From swamp to swim? - Need a little help

[mwk73]

Hey guys.

We're renting a house that has an 18x36 in ground pool that is approximately 25,000 gallons. It's a weird pool. When we first moved in to the house I could see the bottom. Half the pool is shallow and then the deep end looks like a chinese food takeout container. Very deep in the center of the deep end with sloping sides up to the walls. We have a Pentair Tagelus 60D sand filter with a hayward 1 hp pump.

Anyways, I've read pool school, have a Taylor k-2006 on the way, and have a 6 way test kit as well as strips. Decided to start shocking the pool with bleach and managed to turn my green swamp in to a cloudy blue. Kept it the chlorine in the very vibrant yellow color as best I could for 4 days and didn't see any improvement with the water. Decided to check the sand filter and saw that the sand was about 8 inches low so put in two bags of filter sand to bring it back up to proper freeboard. Adding sand took me about 3 days to finally get done. Things got busy around here.

As of now I'm wondering how to proceed. I put 3 tri-chlor tablets in a floater a few days ago to add some chlorine and some CYA since it seems very low. Here's my numbers, and some pictures.

What can I do until my full test kit is delivered next week?

Ph: 7.4
Cl: somwhere between 0 and 1
Alk: 90
Hardness: 70
CYA: Very slightly cloudy, but can clearly see the dot at the top of my test tube which goes to 30.

Thanks,
matthew

 

[mwk73]

Forgot to add some photos. And yes, those are ducks in it.

[attachment=1:3ambkszi]green pool.jpg[/attachment:3ambkszi]

[attachment=0:3ambkszi]mily blue pool.JPG[/attachment:3ambkszi]

Matthew

 

[PSW]

Your FC is very low right now, so I would advise to get more chlorine in the pool as soon as you can. You should continue shocking until your pool is clear and you pass the OCLT. Even after you finish shocking, you will want to maintain your FC at a minimum of 3.

CYA of 30 is fine for now, just focus on shocking your pool (via pool school directions).

What test kit did you order? TFTestkits has very fast shipping.

PS welcome to TFP!

 

[Isaac-1]

It sounds like you have a hopper style deep end vinyl liner pool, this was a very popular design in the 1980's, the sloped hopper walls were designed to limit chance of cave if the pool were drainned and did not require as strong of retaining wall. Now you need to shock, and more importantly remove the ducks. Read pool school, pay particular attention to the shocking section, and you probably want to read the how to clear a swamp article even if yours is not to swamp level yet.

Ike

p.s. pool school link is at the top right of every page here

 

[mwk73]

I guess my main question is should I bring the CYA level up before I start shocking the pool? With the CYA level so lie won't I be wasting a lot of chlorine?

Thanks!
Matthew

 

[duraleigh]

Leave your CYA @ 30ppm as Blake suggests above.....that's a very manageable level to perform the shock process.

 

[mwk73]

I guess I need to bring the CYA up to 30. Right now it isn't even registering.

Matthew

 

[mwk73]

Just an update:

Took 17, 182 oz. bottles of clorox and 2 weeks but the pool is now crystal clear. Probably could have done it quicker but didn't always have the time to maintain the pool at shock level every day. And I have a sand filter, though I did add DE to it to speed up the process.

Current numbers are

FC: 4
CC: .5
TA: 90
CYA: 35
CH: 60

The last OCLT I did i lost 1 ppm of FC.

Thanks for your help! I"ll post a picture the next time I take the solar cover off.

Matthew

 

[frogabog]

Ha... I was going to ask "Why no pics? Can't you just take one next swim?". But then I saw the location. Matthew ain't gonna be swimming for a few days, if not weeks just like us. hehe

At least your pool is clean. Woot!

 

[mwk73]

Yeah. Sucks that now that it's clean (though it does need a vacuum) and the water chemistry is right we can't really swim. I think it'll be another 2 or 3 weeks before we get a chance to. Though we have our first baby (a daughter) being born on June 16th so I'm not sure I'll be by the pool other than to dump in chlorine!


Speaking of Portland/Seattle, what kind of winterizing procedure do you use? And do you use a mesh cover to let the rain come through or do you use a solid cover with a cover pump

Matthew

 

[frogabog]

LOL... after a failed domed tarp cover attempt during the falling of leaves time (which kept most of them out) I actually left it uncovered all winter. It was a tad dirty on the bottom, had about 25 leaves in it but was nice and clear all winter. I did not dose with bleach even once till that sunny week in March.

It was far too cold in February and early March to allow algae growth even with sunny days we got. I didn't see any change in the water till it got over 60 degrees for a few days and then I used a bottle of bleach and brushed it up, swirled and left it till the next 60+ week. Right now I'm putting in a bottle of bleach a week, running the pump for a few hours, vacuuming once a week and not swimming. Seems to be fine since no one goes into the pool. It's hardly 60 degrees today with no sun Put those two together and it stays nice and clear. Pool looks great other than the hawthorne petals and air dirt that's settled, I'm not even testing yet (shhhh don't tell anyone!). Seriously though, the clouds do nearly eliminate chlorine consumption. It's cloudy today, tomorrow and all next week with highs in low 60's. I'm good. Half a bottle of bleach today should last me at least half a week in these conditions.

You'll see a considerable decrease on cloudy days. On cloudy day weeks, I do not have to add bleach but every other day.

A cover would have kept it sparkling, so I'd say don't do what I did this year (mine only holds 4800 gallons and is an Intex - read... disposable). Me battling a cover agin with the rain pulling it into the pool outweighed the inconvenience of dirt that ended up on the bottom (I vacuumed it out, no big deal). Yours, I'd cover and put a pump on it. It won't handle the rain we get without one, and the pool will fill to overflowing if you use one with holes. Seems like we could have nearly filled the pool from empty with the rain we got October-April this year.