We purchased a home last year with a 38' x 18' pool (3' in the shallow end and 12' in the deep end --> roughly 35,000 gal, I think). We had a total reset done last summer because the house was in an estate and the pool had not been taken care of. No problems last year.
When we opened it this year, the water was crystal clear with a small amount of leaves and other debris. The local pool company came out and removed the plugs and turned on the pumps. This turned the water milky blue. I did chemical tests:
FC: 0
TC: 0
pH: 7.2
TA: 240
CH: 310
CYA: 0
The FC was 0, so to prevent algae formation, I dumped in some shock, closed the cover and went to work. When I came home, the water was a murky brown/green. After consulting with Leslie's, we added more shock and Green to Clean, which required us to drop a ton of soda ash into the pool. The result: less brown water, but still green enough that you couldn't see the bottom step.
Back to Leslie's, this time they wanted us to check the sand in our sand filter. When we took the multiport valve off the filter, we accidentally pulled the standpipe (and the laterals) up through the sand. After removing the sand and snagging a sample (which was not green or slimy - it looked like sand), we went back to Leslie's again. They said they didn't know if the sand was ok or not and talked us into new sand since we had it out of the filter already. They also told us to do another Green to Clean process (more soda ash as well). The result: it looked exactly the same. Somewhere along the line, we added CYA.
There is no slime or noticeable film on anything and when brushing the pool, nothing gets stirred up. There is no debris/leaves in the pool. We were sick of wasting money at Leslie's, so we went to another local pool store. They told us we had no phosphates and that the color was most likely from metals and sold us four bottles of Metal Magic. We added it about 10 hours ago, and there is no noticeable difference yet. How long does it take to work? Any other advice? We are taking this M-F off as vacation and hoped to use the pool. I am at my wits end. The sand filter (36" - 600 lbs of sand) has been running continuously for 3 days. The pressure remains fairly steady around 26-28 psig. When I backwashed it today, orangish water came out for about 30 seconds, then it cleared.
My current testing results:
FC: 22
TC: 22
pH: 7.0
TA: 240
CH: 325
CYA: 100
Sorry for the super long post. I thank anyone who can help!
When we opened it this year, the water was crystal clear with a small amount of leaves and other debris. The local pool company came out and removed the plugs and turned on the pumps. This turned the water milky blue. I did chemical tests:
FC: 0
TC: 0
pH: 7.2
TA: 240
CH: 310
CYA: 0
The FC was 0, so to prevent algae formation, I dumped in some shock, closed the cover and went to work. When I came home, the water was a murky brown/green. After consulting with Leslie's, we added more shock and Green to Clean, which required us to drop a ton of soda ash into the pool. The result: less brown water, but still green enough that you couldn't see the bottom step.
Back to Leslie's, this time they wanted us to check the sand in our sand filter. When we took the multiport valve off the filter, we accidentally pulled the standpipe (and the laterals) up through the sand. After removing the sand and snagging a sample (which was not green or slimy - it looked like sand), we went back to Leslie's again. They said they didn't know if the sand was ok or not and talked us into new sand since we had it out of the filter already. They also told us to do another Green to Clean process (more soda ash as well). The result: it looked exactly the same. Somewhere along the line, we added CYA.
There is no slime or noticeable film on anything and when brushing the pool, nothing gets stirred up. There is no debris/leaves in the pool. We were sick of wasting money at Leslie's, so we went to another local pool store. They told us we had no phosphates and that the color was most likely from metals and sold us four bottles of Metal Magic. We added it about 10 hours ago, and there is no noticeable difference yet. How long does it take to work? Any other advice? We are taking this M-F off as vacation and hoped to use the pool. I am at my wits end. The sand filter (36" - 600 lbs of sand) has been running continuously for 3 days. The pressure remains fairly steady around 26-28 psig. When I backwashed it today, orangish water came out for about 30 seconds, then it cleared.
My current testing results:
FC: 22
TC: 22
pH: 7.0
TA: 240
CH: 325
CYA: 100
Sorry for the super long post. I thank anyone who can help!