What should I do to get rid of the ammonia? ]

I'd keep the FC at 10 until you get to 30 cya. Too late to point this out but adding 30 ppm of cya and slamming with bleach would have been much easier and not wasted a bunch of cya tests.

[ Thanks for the tip! I just thought since the tri-chlor already has built-in CYA, using it would gradually bring up CYA . Also isn't it difficult to raise CYA quickly? I remember having to use a sock for the CYA powder to sip out slowly. Is there a quick way to raise CYA? Thanks again! ]


Have you kept track of how many oz or tri clor you used so you can guess when 30 ppm cya should show up?

[ Since the test kit won't go down below 30, all I can tell is that the CYA is still below 30. It could be 5, 10, 20, etc. But I would keep on using tri-chlor and keep on monitoring the cya level until it hits 40ppm. ]

What are the environmental changes?
 
When I add cya granules I put them in a kids legging and tie the leg shut and tie shut above the granules, then use the other leg to tie to my pool stick that makes it stick out a foot from the return. I rub it right there and half of it is gone and the rest will bounce back and forth and it gone by morning. I wait around a week and wait for a sunny day to test.

If you kept track of the amount of tri clor you can use effects of adding chems in PoolMath to see how much you need for 30 cya (or 40), then you can assume 30 or 40 cya for your slam, and test cya a week later. Doing it this way is great but does run two risks, one in the beginning if you add too much FC and your cya is low it is harsh on your liner, and two if you have ammonia you just made it worse.

When you open (next year) test your pool, if you have 0 cya and you did close with cya it's given that your cya was eating by ammonia. To test this you add 10 FC and check 15-30 mins later to see if you have 5+ FC, if under build back up to 10 FC and repeat,if you show 5+ your done, add cya. There have been a bunch of these cases this year, it takes a lot of FC to kill it and shows a lot of cc. Since you are somewhat holding FC, your good.
 
cfherrman said:
When I add cya granules I put them in a kids legging and tie the leg shut and tie shut above the granules, then use the other leg to tie to my pool stick that makes it stick out a foot from the return. I rub it right there and half of it is gone and the rest will bounce back and forth and it gone by morning. I wait around a week and wait for a sunny day to test.<br>
<br>
If you kept track of the amount of tri clor you can use effects of adding chems in PoolMath to see how much you need for 30 cya (or 40), then you can assume 30 or 40 cya for your slam, and test cya a week later. Doing it this way is great but does run two risks, one in the beginning if you add too much FC and your cya is low it is harsh on your liner, and two if you have ammonia you just made it worse.<br>
<br>
When you open (next year) test your pool, if you have 0 cya and you did close with cya it's given that your cya was eating by ammonia. To test this you add 10 FC and check 15-30 mins later to see if you have 5+ FC, if under build back up to 10 FC and repeat,if you show 5+ your done, add cya. There have been a bunch of these cases this year, it takes a lot of FC to kill it and shows a lot of cc. Since you are somewhat holding FC, your good.
Click to expand...
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<br><br>I used legging too from my wife and a sock. I think you can also pour cya to the skimmer too with the pump running but never tried it.<br><br>The cya was probably consumed by the decomposed leaves, bird excretion, dead bugs, etc., during winter by oxidation and nitrification, etc.  You are right ammonia is there.    Not sure if I understand your test above, but does it really matter? It is gone, it is gone right?<br><br>Leslie says that don't add cya till all the algae is gone. It makes sense as algae is the thing that might destroy the cya.  But I am pour chlorine like money now in the pool (> $100 spent on liquid chlorine and shock already one week into the season!).  I need to raise the cya level to make my chlorine more effective!!<br><br><br><br>
 
I am following the SLAM article. Since cya is zero, I have added cya but it takes time to take effect. In the meantime, I have to keep on adding chlorine constantly to keep the FC up. For example, yesterday my FC was 7 to 10. This morning when I wake up it is down to 1 with CC at 3. I have to keep on adding chlorine till it is done right?


In general, I am just curious how much other folks spend on chlorine in Slamming a pool in the NE. In the past, to get rid of algae, I usually had to spend hundreds of dollars on chlorine alone. Am I the exception? My pool is definitely one of a kind.
 
By the Casey, I didn't follow Leslie's instructions. I was running out a solution and took advantage of their free testing only. ;)

The environmental factors are the big trees around the pool, shredding many pounds of leaves, branches, etc. to the pool (even the evergreens shred!), the many birds and ducks who use our pool as their playground different winter time, leaving waste, feathers, etc. Not to mention the bugs (ants, spiders, centipedes), and other animals - just removed our first dead baby mole of the season! :(
 
User member Casey (not me, I think she's in fl) did her green swamp slam in 3 days because of managing the FC like a full time job and because of a de filter for the cloudyness.

So the most time you can check your FC and build it back up the faster and cheaper it takes.

How much cya did you add and how did you add it, are you managing your FC to this value?

You have a lot of FC loss due to leaves and creatures, so that will prolong it as well due to being under slam level from that.
 
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