Day 3 with my green pool

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phyllis

0
May 28, 2009
87
AR
I opened my pool on Sunday to a green mess due to a sagging cover. We dumped half the water and then dipped out all we could. We started shocking at 10-15 with great value bleach. We started filling the pool back up on Monday with water. Have been testing and shocking according to the pool calculator.

It is still very green.... and I did expect it to take maybe all week.
I have gone through about 12 - 121 oz jugs so far. The big surprise is today. I've got it full of water again. My FC was at 13 this morning around 7:30. Just now tested again and it is at 11.5. As green as it is I expected it to be at 0-1. I vacuumed and scrubbed the walls yesterday. I did add about 2 lbs of cya last night but not showing up yet on testing.

ph = around 8
FC = 11.5
cya = 0
ch = 250
ta = 200

Does this sound normal???
I have been doing the bleach method for 2-3 years and never had my FC stay up this long with this much green.

Am I missing something somewhere??

85 deg in Northeast AR
 
It sounds like at least day one, you added the bleach but the pool wasn't full and circulating? If so, there went some time we can cross off your "recovery" period! Have you raised your FC shock level up to what the "new" cya level is? Keep circulating 24/7 and backwash as necessary. Can you see bottom? Can you see visible algae, or does the water look clear with a greenish tint?
 
my cya is still not registering. Testing refills were shipped out today so i should be able to test it again by Thursday or Friday.
Yes. we are circulating and vacuuming to waste. can't see the bottom yet.... water is clear when i get the sample but definitely not clear in the pool.

It is a blue-green color. I can see a dark circle in the middle of the pool on the bottom where i know the little bit that is left in the pool...residue from the leaves. It is about 6 ft in diameter probably. will continue to vacuum to waste when it stops raining.

I just didn't understand about the FC level not going down.
 
My opinion: don't worry about it. Be happy that it's not going down, because as long as you're doing the test right, it means you're effectively killing the algae and the chlorine doesn't have as much work to do as you thought.

Good luck with your opening!
 
6:00 am testing
ph = 7.5
FC = 5.5
CC = 1.0
CYA = 5
CH = 225
TA = 150
Color is blue green ... still can't see the bottom.
The FC target is still 10. Should be able to test CYA accurately by tonight.
 
Keep your FC up all the time and you will reach your target sooner.

Also, be sure you test and get your FC up to shock after the sun goes down at night to maximize the use of the chlorine with out the sun burning some of it up for you.
 
Pool is milky blue today with not as much green. I can finally see the vacuum as it goes across the bottom....barely. My chlorine is still staying high. NO loss over night... in fact it even went up.... now how can that happen. Hopefully the new test refills will be here today. But my testers are not more than 2 years old.... I don't think that is what is wrong. It has been cloudy most of the week here in NEA so maybe that is the contributing factor. Vacuumed to wasted this morning since we got 5 in of rain last night and the pool was running over.

My FC is 22..... and it was 5 last night. It called for 1.3 jugs to get it to 10 and that is what I did.
No way to test the CYA till refills come in but I know it cannot possibly be more than 10 with as much backwashing and vacuuming to waste as I am doing. I added about 1.5 lbs of stabilizer at the beginning of the week.

Do I keep testing, vacuuming, and circulating????? Is there anything else to be done?? I have used 15 jugs (121 oz) of bleach this week.... and I had a GREEN mess to start with so I know that I am making headway!!!!
 
So your pool is around 21k gallons right? 2 lbs of CYA would only add 11ppm ... and the test starts at 20ppm ... so you are not going to be able to test for it. I would add another 3-4 pounds so that the CYA is measurable and protecting the FC.

Wait ... first post you said you added 2 lbs, no you say you added 1.5 lbs ... which is it? or both?

Keep doing what you are doing.
 
It was approx 1.5-2 lbs. It was piece of a bucket left from last year. :roll:
I was just beginning and I knew I had a lot of backwashing and vacuuming to waste so I didn't think it would do any good to put a lot of stabilizer in the pool just yet.

My refills just arrived and I have retested my FC and it is at 2!!!

I think my test chemicals from last year must be bad. I re-tested with the same sample and it showed the FC at 8!!! Hopefully we will be seeing some quicker results now.

I am finished vacuuming to waste so I will add my stabilizer tonight to get it up to at least 20.
 

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Most people run the CYA at 40-50. You can run it higher than that, but you will also have to adjust your FC levels upward to match.

My experience from last year, with my goof of running CYA at 90-100, gave me a (for me) a rather expensive bleach bill even with only 5k gal pool. Running 40 this year, and the difference is amazing to me. Balance so far appears to be rather stable compared to last year.
 
phyllis said:
Had a loss of 2 in my FC last night. Pool is still cloudy but can see more of the bottom this am.
What should my stabilizer goal be???
Click to expand...
Keep CYA down to about 30 until you complete the shock process. See red lines in my sig.

You can adjust it up to about 50 when you are done.
 
Almost there but not quite:

6:00 am testing
ph = 8
FC = 12.5
CC = 0
CYA = beginning to get it up... still less than 20 but target is 30
CH = 250
TA = 175

My target last night was 11 so there has been no loss overnight so I added 6.5 qts of bleach.
It is a slightly cloudy blue but can see the bottom now really good. We are sort of to the stage we were last year but never able to get back to the crystal clear that we had the year before.

I know the 3 rules :arrow:
You're done shocking when:
1)You lose 1ppm or less FC overnight, & 2)You have .5ppm CC's or less, & 3)your water is clear.

But if it never gets to the crystal clear.... then what :?: :?: :?:
 
phyllis said:
Almost there but not quite:

6:00 am testing
ph = 8
FC = 12.5
CC = 0
CYA = beginning to get it up... still less than 20 but target is 30
CH = 250
TA = 175

My target last night was 11 so there has been no loss overnight so I added 6.5 qts of bleach.
It is a slightly cloudy blue but can see the bottom now really good. We are sort of to the stage we were last year but never able to get back to the crystal clear that we had the year before.

I know the 3 rules :arrow:
You're done shocking when:
1)You lose 1ppm or less FC overnight, & 2)You have .5ppm CC's or less, & 3)your water is clear.

But if it never gets to the crystal clear.... then what :?: :?: :?:
Click to expand...
Wait... you're telling us that you have passed 2 of the 3 tests?

If so... your sand filter will take a while to clear the residue out. You can hasten it if you http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/add_de_to_a_sand_filter It only needs a little bit and DE is sold in big packages, so ask around and see if a neighbor has a DE filter and if they'd let you have a scoop of it.
 
That is exactly what I thought about doing yesterday but could not find any at the local walmart. I found that article and was reading about it and wondered if that was my next step!!!! Sometimes when I backwash and then rinse and then return to filter it puts brown water back into my pool for about 30 seconds. Is this coming from my sand filter????? Will the DE clean my sand filter????
 
phyllis said:
That is exactly what I thought about doing yesterday but could not find any at the local walmart. I found that article and was reading about it and wondered if that was my next step!!!! Sometimes when I backwash and then rinse and then return to filter it puts brown water back into my pool for about 30 seconds. Is this coming from my sand filter????? Will the DE clean my sand filter????
Click to expand...
I just did a little searching to refresh my memory, and it sounds like you might not stay in rinse mode long enough. That could be a real problem if you put DE in.
 

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