My husband and I bought a house with a pool built in the 70s with what appears to be original plaster and equipment. We moved here in the middle of October. The local pool supply store guy told me I just needed to keep the chlorine at the right level and we'd be fine ... um, not so much.
We started with just a basic Chlorine/PH testing kit, and it's been a struggle to keep the chlorine in the ideal range. It seems to be eaten up faster than would be expected given our weather conditions, etc.
I noticed brown staining in the pool when we moved in and wasn't sure/still am not sure what it was.
Not too long after we moved in, we noticed that the Polaris pool sweep and the pool filter weren't working as well as they should and pretty soon they both stopped working at all. When we opened up the filter we found it absolutely 100% clogged with DE and yew tree needles and the filter screens themselves were all torn up. Got it cleaned up and new filter grids in place and everything seems to be working well again on that front, but they were out of commission for almost a week.
So as you can imagine, during the time when the filter was underperforming and we had no pool sweep function, black spots developed in the pool. Local pool supply guy had me try a copper algaecide along with frequent brushing. He said to keep the chlorine level very high which I was unable to do... it was consumed so quickly, and I wasn't checking/replenishing it often enough. So we still have black algae plus some blue staining from the copper.
In frustration, I started doing some reading here and decided to order the TF-100 test kit. It arrived yesterday and I tested the water this morning.
My results:
FC 2.5
CC 1.5
TA 120
CYA 95
CH 950
Other random facts in no particular order:
[*]I'm in Central CA and the weather has been in the 50s and 40s at night, 50s-70s in the day lately.
[*]I'm 18 weeks pregnant and have a 18 month old and a 5 year old and do my best to do daily maintenance daily, but sometimes it's more like every other day.
[*]I've been finding white crystals in the bag of my Polaris -- I'm guessing this is related to the high CH levels?
[*]There are two large yew trees near the pool and their needles get blown in frequently. I added a sock to the skimmer basket to keep these from getting into the filter in the future.
[*]I'm finding a lot of dead bugs (gnats, bees, flies) in the pool and skimmer basket/sock when I do my daily/every other day cleaning.
Thoughts and suggestions please?
We started with just a basic Chlorine/PH testing kit, and it's been a struggle to keep the chlorine in the ideal range. It seems to be eaten up faster than would be expected given our weather conditions, etc.
I noticed brown staining in the pool when we moved in and wasn't sure/still am not sure what it was.
Not too long after we moved in, we noticed that the Polaris pool sweep and the pool filter weren't working as well as they should and pretty soon they both stopped working at all. When we opened up the filter we found it absolutely 100% clogged with DE and yew tree needles and the filter screens themselves were all torn up. Got it cleaned up and new filter grids in place and everything seems to be working well again on that front, but they were out of commission for almost a week.
So as you can imagine, during the time when the filter was underperforming and we had no pool sweep function, black spots developed in the pool. Local pool supply guy had me try a copper algaecide along with frequent brushing. He said to keep the chlorine level very high which I was unable to do... it was consumed so quickly, and I wasn't checking/replenishing it often enough. So we still have black algae plus some blue staining from the copper.
In frustration, I started doing some reading here and decided to order the TF-100 test kit. It arrived yesterday and I tested the water this morning.
My results:
FC 2.5
CC 1.5
TA 120
CYA 95
CH 950
Other random facts in no particular order:
[*]I'm in Central CA and the weather has been in the 50s and 40s at night, 50s-70s in the day lately.
[*]I'm 18 weeks pregnant and have a 18 month old and a 5 year old and do my best to do daily maintenance daily, but sometimes it's more like every other day.
[*]I've been finding white crystals in the bag of my Polaris -- I'm guessing this is related to the high CH levels?
[*]There are two large yew trees near the pool and their needles get blown in frequently. I added a sock to the skimmer basket to keep these from getting into the filter in the future.
[*]I'm finding a lot of dead bugs (gnats, bees, flies) in the pool and skimmer basket/sock when I do my daily/every other day cleaning.
Thoughts and suggestions please?
)
