Hi everyone,
This is Brad and Melissa, and here is our story. We bought a house with a pool (our first) in a suburb of Minneapolis in January, a great time to buy a house with a pool in Minnesota, right? This house had been in foreclosure, and the pool was not closed down properly last year, so we had/have dark green water with a lot of leaves in the bottom (scooping out some more every day). We can barely see the bottom of the shallow end. The pool is a 25,000 gallon (or so) inground vinyl pool with Hayward sand filter. We started out using a pool company, so the pump, filter, and lines are all in working order.
They tested our pool and gave us instructions of what to do. Here are the test results and instructions:
Tested 5/31/11
TC 0
FC 0
pH 7.6
TA 95
CH 125
CYA 0
Green Algae
Pool company Recommendations:
1. Algae Shock - 3 lb Proteam Zip Chlor (super chlorination)
2. They said that ideal TA is 120, use 9lb of Proteam Alkalinity Up
3. Pool company says CH is 125, ideal is 250. Add 31 lbs of Proteam Calcium Up.
4. Stabilizer is 0, ideal is 50. Add 10.5 lbs Proteam UV Shield.
They recommend maintaining FC at 1-3ppm.
Since the prices were outrageous, we decided to have a friend help us get supplies (and they told us what we "need") at the discount store and started adding to the pool. On 6/1 we added:
4 lb of HTH Stabilizer (CYA)
8 lb of Calcium Hypochlorite
We have also opened a 40 lb bucket of of 3" Trichloro tablets, and have 3 in each of our 2 skimmers (6 total). The pump has been running 24 hr/day since 6/1.
After all of this, I decided to start googling (I know, I should have googled first!), found TFP, Signed up to TFP yesterday, ordered our TF-100 (should arrive Sat or Mon). I will be following the BBB method. I'd like to start treating the pool over this weekend, and I should be able to get 3-4 water samples done by the local company if our kit doesn't arrive on Saturday.
We have a ton of questions (of course!), but I'd like to start out with a few:
1. I'd like to know if I can use up our 40 lbs of opened Trichloro bucket and not let it go to waste ($90 bucket - hope I can use it). Or should I just scrap them and go with whatever the Pool Calculator recommends?
2. CYA was added on 6/1, if I re-test Saturday morning will I get an accurate reading of CYA so I can calculate the target FC level?
3. Our sand filter ran at 15psi after backwash, it's running at 28 now and pool company said we don't need to backwash again until 35. Should I go by the their statement or backwash after an increase of 8-10 psi per the Maintenance and Cleaning of Pool Filters page? Should I replace the sand in our filter right away since we don't know how old it is? Does sand go bad?
4. Leaves and debris in the pool - do we shock first so we can see the bottom and then get out the leaves? Or try to get out all the leaves before starting the shock process? Do leaves contribute to more algae growth?
5. Last - for brushing during shock process, do we need to buy a long handled brush that reaches to the middle of the deep end (I don't know anything about brushes)?
That should be enough questions for now, I'll add more later. I look forward to getting this thing all ready to go - and I'll try to post some pictures on Friday. If more information is needed please let me know!
Thanks,
Brad
This is Brad and Melissa, and here is our story. We bought a house with a pool (our first) in a suburb of Minneapolis in January, a great time to buy a house with a pool in Minnesota, right? This house had been in foreclosure, and the pool was not closed down properly last year, so we had/have dark green water with a lot of leaves in the bottom (scooping out some more every day). We can barely see the bottom of the shallow end. The pool is a 25,000 gallon (or so) inground vinyl pool with Hayward sand filter. We started out using a pool company, so the pump, filter, and lines are all in working order.
They tested our pool and gave us instructions of what to do. Here are the test results and instructions:
Tested 5/31/11
TC 0
FC 0
pH 7.6
TA 95
CH 125
CYA 0
Green Algae
Pool company Recommendations:
1. Algae Shock - 3 lb Proteam Zip Chlor (super chlorination)
2. They said that ideal TA is 120, use 9lb of Proteam Alkalinity Up
3. Pool company says CH is 125, ideal is 250. Add 31 lbs of Proteam Calcium Up.
4. Stabilizer is 0, ideal is 50. Add 10.5 lbs Proteam UV Shield.
They recommend maintaining FC at 1-3ppm.
Since the prices were outrageous, we decided to have a friend help us get supplies (and they told us what we "need") at the discount store and started adding to the pool. On 6/1 we added:
4 lb of HTH Stabilizer (CYA)
8 lb of Calcium Hypochlorite
We have also opened a 40 lb bucket of of 3" Trichloro tablets, and have 3 in each of our 2 skimmers (6 total). The pump has been running 24 hr/day since 6/1.
After all of this, I decided to start googling (I know, I should have googled first!), found TFP, Signed up to TFP yesterday, ordered our TF-100 (should arrive Sat or Mon). I will be following the BBB method. I'd like to start treating the pool over this weekend, and I should be able to get 3-4 water samples done by the local company if our kit doesn't arrive on Saturday.
We have a ton of questions (of course!), but I'd like to start out with a few:
1. I'd like to know if I can use up our 40 lbs of opened Trichloro bucket and not let it go to waste ($90 bucket - hope I can use it). Or should I just scrap them and go with whatever the Pool Calculator recommends?
2. CYA was added on 6/1, if I re-test Saturday morning will I get an accurate reading of CYA so I can calculate the target FC level?
3. Our sand filter ran at 15psi after backwash, it's running at 28 now and pool company said we don't need to backwash again until 35. Should I go by the their statement or backwash after an increase of 8-10 psi per the Maintenance and Cleaning of Pool Filters page? Should I replace the sand in our filter right away since we don't know how old it is? Does sand go bad?
4. Leaves and debris in the pool - do we shock first so we can see the bottom and then get out the leaves? Or try to get out all the leaves before starting the shock process? Do leaves contribute to more algae growth?
5. Last - for brushing during shock process, do we need to buy a long handled brush that reaches to the middle of the deep end (I don't know anything about brushes)?
That should be enough questions for now, I'll add more later. I look forward to getting this thing all ready to go - and I'll try to post some pictures on Friday. If more information is needed please let me know!
Thanks,
Brad