Hello everyone,
I am in my first full year of pool ownership. I have a 35,000 gallon sand filter pool with a chlorinator. At the start of this year we shocked the pool with a large dose of liquid chlorine and a large amount of phosphorus remover (which the pool store is constantly selling me after showing me high phosphorus numbers). I have high phosphorus in the water I add to my pool from my well. My pool has gone from green to murky (I can see the shallow end bottom and barely the deep end 9 foot). I have been scrubbing the sides and vacuuming to waste all of the white slime that has coagulated to the bottom. I am currently registering very low ph numbers, low alkalinity numbers, no total chlorine, and low stabilizer numbers. Here are my questions:
1. should I even be worrying about phosphorus amounts knowing that it will always be in my water?
2. based on what I'm seeing on this site I should be using bleach instead of liquid chlorine??
3. will adding bleach to shock (10 gallons or so) also increase my ph?
4. is my only alternative for raising alkalinity to buy alkalinity rise powder from the store?
5. what testing kits do people suggest (I was sold a VERY basic dip stick set that only shows TC, stabilizer, ph, and alkalinity).
6. am I missing anything??
Thanks so much in advanced for helping out a newbie who has already spent so much in pool chemicals from the pool store and is feeling robbed and ignorant.
I am in my first full year of pool ownership. I have a 35,000 gallon sand filter pool with a chlorinator. At the start of this year we shocked the pool with a large dose of liquid chlorine and a large amount of phosphorus remover (which the pool store is constantly selling me after showing me high phosphorus numbers). I have high phosphorus in the water I add to my pool from my well. My pool has gone from green to murky (I can see the shallow end bottom and barely the deep end 9 foot). I have been scrubbing the sides and vacuuming to waste all of the white slime that has coagulated to the bottom. I am currently registering very low ph numbers, low alkalinity numbers, no total chlorine, and low stabilizer numbers. Here are my questions:
1. should I even be worrying about phosphorus amounts knowing that it will always be in my water?
2. based on what I'm seeing on this site I should be using bleach instead of liquid chlorine??
3. will adding bleach to shock (10 gallons or so) also increase my ph?
4. is my only alternative for raising alkalinity to buy alkalinity rise powder from the store?
5. what testing kits do people suggest (I was sold a VERY basic dip stick set that only shows TC, stabilizer, ph, and alkalinity).
6. am I missing anything??
Thanks so much in advanced for helping out a newbie who has already spent so much in pool chemicals from the pool store and is feeling robbed and ignorant.