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
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