Algae or...why I hate my new pool

[Zhe Wiz]

OK, try to keep this short. Live in Central NY (Ithaca Area), bought new house and moved in on January 13th 2012. House came with 20 by 40 in-ground pool. I've never owned a pool before.

We pulled the cover off in late May and were welcomed by a nice swampy pool, complete with resident frog. Nasty. I did not have a test kit, but took a sample of water to the local pool store, they dunked a test strip in and said "you need 10 gallons of chlorine". Fine, dumped in 10 gallons of chlorine. At first, things looked like they were working. Pool went from nasty green with floaties everywhere to a milky, cloudy bluish green color...at least at first. In a week it was back to green. So, I ordered a test kit. Did a full test and found chlorine was low...added lots more chlorine. Unfortunately things didn't change. Pool stayed this deep green color.

So I thought, OK, need to test CYA. Good thing I did. It was somewhere off the chart. So I started slowly exchanging water (well water) until I FINALLY got CYA down to where it is now - about 80, possibly a little lower. I probably replaced about half of my pool water to get it there - around 10,000 gallons I would estimate. I went out and bought some more jugs of clorox and got FC from 18 up to 34.5 by 2PM and tried to maintain 30-35. Readings below:

11:30 FC 18, Added 4 Jugs Chlorine
1:45 FC 29, Added 1 Jug Chlorine
2:45 FC 34.5, Did Nothing
7:00 FC 31 Added 1 jug chlorine
8:45 FC 29.5 Added 2 jugs chlorine (get it ready for overnight)
10:42 PM FC 36.5 Did nothing

Now, onto this morning. Pool seems to be the same as before - green, though it does appear to be a bit more milky/cloudy than it has been. And CC is only .5, and I only lost .5 overnight.

Full tests:

pH 8.0 (lots of chlorine in there, is it accurate? Started at 7.6 when FC was 18)
CYA 80ish, possibly a little less, maybe 75ish
FC 36
CC .5
CH 90
TA 220

So TA is high, pH is high. Looks like I need to add some Muriatic Acid and then aerate. Should I start that now? Wait? Will my pool ever be clear?

I'm getting a bit frustrated here. I've literally dumped a lot of money into the pool, put in a lot of work, and I seem to be back where I started, only with less money now.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Jack

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

It looks like you are making good progress!

Don't worry about PH while FC is above 10. The next time FC is 10 or lower, test and adjust the PH as needed.

It is very difficult to fight algae when CYA is that high. Still, you seem to be doing well.

Sand filters can take a long time, a week or more, to clear up the water once the algae is all dead. Given your overnight loss was 0.5 or lower the algae is presumably all dead. You should see a visible improvement in the water each day. If you don't see any improvement in the water something more complex might be going on.

Later, when everything is cleaned up, you can thin about lowering TA.

 

[duraleigh]

A prime part of BBB is K.I.S.S. There is nothing more complex going on. Clearing a pool is as simple as....

1. Kill ALL the living organism in your pool and keep them killed.

2. Through filtration, brushing, backwashing/cleaning you then filter out all the junk that's clouding your water.

There are many many reasons why those two things don't always get completed but they will if you follow the Shock Process to the letter.

 

[ge2655]

Jack,

Welcome to TFP. There are lots of great people here who will help you get through your situation. You must exercise patience, believe in the process, stay away from the pool stores and you will be ultimately be rewarded with a beautiful looking pool.

One piece of advice I will give you, when I first began BBB to help pass the time while waiting for my pool to evolve, I printed out the basics and relevant (to my situation)chapters of Pool School, placed them into a 3 ring binder and read them over and over again, mostly while sitting poolside waiting for the magic to work.

To this day, some four years later, I still take out that binder and read it cover to cover to refresh my memory. Insert a record-keeping log in the binder as well and you will have a powerful reference device at your fingertips.

Please be patient, your reward awaits.

Regards,
-Gary

 

[Zhe Wiz]

Hey guys, thanks for the quick replies. Looks like I may have given up and posted (I had been lurking for a while) too soon. Today, for the first time, I SEE PROGRESS!! The pool is still cloudy, but the cloud is less of a deep green, moving toward a milky aqua color and not as thick as it had been for the past 2 weeks (before I finally got CYA to a more reasonable level)! It seems my hard work (and reading here!) is finally paying off.

