Hello. . . New here . . . learning a lot!!

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L

lookinforoz

0
May 22, 2011
9
Chesapeake, VA
Went to the local store to have water tested this evening, and the guy couldn't believe it when I told him on Saturday we had a green swamp. Our readings were in "their" normal range except for CYA. He told me we must know what we are doing!! :) We do thanks to all of you!! :wave:

Our only problems are that Chlorine is not holding steady at all and the pool is cloudy. Giving Drop n' Vac a try. My husband works in wastewater industry, so he is adamant about dropping out the solids.

Heading out now to hang socks of stabilizer.

I am anxious to order my kit, so that I can test beyond the stuff my basic kit tests.

Thanks for all the great information on this forum!!
 
Our only problems are that Chlorine is not holding steady
Click to expand...
It never will. Chlorine is a consumable and is constantly being depleted by the sun and/or organics in the pool. Chlorine must be replenished.

You might have some luck with the product you are trying but you might not. That's called a flocculant and they are not very reliable. Adequate chlorine and constant circulation and filtration will clear your pool.

Read How to Shock your Pool up in Pool School.
 
Basically, I purchased the flocculent to appease my dear husband. :roll:

After reading everything I could find on here over the weekend, I have been shocking and backwashing since Sunday. I have lost count of the number of bottles of bleach I have purchased the past few days. Getting the CYA up will help tremendouslywith the chlorine as the pool is in full sun at least 12 hours a day (it was not registering on the test). I vacuumed the bottom once to get the majority of leaves and algae off the bottom. Socks are hung so CYA should come up, albeit slowly according to what I read on here.

I am doing all that I can as we have an anxious 5 year old who is "ready to swim".
 
Well, as duraleigh predicted the floc did nothing. After trying to vacuum the deep end and breaking the vaccuum head, we discovered that there is still some major leaves /algae in the deep end. Shocking again tonight and running the filter 24/7.

Definitely investing in a new cover for the winter so as not to deal with this amount of crud on the bottom next year.
 
Once you get your own decent test kit and start doing it, it will all suddenly make perfect sense. You test, run numbers through Pool Calculator, dose it, and check it again in a day or two, and ......things are where they should be! Then you try that lower-the-pH-and-aerate-thing and TA is down! It will all make perfect sense.

Seriously, a couple weeks of testing and treating without pool store interference, and your pool will be the envy of the neighborhood. You will be one of the know-it-alls here, too!
 
Okay, after going round and round with my dear husband and mother-in-law (we share the pool since the pool was built half on her property and half on ours--long story), here's the scoop:

Pool is still cloudy.

Last night DH and MIL decided the sand needed to be changed in the filter. Fortunately, the neighbor and his friend convinced them otherwise as this is only its 3rd season in use.

DH was convinced that there was no more stuff on the bottom so I put the robot in. Low and behold it filled up so quick it couldn't move. We are unable to see more than one to two feet down, which is better than before, but still a very slow process. We have tried to get as much stuff off the deep end as we can (except that we can't see where it is). I am anxious to order my test kit, but in the meantime I went to two different stores to have the water tested this afternoon. Results:
I tested before hand with my 3 way tester:
Chlorine: 1.5
Ph: 7.0
TA: 110
1st pool store/2nd pool store (leslies):
Chlorine: 1.0/.5
Ph: 7.2/7.2
TA: 100/80
CH:90/100
CYA: 40/30

DH and Mother in law are convinced I am going to ruin the liner by using liquid chlorine. She purchased to 2 ea. 30 lb buckets of trichlor tabs. To keep the peace I filled the inline chlorinator with tabs and set it on 6 last night. I figured they would help get the cya up since it was zero last weekend. I put approx. 3lbs stabilizer in socks near the return in the deep end two days ago. They still have some stabilizer in them. I was wondering if I should remove them.

Since we still have some leaf litter and algae, I shocked tonite with liquid chlorine 5 / 182 oz. bottles of 6%. Since I don't have a proper test kit yet, what else should I be doing besides vacuuming, backwashing filter and shocking. What do I else do I need to be concerned with? Oh, I added filter aid to the filter this evening.
 
Bleach is of course fine, but you knew that already :)

Whatever the source of chlorine, you need to shock the pool.

The trichlor isn't helping. It dissolves too slowly to help significantly while shocking, and it will be raising the CYA level, which you don't want very much of. Your CH level is fairly low, perhaps you could settle on using cal-hypo for a while.

Sand filters take some time to clean up the water, even after all of the algae is dead. It could easily be a week before the water is sparkling, even if all the algae is dead.
 
thanks, Jason. What about the CYA? The pool is approx 30000 gallons, vinyl, inground, in full sun all day at least 13 hours as we have no trees. Should I remove the socks or leave them until the CYA is around 60 (I believe I read that 60 was the recommendation for my scenario somewhere in pool school).
 

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