I had my pool since last year and kinda fought some algae problems with the ladder, then I drilled huge holes in the ladder to allow the water to pass through it instead of the tiny holes that was trapping the algae. All good now but getting algae again.
Todays readings
TC - 7
CC - 0
FC - 7
TA - 100
CYA was 30 and brought it to 40 last week, its is now at 35 due to me vacuuming to waste several times
PH - 7.6
Ok, I live in south Louisiana 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Hot humid spring and summers with rain coming out of the gulf and a south wind blowing from the gulf across marshlands of Louisiana. During the winter I kept the pool open, removed leaves, debris etc, and kept about 3ppm of Bleach with hardly no loss. As the temperature got hotter and more humid I had to keep bumping up to 6 then 7 ppm which is where I was at now because of a loss of about 3 -4 ppm a day. The water seemed fine with vacuuming, brushing, backwashing, etc. Then we got 2 1/2 inches of rain coming out of our nasty gulf of Mexico, not rain coming from the north originating from clean snow drifts. My water clouded but never saw evidence of algae, so I maintained my levels and it started to clear but never completely. I shocked at 15 two weeks ago and thought that would take care of it, then backwashed sand filter. I did not to the overnight test, my mistake. It cleared for the most part and kept it at FC of 8. I then added some stabilizer, not right after the daily bleach dosage, and overnight it turned cloudy. So I let my filter run 24/7 to see if it would clear.
Then with the bad weather in the mid-western US, we had a 20 - 25 mph wind coming out of the gulf streaming moisture to those areas last week along with a dry period flinging all sorts of dust, dirt etc into the pool. Our highs right now are at 91 with dewpoints near 70, oppressive. The pool had become milky not green. My wife thought it would be a good idea to talk to the local owner at Leslies who suggested Pool First Aid. They had one bottle on the shelf left, the owner said everyone in the area has been having a problem with their pools clouding up and this stuff was supposed to clear it overnight. So, against better judgement, since I believe in the BBB method, I tried it. The next morning, water was almost clear as a bell with large amounts of sediment on the bottom. I then suspected this could be some kind of floculant. I immediately vacuumed up the stuff, which was brownish green, to waste, took three times to fill the water back up to use the vacuum at the skimmer, but got it all. I then backwashed the filter and man, was it green water coming out. Let it run clear, rinsed, and went back to filter. Now since this I upped it to 10ppm FC yesterday after taking so much water out and when I saw the green coming out the filter. Today the water is relatively clear but u can see a hint of green in it and I found some small splotches of green on the floors. I have now shocked to 14 according to the CYA chart with a Cya of 35 that I rechecked again. I will now run the overnight test and see if I lose any. I am about frustrated to my wits end with this and trying to figure out where I went wrong, again. When I was child we had pools and I dont remember all these problems.
I had some questions too, like if I was keeping my FC above min according to the CYA chart on a daily basis adding the bleach faithfully, why did this occur, should I keep a higher minimum even if its over the chart numbers? I remember last year I had to keep it at 9 because even with 40 cya looks like the sun was eating it up pretty good. We are now getting about 8 hours of direct sunlight.
If I need to stay above CYA chart numbers like 10ppm with a CYA of 35 is it safe for the vinyl liner?
After these rains and wind storms, when the pool gets hazy should I bring to shock level, seems keeping my levels at the suggested CYA chart numbers is not working. I have read in here that some people never have shocked or done it only once a year, I dont know how.
I dont know if its my location I live in with our weather or what, but I am spending more time trying to alleviate pool problems then swimming. I have read the pool school many times along with the shocking procedures and lurked in the forums reading other peoples problems. I have FASDPD and the other Taylor test kit to try and get exact readings. Kinda frustrating some people use the wallyworld test kits, pucks, and shock and swim once a week and have no problems. All I can see is that they are flooding their pools with major chlorine that would kill anything trying to grow, but at the same time could be damaging their liners.
Chemgeek, I have followed several of your posts regarding the relationship between CYA/FC and now understand as you have said that a pool with 10ppm FC with a CYA of 50 is like 0.2 FC with no CYA. Some were very technical for me to understand, but I believe I get the just of it and appreciate your expertise. I just dont know if I was keeping enough FC with my CYA level of 30 to combat the organics even though the chart has specific numbers and I never allowed it to drop below 3.5. I also have moved my pool jet around to eliminate any dead spots and have good circulation in my opinion with my one horse hayward pump in the 21 foot pool.
