Hi Everyon
This summer I decided I didn't want to pay the pool guy $170/month and that I would clean the pool myself. I've been a visitor to the site for about a year and have done a lot of reading.
A little pool info and history:
We bought the house last year and it has a very nice plaster, jellybeanish shapped pool. When we bought it there was some algae issues with it. Pool water was sparkly clear but we had some black algae that would not go away (according to the pool guy). So we had the pool drained and acid washed. After that, we continued with the pool company that did the work, and they did a pretty good job. But not for $170/mo
This year, I started out in April (wife was anxious to prove me wrong, that I couldn't use Bleach to clean the pool) using the BBB method. It was good timing as our pool was starting to show some algae and grim from me running out of cholorine pucks. Using my Taylor test kit, I was able to get the pool nice and sparkly relatively quickly. But even in Texas it was to cold to swim then so needless to say I will not be opening it that early again (will be maintaining better with bleach though!)
Then the story takes a turn for the worse. The (now) wife and I got married on June 5th and left for our honeymoon, leaving the pool alone for 2 weeks. I though I had enough bleach in it to keep it sorta pretty while I was gone (from what I had read...guess a cover would have helped). Unfortunately, I didnt, and we came back to a nasty, swampy, dark green pool.
That brings me to today. I have successfully turned the pool around and it's now sparkly and pretty w the following measurements:
FC = 5-8
CC = 0 -0.5
overnight loss = 1 or <
pH = 7.5
TA = 90
CH = 200
CYA = 40-55
Temp = 84F
From what I can tell this is a pretty good set of numbers. I did my overnight loss test last night, pumping the pool up to about 10 and measured at a FC level of 9 at around 9am. Should I be aiming at a lower overnight loss? I never see and CC in the pool.
Finally, I do believe I am fighting a little algae, which is why I asked about getting it below 1ppM loss at night. The pool still has some small blackish dots that generally scrub away with some elbow grease. I've done my best to rid them, but is there an easier way to make thse go away? Also, I think I need some help figuring out how many gallons my pool has in it. I thought it was much larger than it appears to be.
Thanks to everyone, this site rocks!
This summer I decided I didn't want to pay the pool guy $170/month and that I would clean the pool myself. I've been a visitor to the site for about a year and have done a lot of reading.
A little pool info and history:
We bought the house last year and it has a very nice plaster, jellybeanish shapped pool. When we bought it there was some algae issues with it. Pool water was sparkly clear but we had some black algae that would not go away (according to the pool guy). So we had the pool drained and acid washed. After that, we continued with the pool company that did the work, and they did a pretty good job. But not for $170/mo
This year, I started out in April (wife was anxious to prove me wrong, that I couldn't use Bleach to clean the pool) using the BBB method. It was good timing as our pool was starting to show some algae and grim from me running out of cholorine pucks. Using my Taylor test kit, I was able to get the pool nice and sparkly relatively quickly. But even in Texas it was to cold to swim then so needless to say I will not be opening it that early again (will be maintaining better with bleach though!)
Then the story takes a turn for the worse. The (now) wife and I got married on June 5th and left for our honeymoon, leaving the pool alone for 2 weeks. I though I had enough bleach in it to keep it sorta pretty while I was gone (from what I had read...guess a cover would have helped). Unfortunately, I didnt, and we came back to a nasty, swampy, dark green pool.
That brings me to today. I have successfully turned the pool around and it's now sparkly and pretty w the following measurements:
FC = 5-8
CC = 0 -0.5
overnight loss = 1 or <
pH = 7.5
TA = 90
CH = 200
CYA = 40-55
Temp = 84F
From what I can tell this is a pretty good set of numbers. I did my overnight loss test last night, pumping the pool up to about 10 and measured at a FC level of 9 at around 9am. Should I be aiming at a lower overnight loss? I never see and CC in the pool.
Finally, I do believe I am fighting a little algae, which is why I asked about getting it below 1ppM loss at night. The pool still has some small blackish dots that generally scrub away with some elbow grease. I've done my best to rid them, but is there an easier way to make thse go away? Also, I think I need some help figuring out how many gallons my pool has in it. I thought it was much larger than it appears to be.
Thanks to everyone, this site rocks!
