Hello,
I'm Gerry from Sacramento county in California. Last year we moved into this foreclosure house with a approx 45k gallon pool. It was in I'd say bad, not horrible shape? Huge brownish stain in the deep end around the drains, brown spots (won't brush away) here and there in the pool and some surface discoloration here and there. There is also lots of calcium buildup on the tiles. We had a lot to do when we moved in so we hired a pool guy for a few months, then once things started to settle down a bit we started trying to maintain it ourselves. His last day was on a Wednesday and on that following Saturday we noticed little black spots on the walls. So I tested and found the FC at Zero. After much reading found out it is black algae and have been battling it ever since. We also had our pump die so we replaced it with a ecopump ep8 .25/2hp pump. Have also replaced the missing doors on the skimmers and that really seemed to make a big difference on the water surface being much cleaner (maybe placebo effect?). I think we've probably tried everything except obviously the right thing to get rid of the algae. So now I'm done winging it so here I am. I've read much of pool school but need more to better understand everything. But did get out of it the need of a good test kit. I went to Leslies and bought their Complete PoolCare DPD Test kit. And AFTER figuring out the chlorine test realized I got the wrong one... Oh well still very much learning the hard/expensive way.
I've been testing for the last 3 days and will post all results including Leslies results. They gave me... wait I bought 1qt Leslies black algae killer and put that in the pool. Then I also bought a $46 bottle of phos free, but didn't put that in and will be returning it after reading on here that phosphates are irrelevant if everything else is in balance. I was concerned about phosphates because our sprinklers spray into the pool and we live by a field with those cotton type trees and all kinds of nature flys into the pool.
Test results:
5/27 4:15pm at Leslies
FC - 3,
TC - 3,
CC would be 0 correct?,
pH - 8,
TA - 90,
CH - 60 (I think I added some muriatic acid but can't remember, this is when I added the 1qt of black algae killer)
5/29 11:30am at home with new test kit:
FC - .5,
TC - 1,
CC 0 .5,
pH - 7.6,
TA - 110,
CH - didn't know what i was doing yet, didn't get a good result),
CYA - 80.
(added 96oz of muriatic acid)
5/29 6pm:
FC - 1
TC - not tested
CC - not tested
pH - 7.2
TA - not tested
CH - not tested
Added 256oz 12.5% chlorine
5/30 7:30am
FC - 10
TC - 10
CC - 0
pH - 7.4
TA - 120
CH - 190
CYA - 80
Added nothing
5/31 10am
FC - 6
TC - 6
CC - 0
pH - 7.4
TA - 110
CH - 180
CYA - 90
Added nothing
Not sure if TA, CH and CYA should be fluctuating that much?
I read the defeating algae page and if I'm reading correctly, we're suppose to keep the FC at shock level until the algae is gone? That would mean swimming is no good during this time? The water is very clear and there is no algae other than the black algae. Very small spots doesn't seems to be too much on the bottom of the pool, just the walls and steps.
Just a bit overwhelmed by the maintenance of this size of a pool I think.
Thanks for any advice!
I'm Gerry from Sacramento county in California. Last year we moved into this foreclosure house with a approx 45k gallon pool. It was in I'd say bad, not horrible shape? Huge brownish stain in the deep end around the drains, brown spots (won't brush away) here and there in the pool and some surface discoloration here and there. There is also lots of calcium buildup on the tiles. We had a lot to do when we moved in so we hired a pool guy for a few months, then once things started to settle down a bit we started trying to maintain it ourselves. His last day was on a Wednesday and on that following Saturday we noticed little black spots on the walls. So I tested and found the FC at Zero. After much reading found out it is black algae and have been battling it ever since. We also had our pump die so we replaced it with a ecopump ep8 .25/2hp pump. Have also replaced the missing doors on the skimmers and that really seemed to make a big difference on the water surface being much cleaner (maybe placebo effect?). I think we've probably tried everything except obviously the right thing to get rid of the algae. So now I'm done winging it so here I am. I've read much of pool school but need more to better understand everything. But did get out of it the need of a good test kit. I went to Leslies and bought their Complete PoolCare DPD Test kit. And AFTER figuring out the chlorine test realized I got the wrong one... Oh well still very much learning the hard/expensive way.
I've been testing for the last 3 days and will post all results including Leslies results. They gave me... wait I bought 1qt Leslies black algae killer and put that in the pool. Then I also bought a $46 bottle of phos free, but didn't put that in and will be returning it after reading on here that phosphates are irrelevant if everything else is in balance. I was concerned about phosphates because our sprinklers spray into the pool and we live by a field with those cotton type trees and all kinds of nature flys into the pool.
Test results:
5/27 4:15pm at Leslies
FC - 3,
TC - 3,
CC would be 0 correct?,
pH - 8,
TA - 90,
CH - 60 (I think I added some muriatic acid but can't remember, this is when I added the 1qt of black algae killer)
5/29 11:30am at home with new test kit:
FC - .5,
TC - 1,
CC 0 .5,
pH - 7.6,
TA - 110,
CH - didn't know what i was doing yet, didn't get a good result),
CYA - 80.
(added 96oz of muriatic acid)
5/29 6pm:
FC - 1
TC - not tested
CC - not tested
pH - 7.2
TA - not tested
CH - not tested
Added 256oz 12.5% chlorine
5/30 7:30am
FC - 10
TC - 10
CC - 0
pH - 7.4
TA - 120
CH - 190
CYA - 80
Added nothing
5/31 10am
FC - 6
TC - 6
CC - 0
pH - 7.4
TA - 110
CH - 180
CYA - 90
Added nothing
Not sure if TA, CH and CYA should be fluctuating that much?
I read the defeating algae page and if I'm reading correctly, we're suppose to keep the FC at shock level until the algae is gone? That would mean swimming is no good during this time? The water is very clear and there is no algae other than the black algae. Very small spots doesn't seems to be too much on the bottom of the pool, just the walls and steps.
Just a bit overwhelmed by the maintenance of this size of a pool I think.
Thanks for any advice!