Sorry for the long post, just frustrating
Todays readings
TC - 7
CC - 0
FC - 7
TA - 100
CYA was 30 and brought it to 40 last week, its is now at 35 due to me vacuuming to waste several times
PH - 7.6
Ok, I live in south Louisiana 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Hot humid spring and summers with rain coming out of the gulf and a south wind blowing from the gulf across marshlands of Louisiana. During the winter I kept the pool open, removed leaves, debris etc, and kept about 3ppm of Bleach with hardly no loss. As the temperature got hotter and more humid I had to keep bumping up to 6 then 7 ppm which is where I was at now because of a loss of about 3 -4 ppm a day. The water seemed fine with vacuuming, brushing, backwashing, etc. Then we got 2 1/2 inches of rain coming out of our nasty gulf of Mexico, not rain coming from the north originating from clean snow drifts. My water clouded but never saw evidence of algae, so I maintained my levels and it started to clear but never completely. I shocked at 15 two weeks ago and thought that would take care of it, then backwashed sand filter. I did not to the overnight test, my mistake. It cleared for the most part and kept it at FC of 8. I then added some stabilizer, not right after the daily bleach dosage, and overnight it turned cloudy. So I let my filter run 24/7 to see if it would clear.
Then with the bad weather in the mid-western US, we had a 20 - 25 mph wind coming out of the gulf streaming moisture to those areas last week along with a dry period flinging all sorts of dust, dirt etc into the pool. Our highs right now are at 91 with dewpoints near 70, oppressive. The pool had become milky not green. My wife thought it would be a good idea to talk to the local owner at Leslies who suggested Pool First Aid. They had one bottle on the shelf left, the owner said everyone in the area has been having a problem with their pools clouding up and this stuff was supposed to clear it overnight. So, against better judgement, since I believe in the BBB method, I tried it. The next morning, water was almost clear as a bell with large amounts of sediment on the bottom. I then suspected this could be some kind of floculant. I immediately vacuumed up the stuff, which was brownish green, to waste, took three times to fill the water back up to use the vacuum at the skimmer, but got it all. I then backwashed the filter and man, was it green water coming out. Let it run clear, rinsed, and went back to filter. Now since this I upped it to 10ppm FC yesterday after taking so much water out and when I saw the green coming out the filter. Today the water is relatively clear but u can see a hint of green in it and I found some small splotches of green on the floors. I have now shocked to 14 according to the CYA chart with a Cya of 35 that I rechecked again. I will now run the overnight test and see if I lose any. I am about frustrated to my wits end with this and trying to figure out where I went wrong, again. When I was child we had pools and I dont remember all these problems.
I had some questions too, like if I was keeping my FC above min according to the CYA chart on a daily basis adding the bleach faithfully, why did this occur, should I keep a higher minimum even if its over the chart numbers? I remember last year I had to keep it at 9 because even with 40 cya looks like the sun was eating it up pretty good. We are now getting about 8 hours of direct sunlight.
If I need to stay above CYA chart numbers like 10ppm with a CYA of 35 is it safe for the vinyl liner?
After these rains and wind storms, when the pool gets hazy should I bring to shock level, seems keeping my levels at the suggested CYA chart numbers is not working. I have read in here that some people never have shocked or done it only once a year, I dont know how.
I dont know if its my location I live in with our weather or what, but I am spending more time trying to alleviate pool problems then swimming. I have read the pool school many times along with the shocking procedures and lurked in the forums reading other peoples problems. I have FASDPD and the other Taylor test kit to try and get exact readings. Kinda frustrating some people use the wallyworld test kits, pucks, and shock and swim once a week and have no problems. All I can see is that they are flooding their pools with major chlorine that would kill anything trying to grow, but at the same time could be damaging their liners.
Chemgeek, I have followed several of your posts regarding the relationship between CYA/FC and now understand as you have said that a pool with 10ppm FC with a CYA of 50 is like 0.2 FC with no CYA. Some were very technical for me to understand, but I believe I get the just of it and appreciate your expertise. I just dont know if I was keeping enough FC with my CYA level of 30 to combat the organics even though the chart has specific numbers and I never allowed it to drop below 3.5. I also have moved my pool jet around to eliminate any dead spots and have good circulation in my opinion with my one horse hayward pump in the 21 foot pool.
Sorry for the long post, just frustrating