New to house, pool (swamp), and this site... Help anyone?

[nyy845]

Hello everyone,

First off, what a wealth of knowledge on here. I'm just trying to absorb some of the info on here.

I just purchased a home with an inground pool. This house was a short sale, so the pool wasn't closed for at least 1 winter and this was the condition of the pool when we started:

Before we (my wife actually) found this site I did some foolish things, mainly dumping a ton of powdered shock and tablets in the pool.

Since then we have stuck to liquid bleach, and I ordered a test kit. This is what it looks like now:

Obviously we have a ways to go, but I just received the the test kit and the results:

pH: <6.8
FC: <0.5
CC: 0.5
TA: 0
CH:>500 (I may have screwed this up, I stopped adding the reagent)
CYA: 90 (I really screwed myself with all the powdered shock and Pucks)

Any help would be appreciated

The plan is to get to shock levels, but I don't know what order I should tackle the TA and pH.

Thanks in advance

 

[J20832]

Re: New to house, pool (swamp), and this site... Help anyone

Sorry to beat you up, but one of the worst things you can do to a vinyl liner is to have pucks just sitting on it. If they have not been there too long, it would be worth it to try to scoop them out with a leaf rake or something. They are not helping your low pH or your high CYA.

First thing is to get that pH up, get yourself some borax (the pool calculator will tell you how many boxes), I would buy at least 10. A low pH is also really bad for the liner (and the equipment too). Once you get the pH straightened out, then add baking soda (according to the pool calculator) to get the TA up. Then follow the pool school instructions for shocking. There are a lot of threads regarding turning your swamp into clean, sparkling water! It is going to take a lot of bleach!!!!!

 

[Richard320]

Re: New to house, pool (swamp), and this site... Help anyone

Does the pump work? Nothing's going to be easy without circulation.

Yank the pucks out. Figure on draining a little over half the water to reduce CH and CYA and then refilling it. Your test kit should be there by then. Get your readings and post them. Then adjust pH down to about 7.2 and forget about it. Start the shock process. When the pool is clear and sparkly, your CC is down, and FC loss is acceptable, fine tune pH and CYA. Enjoy the pool for a week or two, maintaining pH and FC. Then, if you're bored, try fine tuning things some more.

A useful thread: turning-your-green-swamp-back-into-a-sparkling-oasis-t4147.html

Some encouragement:
a-final-picture-set-of-how-well-the-bbb-method-works-t33199.html
before-and-after-t36785.html
another-green-swamp-for-you-guys-t46450.html

 

[Swampwoman]

Re: New to house, pool (swamp), and this site... Help anyone

Hey, join the swampy-foreclosure club. Here's a link to my pics in a sequence of days download/file.php?id=16812&mode=view

Best tip (everyonrpe has given you the cct sequence) -- leaf rake the bottom of that ucker until you've hauled out as much organic material as you can find. The sludge slows you down big time. If you can't get it all, try a leaf gulper, which attaches to a hose nd creates a little vortex -- I found this more convenient near the end.

Cheers!

 

[hpa1281]

Re: New to house, pool (swamp), and this site... Help anyone

Hi, I'm the wife The pool does look slightly better than the last pic now, we've been consistent putting liquid chlorine in and stopping the pucks until the test kit got here today (which was very exciting!). The filter is working okay so far and husband will vacuum out the bottom over the weekend.

I'll be getting the filter going tomorrow morning and clearing out stray leaves before I leave for work. We have a box of borax and 14 jugs of 6% bleach on hand now. Considering we'll be back to square one once the land of algae is disturbed come Saturday, what should I put in before I leave the house tomorrow, if anything?

 

[Bama Rambler]

Re: New to house, pool (swamp), and this site... Help anyone

Just dump enough bleach in it to get you to shock level.