Alright......Here we go.

[stanton]

Broke out the TF-100 yesterday for the first time. I had a blast testing my own water. First off I never "closed" my pool... I just quit doing anything to it other than circulate it as the water cooled down. I have clear water witha little debris on the bottom from dead bugs and such. There is a green/yellowish slime on the bottom/walls in the deep end. So I do have some algae ready to pounce as soon as the temps come back up.

Heres what I got. I need to do a ascorbic acid treatment for some metal stains in the deep end. No chlorine and high ph seemed to be the problem. I confirmed this by rubbing a trichlor tablet on the spot with no change. Never did the vitamin c tablets or ph down to confirm 100% metals. I figured I need to do this first (ascorbic treatment) before worrying about the chlorine levels and getting my pool balanced. Or do I need to kill the algae thats already there then do the ascorbic treatment? Oh yeah...got caught in the Ionizer idea and bought one at the end of the summer. I now figure I'll just do the BBB and lick my wounds after learning so much on this site. Any advice or help will be greatly apprecited

FC 0
CC 0
TC 0
PH 8.2
TA 80
CYA 40

22k gallon vinyl/sand filter.

 

[duraleigh]

Hi, Stanton,

I'm glad you had fun with the test kit. I must admit, I never get tired of using mine.

While there's no absolute right or wrong, I believe I would get the pH down into the 7.2 - 7.6 range. (you could be higher than 8.2) Use muriatic acid and, using Jason's calculator, shoot for about 7.5 the first time, then test again in an hour or so (pump running) and adjust if necessary.

Once your pH is in range, I'd shock the pool with chlorine. You're about to get some warm temps in Alabama, and that algae in your pool will "blossom" overnight if you don't have any Cl. Don't be too surprised if your Cl is almost gone in 24 hours....you've got some cleaning up to do.

Address the metal stains last. Getting your pH under control and keeping your Cl levels up (2-4ppm after shocking to about 20ppm) may well start to minimize those stains and make them easier to deal with.

You may want to tweak CYA and Alk a little later but I wouldn't do a thing to them until I had pH and Cl under control. Post back the test results after those two are in the range and you'll get lot's of good help.

 

[JasonLion]

I agree with duraleigh

First thing to do right away is get the PH under control before the high PH causes any more staining or other problems. In cold water the algae will probably be very simple to get rid of.

 

[stanton]

Thanks for the help. I was about to to everything backwards again.lol

 

[waste]

I just want to butt in a little and say that it is my understanding that getting rid of stains requires you to lower the cl and the pH --- Therefore, dealing with the algae first, and fully ridding your pool of it must be the first step, because if you lower the cl first to do the treatment that will just let the algae 'go wild'.

 

[JasonLion]

The kill algae first or later question is interesting. When doing an ascorbic acid treatment you are very likely to get algae, so perhaps it is better to wait and only kill the algae once at the end. At the same time you would have trouble doing the treatment if the pool was a green swamp. You need to be able to see the stains to be able to judge how much ascorbic acid to use and in which places.

With cold water it will probably work either way, the algae won't have time to get out of control. At the same time killing all the algae will be easy in cold water, so that only costs you maybe two days and no rush to do the ascorbic acid treatment right now before the algae really gets going.

No matter what, lowering PH comes first. After that it is a toss up.