Decided to take care of the yellow/brown stains

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T

Texas Spartan

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Apr 22, 2011
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I am new to the forum but have been visiting a lot. Great help!

I have an 11,000k white plaster salt pool in Houston that is coming up on 3 years old. It has been easy to maintain except this spring. I have trouble with free chlorine and stains. Chlorine Generator is working fine...I had it tested by two equipment guys and it is at 97% with proper drop across the cell.

Here are the latest pool store tests from this morning..I have ordered Taylor kit but don't have it yet.

FC 1.5
TC 1.5
CC 0
TA 55
CH 270
CYA 25
ph 7.2
This CL level was after a 1lb shock last night since it said 0 chlorine at the store last night. I have had high usage with relatives in town and have had to add water to refill each day.

I have calcium deposits in some spots that are slowing coming off with brushing as I keep ph at ~7 +/- 0.2 due to mismanagement this winter of ph and chlorine with freezing temps.

So this morning after getting the test results I decided to take care of the yellow/brown stains on my plastic nozzles and pool cleaner and some brown stains on the plaster.

Here is what I did...
1) Turned SWG output level to 0% (Aguarite)
2) Added 1-2 oz on Chlorine Neutralizer to bring FC to close to 0
3) Added ~80ox of liquid conditioner to bring up CYA level
4) Added 2lb of ascorbic acid powder
5) Added 32 oz of Metal Hold once stains were gone
4) Added a little algeacide

The stains disappeared within 2 minutes. I cannot bypass my filter and have been running it for 3 hours now. Plan to run it 24/7 until tomorrow 10Am when I plan to start to raise the chlorine.

I have the guide posted here but it says just to "start to raise chlorine slowly." I know I need to add a ton of chlorine and plan to use 6% chlorine bleach, unscented slowly and add meatl hold if stains start to come back.

So I have 4 questions.

1) With a SWG should I turn it on now or wait? How long?
2) Should I set it to superchlorinate or just pick a good % to get it generating again?
3) Is there a way to calculate how much bleach I will need to add to get my FC back to 3 ppm? Going from 1.5 FC, adding 2 oz CL neutralizer followed by 2 lbs of Ascorbic Acid in 11k gallons should be a math equation easy to solve. I just can't find that equation.
4) When should I trun back on my SWG and start to raise the FC.

I'd like to be swimming on Sunday with family.

Thanks for the help.
Jason
 
1) You can use the SWG, just start with it on perhaps one half of the percentage you usually use.
2) No, definitely no super chlorinate. That would not be in any sense gradual, which is important.
3) No, it depends on too many things. Just add 1 ppm of chlorine at a time and work up very slowly.

You have to take the "slowly" in the directions very seriously. Slowly means add chlorine slowly. You can't just go back to your normal FC levels all at once, you can't shock the pool, go slowly. If you move too quickly you will be right back where you started, or worse.
 
Thank you for the fast reply.

According to PoolCalculator.com, to get 1 ppm at a time in my size pool I would need to add 1/4 jug (23 oz) of 6% chlorine bleach. To do this "slowly" how often would add this? Every two hours would be my initial gut target to keep things from spiking too fast. Is that too often?

I plan to start tomorrow which meets your 24 hour guideline. I will start by balancing ph and TA and get my new CYA level. Once those are good I will start to add the bleach at the recommended rate.

Thanks again,
Jason E.
 
Don't do anything which might raise the PH for the first couple of days except small increases to the TA.

You can add 1 ppm of chlorine up to once every two hours as long as FC is going back down to zero in-between. You don't want to raise FC above 1 the first day you are adding chlorine, or 2 on the second day.
 
Okay. SO here are my pool store test results this morning....

TA 50
CYA 20 - even after I added 3/4 of a jug of conditioner yesterday.
ph 7.0
FC and TC = 0.6 - I turned on my SWG to 35% last night
Phosphates = 1500
CH = 200

Pool store reccomendation is to add more conditioner and add commercial strength PhosFree to bring down the phosphates so algae won't feed while at so low chlorine. They also wanted me to bring TA up immediately but I am waiting.

