Help! New, and builder no help!!!

[sdietrich72]

Hi all-

I have been lurking for several weeks hoping that I would be able to handle my problems on my own.
However, no luck! I have a brand new inground gunite 21,000 gal chlorine pool. I don't even know where to
start to explain to y'all what is going on...

I have recently realized that my pool builder knows nothing about the chemistry of the pool water. I am not even sure
my water has ever been right. He kept telling me that everything was good and then last week I noticed algae growing.
He told me to turn up the chlorinator, so I did. Two days later the entire pool was covered in algae. I freaked!!! He told me to
check the chlorine ( I didn't even know how to do this because we had not even had pool school yet.) There was no chlorine at
all in there. He told me to go by chlorine tablets and shock from walmart, which I did. I added 2 bags of shock on Friday and 2 more on Sat. becasue there was still algae. He finally showed up on Sun. for "pool school." He added some muriatic acid and stabilizer and told me that everything would be fine on Monday. He also finally give me a test kit and showed me how to use it.

Monday morning I tested everything I could. Jump to today, I have been trying to understand from you all how to fix this mess.
I still have a little algae at the bottom of the pool. I bought clorax and muriatic acid; however, still very confused. I know that I have not "shocked" the pool by your standards, but I don't know how much bleach to use.

I tested everything this evening. FC 2 (My test kit says ideal chlorine is between 2.0-3.5)
CC 2 (I think, not really sure on the reading of this.)
Ph 7.6
TA 200 (I know this is very high. I have been adding muriatic acid for the past 2 nights)
How do I test the CYA?
My water is crystal clear.
Please Help!

 

[Richard320]

You've spent so much already....spent a little bit more and order up a TF100 test kit.

Ignore the "ideal" on your tester. Ideal depends on how much CYA is in the water. I doubt the kit he gave you has CYA test in it.

Realistically, you need to shock the way it is described in Pool School. And without a good test kit, you're working blind. That algae will keep growing unless you kill it off faster than it can grow.

Sorry I can't tell you more specifics. But I could if you had a full set of test results.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Since your pool is plaster you want to be careful about shocking it the first little while. You do want to keep the FC up some though.

Do you know how much stabilizer he added?
If I'm correct you've added 4 lbs of shock. Is that Dichlor or Cal-Hypo?
You have a tablet feeder (chlorinator) and it has had tablets in it the whole time. Do you know how many have been used to this point.

I ask all these questions because I'm trying to figure out about how much CYA (stabilizer) has been added, so we'll have a number to go by, until you can actually measure it. Tell us as much as you can and we can tell you about what your shock level is.

Calm down, You will get through this and it'll become easier as you go along.

 

[Patrick_B]

You came to the right place, and don't worry, it will work out well. You will learn all you need to know right here. Let us know how it goes.

 

[257WbyMag]

Welcome to TFP!