I assume I should keep it at shock level while clearing it up, per the Pool School article. Now I'll be patient and wait.

I left out a LOT in my first post. Before I knew about CYA, I kept shocking and shocking and shocking but nothing would change! My wife, kids and father in-law had all but given up on me! The first time I shocked I used powdered shock. I learned later that it likely contributed to my high CYA problem.

Anyway, seeing progress for the FIRST TIME IN WEEKS makes me feel so much better about everything. I'll stay the course for now and post here if I need further help.

This place (troublefreepool.com) is awesome!

Jack

 

[frogabog]

You're our kind of TFP newbie. Congratulations on your commitment, you're going to reap the rewards quickly now.

I know you already drained to lower CYA, but the reality is that it's still very high and will make both the shocking process and daily maintenance more difficult (read: more chlorine=$$ and time). So, if you've got it in you to drain again to get the CYA down to 40'ish go ahead and do that now. And yes, by all means maintain shock level until you pass all three criteria.

1-CC .5ppm or less
2-OCLT - 1ppm or less loss overnight
3-Water is clear

 

[Zhe Wiz]

I know you already drained to lower CYA, but the reality is that it's still very high and will make both the shocking process and daily maintenance more difficult (read: more chlorine=$$ and time). So, if you've got it in you to drain again to get the CYA down to 40'ish go ahead and do that now. And yes, by all means maintain shock level until you pass all three criteria.

Oh boy...I'm not sure I can stomach more of that! Draining a few inches takes an hour or so, but filling it back up takes all day! Plus, there goes all my hard earned chlorine!

I will take your advice and get it lower, but probably not all at once. It would be another 10,000 gallons of water to get it to 40ish. Frankly, I'm amazed my well has kept up. I had the hose going almost non-stop for a couple of days. I didn't have any problems, but I'm afraid to press my luck. Also, my pool is in direct sunlight from sunrise to sunset. It's on the south side of the house, and there are NO trees blocking the sun. Should I keep CYA slightly higher than 40 because of that? Now it is NY sun, and not FL sun, but still! That's one thing that wasn't clear to me - what level should I aim for long-term as far as CYA goes. (Frankly after all the trouble I had with it, I want it all gone!!! Not really...)

Thanks,
Jack

 

[frogabog]

You could likely work with 50-60ppm CYA if you wanted to try that. You'll soon know if it works for your pool or not, and if you're ok with using more chlorine per day over the season. It's up to you, it's your pool. One of the drawbacks however is not being able to use trichlor if you go on vacation. Which isn't a big deal if you've got a neighbor or friend who will come by each evening and dose the pool for you.

 

[Zhe Wiz]

Just a quick update. As of 3 days ago, I have a perfectly clear pool, finally! I used a little clarifier at first, then a couple days later used a little DE to get the last bit of cloudiness out a little bit faster. Sand filter was working slowly, those two things (not at the same time) finished the job pretty quickly. As I told my wife yesterday, the pool is so clean I can now see how dirty it is (worms on the bottom of the deep end are now obvious!). Makes the vacuuming process a bit easier when you can see what you're vacuuming!

So staying the course and trusting the system and my CYA readings was the key to eliminating algae. Took about a week with my sand filter.

Now I have my FC around 8, so it's onto fixing up the TA number (220). I added a gallon of Muriatic Acid to get my pH down from 7.5, then turned up the jets to begin aeration. I'll keep repeating until TA is more reasonable. CYA is down to around 60, so I'll slowly get that down too.

Next up is increasing comfort. SWG and a heater are on the to-do list...70 deg. water is kinda cold...brr.

Thanks for all the help!

Zhe Wiz

 

[Butterfly]

 

[duraleigh]

Nice work, Z,

You have a very good grasp of the principles involved.

 

[brg88tx]

water is still 70 degrees this time of year in new york??? mine hit 91 today.

 

[Jennica]

I'm in NJ and I've only been in the pool once so far this season. Water is 68 which is crazy cold for mid June. High temps on the way this week though. Finally!

 

[Zhe Wiz]

water is still 70 degrees this time of year in new york??? mine hit 91 today.

I really need to move to TX...that's also on my to-do list.

Zhe Wiz