help me! my algae appears to be gone but...

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bekeylou

0
Jun 10, 2009
10
Russellville, KY
my water is cloudy blue, my sample water looked clear
im about to order a GOOD test kit but heres what i got from the pool store today

TC 1.7
FC 0.6
pH 6.9
TA 51
CH 60
CYA 0

i have put my numbers in pool calculator and have jotted down a shopping list

soooooo..... what do i put in first, i know i need stabilizer for my chlorine and that if your ph is high it needs to be lowered for chlorine to work properly (or something like that) but since mine is low what do the experts here think i should put in first
 
I would first increase your pH to 7.4ish using washing soda. Borax can be used, but in this case, I would like to see your TA a tad higher, and washing soda has more of an effect on TA.

Then, get your stabalizer in. 30 would be a good target.

Looks like you have a lot of combined chlorine, so you need to do some more shocking. Take your free chlorine up to about 12, and keep it there till it holds over night.

Then another test in a few hours. May want to do some more TA adjustments, or maybe add in some calcium. Unless you have plaster, it's usually not an issue, but your TA and CH and pH are currently all pretty low. We may want to make further adjustments.
 
Borax will be much easier for me to get. I've never seen washing soda anywhere here where I live and I've looked because I have read a lot on this site, but I will keep that in mind and try to look elsewhere. My husband did another round of bleach after brushing and backwashing and sticking the sock of stabilizer in (after he dropped it on the bottom and had to get in and fish around the cloudy water to get it out). It was not the full amount I need, maybe half, just what I had leftover from last year. Also our wal-mart apparently doesn't have pool chemicals anymore and last year they had the big bags of baking soda in that section. I'm sad. I use it a lot around the house too. :( So since some stabilizer is being added I guess I better tackle that pH next.

As an aside, when I was in the pool store getting water tested they said they only test your water for free if you buy their chemicals (it starts with a B and ends with ioGuard). Luckily I did not have my bank card and my husband had actually been there and bought some hardware, but I will need more stabilizer so I guess I will just tell the 18 year old girl behind the counter that I have leftovers of everything I don't buy. I do have to shop there though, they have a float I want. Back to my point, the printout they gave me is ridiculous! The shopping list on the end lists ten different products in various sizes and is twenty items all total. I'd love to see the price for all of that. :p

Oh and also after a thorough reading apparently they test for borates and it was 6.
 
Yes I know. Wal-mart doesn't have it, nor do the Dollar Market or the Family Dollar store (where I work). I read somewhere someone found it in a walgreens, havent looked there. I will most likely have to go out of town and look, but thats okay, it's the town I have to go to if I want to do ANYTHING so it will not just be a trip to look for washing soda.

I just have to say again that this pool store print out is crazy... if they mean for you to do things in the order it is listed then I would be raising my alkalinity with 18 lbs of something then raising pH with something else, and wouldnt that stuff raise alkalinity too? I dont know because it has some silly brand name so I'm just guessing it's the soda ash. Then adding stabilizer. Then something for calcium hardness then adding burn out which will raise that even more. Then they assume you want to add borates but they do tell you to use their product or muriatic acid after you add their 'optimizer'. Borax? Then add algicide(that is how they spell it), then one or both of two products to clean your filter. Then maintain chlorine with tabs which will raise your cya. Then shock weekly for no reason what-so-ever (well I guess there is a reason if you raise your cya too much with tabs). Then maintinance doses of algae inhibitor. Then something every other week to help prevent algae. Beats me. Then something to make your water sparkling clear! What was all that other stuff for?? How bout just don't screw up with the cya then maybe you wont need their "Back Up". When are you supposed to swim if you had to really do all this stuff? Okay, my rant is over.

Thanks for all your help. Any other suggestions are appreciated
 
I can't find washing soda here either. I just had to buy PH + instead...boo..same exact ingredient of sodium carbonate, but 3x as much $$$....

Borax is proving a bit hard to come by around here too...I guess I better stop telling people about TFP...
 
You can get both borax and washing soda from Amazon, but the price ends up being rather high. Often soda ash/PH Up from the pool store will be cheaper.

I have found that places like WalMart, Target, and CostCo are more likely to have borax and washing soda in stock, You can also try especially large grocery super stores, which often have them.
 
Don't forget to scrub everywhere.

After having spent a lot of time and clorine with small results, I've discovered algae growing inside the lighting niches, I had to brush the niche and then finally the clorine consumption started decreasing and the water became sparkling clear.....
 
Thanks everyone for your suggestions and help. They do carry borax at our wal-mart but today they were out and also were out of stabilizer. Yes, I found the pool chemical section, in the stupidest place. It was no where near the pools and stuff where it used to be and not even in the garden section.

My husband is all over the brushing and all that. It has been HOT here and the water feels lovely, not too cold. I can't wait to get in one of these days!
 

