Hello. I am new to these boards as I have just purchased a house with a pool but I have been reading through Pool School and trying to get on top of things.
I have a 20,000 gallon in-ground pool/spa with a main drain and two skimmers and then a fountain return in the spa and a couple of return jets in the pool. I have a DE filter and an in-line tablet chlorinator.
I took my water in to get tested last weekend and was given the following test results:
Free Chlorine - 0
Total Available Chlorine - 0
Calcium hardness - 200
Cyanuric Acid - 30
Total Alkalinity - 60
pH - 7.6
So I dumped 11 pounds of baking soda into the pool to fix my alkalinity and backwashed the filter and put in 7 lbs of DE. Apparently I had forgotten to reload the chlorine tablets so that's why there was no chlorine. So loaded the feeder up with tablets and ran it all week for 8 hours a day.
Then this weekend I went in and got these results:
Free Chlorine - 0
Total Available Chlorine - 0
Calcium Hardness - 200 ppm
Cyanuric Acid - 40
Total Alkalinity - 80
pH - 7.6
Which is surprising since I had the feeder running with the valve turned to 5. So then I shocked the pool with 2 pounds of power powder from Leslie's Saturday afternoon and the pumps been running for about 24 hours now. I brushed the heck out of the pool before I shocked it and there were loads of clouds of green algae.
Now I just tested it with my home kit and the chlorine level is off the charts - way above 3ppm, the pH is 7.4 and the alkalinity is around 70. But there are still a lot of green clouds on the bottom of the pool and on the walls and skimmer mouths. The guy at Leslie's told me to shock the pool, run the pump for 24-48 hours and then use algaecide but I gather from these boards that algaecide is seen as a bit of a scam.
Any ideas on what I should do to get this pool sparkingly clear again? I have the shock, I have some stabilizier/conditioner (which I believe is cyanuric acid) and I have the algaecide. And I have the phosphate free stuff that he sold me a few weeks ago. Yes, I realize I am putting the Leslie's Pool guy's kids through college.
Can someone give me some direction here?
Also, I'm having a lot of trouble with stuff on the surface of the water. Either due to jet placement/strength or lack of skimmer suction, it just sort of gathers on one side of the pool but doesn't suck into the in-ground skimmers. I turned off the main drain for a while as per the advice of someone I saw on this board and that helped a little but it didn't do a ton. I have little jet-like things that aren't jets under each skimmer mouth - are they supposed to be doing something? Sucking? Blowing? Because they are doing neither. The water's definitely going into the skimmer and it's spinning around like it's going down the drain but I just feel like there can't possibly be this much leaves and berries and dead bugs that are supposed to float on the surface.
Also, perhaps the answer is that i need to upgrade/fix my pool cleaning robot. It's a Polaris but it must be 15 years old and I sense that it is not as good as it used to be. It stops a lot and when the cord to it gets tangled up it shuts down. Anyone have a great recommendation for a new robot that's not a fortune?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions. I live in Dallas and it's going to be over 100 every day for the next four months so I want to have this thing under control by the time summer really hits.
I have a 20,000 gallon in-ground pool/spa with a main drain and two skimmers and then a fountain return in the spa and a couple of return jets in the pool. I have a DE filter and an in-line tablet chlorinator.
I took my water in to get tested last weekend and was given the following test results:
Free Chlorine - 0
Total Available Chlorine - 0
Calcium hardness - 200
Cyanuric Acid - 30
Total Alkalinity - 60
pH - 7.6
So I dumped 11 pounds of baking soda into the pool to fix my alkalinity and backwashed the filter and put in 7 lbs of DE. Apparently I had forgotten to reload the chlorine tablets so that's why there was no chlorine. So loaded the feeder up with tablets and ran it all week for 8 hours a day.
Then this weekend I went in and got these results:
Free Chlorine - 0
Total Available Chlorine - 0
Calcium Hardness - 200 ppm
Cyanuric Acid - 40
Total Alkalinity - 80
pH - 7.6
Which is surprising since I had the feeder running with the valve turned to 5. So then I shocked the pool with 2 pounds of power powder from Leslie's Saturday afternoon and the pumps been running for about 24 hours now. I brushed the heck out of the pool before I shocked it and there were loads of clouds of green algae.
Now I just tested it with my home kit and the chlorine level is off the charts - way above 3ppm, the pH is 7.4 and the alkalinity is around 70. But there are still a lot of green clouds on the bottom of the pool and on the walls and skimmer mouths. The guy at Leslie's told me to shock the pool, run the pump for 24-48 hours and then use algaecide but I gather from these boards that algaecide is seen as a bit of a scam.
Any ideas on what I should do to get this pool sparkingly clear again? I have the shock, I have some stabilizier/conditioner (which I believe is cyanuric acid) and I have the algaecide. And I have the phosphate free stuff that he sold me a few weeks ago. Yes, I realize I am putting the Leslie's Pool guy's kids through college.
Can someone give me some direction here?
Also, I'm having a lot of trouble with stuff on the surface of the water. Either due to jet placement/strength or lack of skimmer suction, it just sort of gathers on one side of the pool but doesn't suck into the in-ground skimmers. I turned off the main drain for a while as per the advice of someone I saw on this board and that helped a little but it didn't do a ton. I have little jet-like things that aren't jets under each skimmer mouth - are they supposed to be doing something? Sucking? Blowing? Because they are doing neither. The water's definitely going into the skimmer and it's spinning around like it's going down the drain but I just feel like there can't possibly be this much leaves and berries and dead bugs that are supposed to float on the surface.
Also, perhaps the answer is that i need to upgrade/fix my pool cleaning robot. It's a Polaris but it must be 15 years old and I sense that it is not as good as it used to be. It stops a lot and when the cord to it gets tangled up it shuts down. Anyone have a great recommendation for a new robot that's not a fortune?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions. I live in Dallas and it's going to be over 100 every day for the next four months so I want to have this thing under control by the time summer really hits.