New Home-Neglected Green Pool

[Tpokoy]

Hello,

We have just purchased our first new home, and with that came our first new pool. Pool School has been a great help in going from knowing nothing about being a pool owner to identifying all the components to my new pool and the science behind it. When we purchased the home, there was no cover on the pool, and it had not been open for 2 years. We winterized and covered for winter, and at that time would describe the color of the water at that time as a merky death black lagoon.

As summer is approaching, Im waging a full war to get this pool open and running. So far I have been manually raking to get all the organics (Leave, twigs) and inorganics (Bras, Underwear, Beer Bottles) out from the bottom. Right now the heavy debris on the bottom is cleared and the water is green. I have cleaned the pump hoses and filter baskets, and have taken apart my DE filter and done an acid wash, so i am ready to add DE and start filtering and shocking. My Taylor test kit reading are as follows:

PH- 7.2
FC- 0
TC- 0
TA- 130
CH- 250
CYA- The reading on the test tube stopped at 30, so I belive it is somewhere around 15-25.
Filter- Hayward Extended Cycle Preflex DE Filter and pump.
Pool- Above Groung Oval, Vinyl Liner, 10,000 Gal

From what i understand, 1 gal of liquid chlorine 12% will give me 12 ppm Chlorine in my 10,000 Gal pool. Based on my CYA i want to get to a shock level of around 12ppm FC , but don't know where to start with the shock. Will that first gallon of shock i pour in turn into CC right away because of the all the organics from the green pool? My pool store recommended 8 gallons of shock to start off with, but that seems like alot, and being a hazmat chemist I would rather go by science and numbers that just throwing a bunch of chemicals at it.

Any help on a starting point would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[duraleigh]

Welcome to the forum. :lol: You're off to a great start....it's obvious you've been doing homework.

Will that first gallon of shock i pour in turn into CC right away because of the all the organics from the green pool?

Maybe not all into CC's, but you can plan on it being consumed very quickly so you will need to redose very quickly....often after just a couple of hours. The redosing will get further and further apart until you only have to do it a couple times daily as you approach the end of the process.

Your pool store guy is ASSUMING all that chlorine will get eaten up before it damages your pool....maybe, but I wouldn't assume that.

Just like you said, test, dose accurately and you will have a crystal clear pool soon.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

The best thing is to follow the directions in Pool School on how to shock the pool. Briefly they are to raise FC to shock level, wait an hour, test the FC level, and repeat.

By the by, when fighting algae CC is actually fairly rare. If CC goes up rapidly as chlorine is added you usually have ammonia in the water. In either case the FC level tends to go down rapidly at first, and then more slowly as you gain the upper hand.

Doing all of this while CYA is very low can be a little tricky as you lose chlorine to sunlight very quickly. I suggest you raise CYA to around 30 as soon as practical to help prevent sunlight losses, and then raise it to recommended levels later when things settle down.