Backstory:
Bought house in Las Vegas with Pool 6 years ago, immediately started using BBB and learned as I go. Did that for about 3 years and what was happening is I would always have pool issues, no algae that you could see but tests would show issues with the water. I would shock with tons of bleach and it would fix. I had issues using BBB because I after awhile I got tired of maintaining the pol on a daily basis and would slack. About 2 years ago I drained the pool to do a full acid wash. Refilled and continued BBB. The end of that summer and all last summer I decided to go the more conventional method of maintaining the pool with "Shock" and "Tablets". My thought process was "Well since nobody that I have ever talked to locally knows anything about using bleach and their pools are perfect why should I go through this much work to maintain my pool?" So I switched to Acid, "Shock" and "Tablets"
Fast Forward:
End of summer last year I started getting yellow Algae on the walls, tried to fix, pool temp dropped for winter and they were gone. Maintaining the pool this year and no signs of it until today. Bottom line is I got lazy again and missed my weekly "shock" treatment and didn;t even test my levels. Since my test chemicals are getting old I brought the water to the pool store to check the levels. And this what the guy says "Can I take your picture and put it on the wall? I have never seen water with this much CH EVER" He said you gotta do a full drain and refill.
Dilemma:
I am trying to understand how my CH levels have gone so crazy and why I need to drain and refill again. My first thought is I maintained the pool just fine for 3 years with Bleach and then I switched could that be the issue? Like I said before my issue with the Bleach is the DAILY maintenance. My 2nd issue is cost, I was going through 3-4 bottles of bleach per week, this was even wity upping my CYA to account for the extreme temps here in Las Vegas and the bleach burning off.
Should I go back to Bleach after the refill?
When I wasn't using bleach I kind of did my own thing, I didn't get advice from pool store. I would walk in and buy my bags of "shock" and acid and be on my way. I would measure levels and always keep then decent but I was never SUPER accurate with acid measuring, it just got to the point where I would know ABOUT what I needed to lower the pH to the level I needed after testing.
Should I just straight listen to the pool store advice to maintain in the future? They are not the kind of pool store that recommends crazy amounts of other chemicals, in fact they don't recommend all that other stuff like algaecide.
Last refill I did the Borax because I LOVE the way it looks and all of its other benefits, can I do this and use "shock"?
What should I do?
Bought house in Las Vegas with Pool 6 years ago, immediately started using BBB and learned as I go. Did that for about 3 years and what was happening is I would always have pool issues, no algae that you could see but tests would show issues with the water. I would shock with tons of bleach and it would fix. I had issues using BBB because I after awhile I got tired of maintaining the pol on a daily basis and would slack. About 2 years ago I drained the pool to do a full acid wash. Refilled and continued BBB. The end of that summer and all last summer I decided to go the more conventional method of maintaining the pool with "Shock" and "Tablets". My thought process was "Well since nobody that I have ever talked to locally knows anything about using bleach and their pools are perfect why should I go through this much work to maintain my pool?" So I switched to Acid, "Shock" and "Tablets"
Fast Forward:
End of summer last year I started getting yellow Algae on the walls, tried to fix, pool temp dropped for winter and they were gone. Maintaining the pool this year and no signs of it until today. Bottom line is I got lazy again and missed my weekly "shock" treatment and didn;t even test my levels. Since my test chemicals are getting old I brought the water to the pool store to check the levels. And this what the guy says "Can I take your picture and put it on the wall? I have never seen water with this much CH EVER" He said you gotta do a full drain and refill.
Dilemma:
I am trying to understand how my CH levels have gone so crazy and why I need to drain and refill again. My first thought is I maintained the pool just fine for 3 years with Bleach and then I switched could that be the issue? Like I said before my issue with the Bleach is the DAILY maintenance. My 2nd issue is cost, I was going through 3-4 bottles of bleach per week, this was even wity upping my CYA to account for the extreme temps here in Las Vegas and the bleach burning off.
Should I go back to Bleach after the refill?
When I wasn't using bleach I kind of did my own thing, I didn't get advice from pool store. I would walk in and buy my bags of "shock" and acid and be on my way. I would measure levels and always keep then decent but I was never SUPER accurate with acid measuring, it just got to the point where I would know ABOUT what I needed to lower the pH to the level I needed after testing.
Should I just straight listen to the pool store advice to maintain in the future? They are not the kind of pool store that recommends crazy amounts of other chemicals, in fact they don't recommend all that other stuff like algaecide.
Last refill I did the Borax because I LOVE the way it looks and all of its other benefits, can I do this and use "shock"?
What should I do?