I added more CYA and started my slow chlorine add with 6% bleach but what do I do about the phosfree?

Thanks!
 
Ignore the phosphate recommendation. That's just a moneymaking poolstore ploy. As long as you do the chlorine in small increments and keep on top of it, the phosphate issue is irrelevant.

Are you using liquid conditioner or granule?
Are you testing yourself? I don't trust pool store test results at all....
 
Thanks. Will do!

I am using pool store tests right now while I await my TF100 kit to arrive. I am also using an OTO and test strips to keep an eye on FC.

I am adding liquid conditioner. I added about 70-90 oz last night with no impact per pool store results so added another similar dose this morning and test strips show a slight bump into the "ideal" range. I know this is imprecise but best I have without another 45 min round-trip venture to the pool store or my kit.

Thanks again for the help.

Jason
 
I am still adding bleach and have gone through 1.5 gallon so far today. Looks like TC and FC between 1 and 2. I may try to turn off my SWG tonight to see if I have big FC drop. My CYA still looks low but I will hold off on adding more conditioner unitl Monday when I can get to the pool store again for testing. It has been a bright hot sunny day and my CL numbers seem to be holding so that is a good sign that my CYA is within target.

I have been slowly raising my TA and watching ph. So far so good.

Jason E.
 

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OK, I got my TF100 kit in the mail today and here are my numbers from it (double tested to make sure I am doing them right) 4 days into the program...

ph = 7.0
TA = 80
FC = 1.0 - 1.5
CC = 1.0
CYA = 60 - 70

I could not get the CH test to make the water turn blue :( even though I tested numerous times. Any suggestions?

My eyes may be playing tricks on me but it also appears some of the plastic drain covers and nozzles are turning abit yellowish - not as white as this weekend after the AA treatment but not as bad as before. I have been running my pool 24/7 for 4 days and SWG now at 70% to try to keep the FC up. I will turn off the filter in an hour or so (after gets dark) and do a FC overnight drop test tonight but I could use some suggestions how to get my FC back in range.

Do I just keep dosing in small amounts of bleach?

Thanks!
Jason
 
Yes, keep dosing in small amounts of bleach - but do it hourly if you can till you can get that FC above your "min" level... as that CC level is worrisome.

The filter should be running to do the overnight loss test. Continue 24/7 if you can until the FC is holding overnight and the CC is .5 or less.

Glad you didn't add any more CYA.
 
So my overnight FC loss test results show I went from 2.5 ppm FC at 10 pm ( I put in bleach an hour before the test which bumped my # up from the 1-1.5 level seen at 8 pm) to 0 ppm this morning. I have my wife trying to dose about a half gallon of bleach per hour today adjusting the quantity she adds to try to get a 3 ppm FC reading one hour after each dose. My biggest fear is that the stains return which would be the equivalent of throwing $150 down the drain. I need to keep away the stains but get ahead of the algae.

Any suggestions beyond the hourly dosing and keeping an eye on the problem areas for stains coming back?
 
Make sure you have extra sequestrant on hand, so you can add more at the first sign of trouble.

The idea is to work the FC level up to normal levels gradually, higher each day, and work on figuring out how much sequestrant you need to use and how frequently you need to add more.
 
Okay. So around 1pm the stains started coming back so my wife added 16 oz of Purple Stuff and that worked but we stopped adding bleach until 4:30. I tested when I got home and FC = 5.5 but CC = 1.5ppm. I just dosed more bleach but I seem to be temporarily raising the FC but CC is higher than yesterday.

Do I need to start to add more bleach with each dose to break through the CC level?
 
So I noticed that my filter pressure seems to be through the roof even though I cleaned it a few weeks ago. I am assuming this may causing some issues like poor filtration hence the algae issue. How do I know if I should just replace my cartridges?
 
I am leaning my filters overnight with cartridge cleaner. The insides of the creases were slimy and with the high filter pressure I figured they needed a good scrub if I want to take on this chlorine issue. Filter pressure is never an issue. I just tested my FC and it was 10 ppm so hopefully I don't have to start from scratch in the morning. even though CC is still 1.5 ppm.
 

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