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Well I thought I did this yesterday but I guess not.

So here are my new numbers.

FC 2.5
TC 2.5
pH 7
TA 63 (adj 54, should I use this number instead of 63?)
CH 86
CYA 30

that was only two days after putting the stabilizer in and I put in what I had which I thought was one and a half to two pounds. so I began adjusting pH and alkalinity and now I need to test again. My water is also CLOUDY. So what is up here and what else do I do. I'm about to go vacuum and brush again, and I guess it is safe to backwash. I put the stabilizer in wed night and it was in a sock and was all gone yesterday.
 
bekeylou said:
Thanks everyone for your suggestions and help. They do carry borax at our wal-mart but today they were out and also were out of stabilizer. Yes, I found the pool chemical section, in the stupidest place. It was no where near the pools and stuff where it used to be and not even in the garden section.

My husband is all over the brushing and all that. It has been HOT here and the water feels lovely, not too cold. I can't wait to get in one of these days!
Click to expand...

My Walleys has never carried washing soda, nor do any of the grocery stores that I've checked out over the years. I think I found it once at Minyards. Borax is found at most stores though.

Our Walmart did major relocations of everything this spring all over the store. The dog food was moved from near the garden section all the way over to the other side of store near food section. (I feed Costco "Kirkland" brand and now using the Salmon which is a most excellent food.)

Pool stuff is spilt into two sections; one is in with the pool toys and the larger section is now all the way to side wall that meets end wall at garden section. You can't even see it from the other section in the pool and pool toys. The "hidden" one has the stabilizer and other "balancing" products for pool and most of the spa stuff.

gg=alice
 
Well I am thoroughly stressed now. But not about my pool. My sister in law thinks that burn out is something special that kills bacteria and nothing else will sanitize your pool and keeps telling us to use it to clear it up. We are planning to shock tonight but I told her I did not want to add stabilizer cuz mine is good and she said you need to balance your water first then add stabilizer. I guess you can't tell someone that doesn't want to know. How do I lead her to troublefreepool.com without her knowing I'm doing it?
 
BioGuard BurnOut Extreme is 47% Cal-Hypo. BioGuard Burn Out 3 is 57.8% Cal-Hypo. BioGuard Burn Out 35 is 29% Lithium Hypochlorite (35% Available Chlorine).

Which "Burn Out" is she talking about? If it's Burn Out 35, then this is 5+ times more expensive than most other sources of chlorine so if she really wants you to use it, have her pay for it. It won't cause any harm -- it's just very expensive.

If it's one of the Cal-Hypo products that she wants you to use, that's not a problem for your pool since your Calcium Hardness (CH) is low -- just pre-mix the product in a bucket of water first since Cal-Hypo doesn't dissolve that well in pools. For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Cal-Hypo, it will also increase Calcium Hardness (CH) by at least 7 ppm.

Can she identify the specific ingredient in the product that she believes is special and that will sanitize and kill bacteria (other than chlorine itself)?
 
no she can't. my husband did ask her if shes ever read the labels of the stuff though. she doesnt think its chlorine at all. she thinks its magical sanitize and clear your pool potion and she doesnt think that chlorine even does that. she also thinks the chlorine smell is too much chlorine (although ours has no smell right now) but i guess that is a very common misconception amongst non tfp posters. but thanks for the info. i love learning new things. i hadnt ever looked at the burn out products themselves at the pool store i just noticed that almost all the stuff at walmart like the "shock" (lol) and granules and tabs and all that said tri-chlor or di-chlor. i had no idea which stuff was cal-hypo which i have heard of but obviously do not need. even though the girl at the pool store told me i needed to add the balance pak 300 for calcium hardness and highlighted it and everything after i told her what kind of pool i had. oh well that is her job, just glad i know better. in my print out is says burn out 3 tho.

sorry if my grammar and punctuation bother anyone. ill do better next time.

i love this place! TFP FOREVER!! i have to get a tshirt.
maybe one day we can convert them all! one day at a time...
 
OK now i have a test kit
not THE test kit, I am saving in my piggy bank for that, I have about a dollar and thirty three cents saved up.

but here are my numbers now

FC 0
pH 7.5
TA 130
CH 80
CYA 0 ?


ok so im not entirely sure that the chlorine is right because i dont have the good test for that just the color match thing that goes to five and i have been really pouring it in. but it did register some chlorine in my tap water so i know it works. i also did the dilution 1:1 and 3:1 and got nothing. im going to add enough to get me to like 3 or 4 and see if anything shows and if so start shocking for real this time.

also the pool store had me at 30 for cya after i added some and i cant get a reading on my test but that is probably just me. any tips on the whole black dot thing? i cant wait to get the tf 100 so i can really ask about it and we are all on the same page.
 
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