New pool owner - learning the ropes

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swimmingfool

swimmingfool

0
Nov 12, 2010
46
Nokomis, Florida
Hello everyone,
thank you in advice for helping me and let me apologize for my ignorance. I just bought a house with a pool, and no clue how to take care of it. I spent over 4hrs reading this site this morning. I'm a little educated but unsure of myself. The house has been vacant for about a yr. It has had pool maintained by a pool service. When I first saw the house about 3 months ago, the water was crystal clear. But after our contract was signed the pool was not serviced the same. I saw it go from clear, to green, to milkey, and back and forth for the past 3 months. It's now green. The bottom is visible on the shallow side and the deep end is greener and the bottom is almost visible. It appears to have clumpy things drifting in that end. There are pop ups on the bottom, they are working. The water has great circulation. It is over filled due to a hose someone left in the pool on a slow trickle, as the solar bladders were leaking (they have been bypassed now). The pool is filed to about 2 inches from the very top. I just took possession of the house today. :cheers: I have a photo of equipment and pool here:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3 ... 1439988736

***question 1. I'm a little confused about my equipment. Is it normal to have a CWG and a tablet chlorinator?

I took water to the local pool store - they tested with a drop system and spinner. results as follows.

total chl- 5.0
free chl-5.0
combined chl- 0.0
ph - 7.4
tA -75
cal Hard-320
stabilizer - 0
salt - 2500
the ultimate goal is to use your BBB method.

After reading your information I believe I must first address the CYA issue. With a clean filter in place, I should place some dry stabilizer in a sock? and put it in the skimmer? How long? put it there and then test it after a day? Or is this achieved relatively quickly after adding the stabilizer? After addressing the CYA I then add the bleach in shock levels. I think I'm good to go in the PH level at 7.4.

I will be following your instructions "turning your green swamp back into a sparkling oasis". I have a taylor test kit. I don't know how to backwash yet. But can I turn off the pump and replace with a clean filter, turn pump back on if necessary (as I know how to do this)??

also: after I do all this and get the pool clear, is this when I address the other issues? as the salt level? and all the other stuff that's low and high?

thanks so much for your time!
 
Welcome to TFP!

Your water isn't terrible other than the CYA level. I'm a little dubious that a pool with a service is going to have zero CYA. You might want to try another pool store to get a second opinion on that before you add anything. The leaking and refilling might account for that. CYA is one chemical that is hard to "un-add", so a little patience is important.

Long term you need a test kit so you can be sure of your results.

To address your green water, you probably want to raise your chlorine to shcok level and hold it there. With your pool surface, you can shock the heck out of it and not have to worry. 20ppm is a good number to shoot for. See if you can get 12% or 10% liquid pool shock at the pool store. If you can't plain old Great Value bleach from Walmart will do.

The key thing is to hold that shock level. It may drrop in as little as a couple of hours, and you need to stay on it. This is where you are at a disadvantage with no test kit. Here are links to a couple of articles that will help:

Defeating Algae

Turning Your Green Swamp Back into a Sparkling Oasis

Shocking Your Pool

And here's an article on test kits:

pool-school/pool_test_kit_comparison

It's really not as hard as it seems, and you'll get it straightened out pretty quickly with a little patience and attention.

Your salt can be addressed eaily. Buy some Solar Salt at Lowe's. More than 99% pure salt is what you want. FInd out what level your SWCG wants and use the Pool Calculator to figure out how much salt to add.
 
Welcome!

My advice is to rent a convertible and drive to Las Vegas at top speed. Oops, wrong movie.

My advice is to keep reading Pool School. Break out the credit card and order a TF100XL test kit and a speedstir. You can thank me later for the tip. With your own test kit and the help here, you can have a sparkling clean pool that will be the envy of the neighborhood in a couple weeks. Testing is the key. Correction: accurate testing is the key. Once you have facts, it's easy to fix things.
 
Thank you everyone for your responses! As it turns out, someone has stolen my saltwater generator. At the moment I am using chlorine tablets, until a technician can get to my house and find out what is going on.

I got a second opinion on the water tests. I did add conditioner. retested and got the water where it needed to be to add the liquid shock.
I treated for mustard algae and shocked last night. That is where I am right now.

any recommendations on the SWG??
 
swimmingfool said:
Thank you everyone for your responses! As it turns out, someone has stolen my saltwater generator. At the moment I am using chlorine tablets, until a technician can get to my house and find out what is going on.

I got a second opinion on the water tests. I did add conditioner. retested and got the water where it needed to be to add the liquid shock.
I treated for mustard algae and shocked last night. That is where I am right now.

any recommendations on the SWG??
Click to expand...

I would advise against using those tabs. The reason being is that will increase your shock level. The higher cya the more bleach or liquid chlorine you need. From what I have read a lower cya is good for shocking to lower the amount of bleach or liquid chlorine you need. If you are not exactly sure what the cya is and you use tabs and cya is high that could really mess you up.
 
Hello again,

@ Bama thanks for responding. The cell was taken. The digital readout box, whatever you call that, is still there. The wires are there also with a connector of some type on the end. They were nice enough to seal an apparent leak after the cell was removed! And left behind the tube of blue goo. This is all new to me so not sure what else may have been taken. I will follow your advise unless the unit left is not functioning properly for some reason or another...

@mynewpool - I did have a cya reading, it's not with me at the moment so I can't remember what it was. The pool store advised me to treat my pool as a chlorine system until they can get to me after thanksgiving ( as there isn't a SWG there anymore ). I am using one tab, per their instructions. As soon as I learn about my equipment, ect... I will be back to the goal of BBB!

Have a great Thanksgiving to everyone.
 
Is there a blank in the piping where the cell was?
It sounds like someone removed it on purpose. Either because it quit working or to winterize the system, not necessarily stealing it.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to get a good test kit. It'll be the best thing you can do even after you get the SWCG operating. There's a link in my sig to the best value in a good kit.

You need to maintain your FC according to the CYA (stabilizer) you have in the system. We can help you out if you'll post a set of test results and how you got them.
pH
FC
CC
TA
CH
CYA
 

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> The cell was taken. The digital readout box, whatever you call that, is still there.

For all the details you provided, sure sounds like a maintenance type of action. Look on eBay as you can find all kinds of deals that many not be available at your local pool store. Can also recommend poolsupplyunlimited.com as they beat even my local wholesale outfit prices on almost everything.

Which brings me to a related question, what type of enclosure do you have to protect the equipment (weather/UV radiation, vandals, rodents, tree leaves, hurricanes) ?
 
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