Hello all, you seem to be a wealth of information and friendly people.
We bought this house about a year ago, first pool, and had been going to Leslie's for advice, buying Phos-Free and other stuff, and using a basic test kit. Admittedly this winter we really fell down on the job. We live in the country, and had a TON of leaf accumulation in the pool and pretty much disregarded the chemistry all winter - some family issues had our attention elsewhere.
I hired a local pool company to come out and do a one-time clean and vacuum out all the leaves - their pool tech tells me we have black and mustard algae and describes this PoolRx thing that they want to sell me and claim that it'll clean this pool sparking clean in a matter of days. I bite, and they throw this copper algaecide thing into the skimmer basket, then move it to the pump basket. The pool looks clear now, but I'm left with what I am assuming are black algae stains/spots/? all over the pool - it's embarrassing as ****.
So I got mad, searched the Interwebs and found this site. It's kind of like drinking from a fire hose. I bought the TF-100 kit and today took my first readings:
FC: 0
CC: 10
Alk: 100
CH: 50
CYA: 90-100 (?)
pH: 7.5
FYI, yesterday I added 4 pucks to the auto-chlorinator, and the pool water level is low, need to be raised. It's a 27,000 gallon pool with a DA filter, which I plan on cleaning out tomorrow.
Obviously I have two problems - the chlorine level and the black algae. Or maybe three, with the high CYA level (although this test seemed really subjective). So I have three questions:
1. Should I start the SLAM process with the CYA this high?
2. Is there a way to lower CYA other than drain/refill? I am unsure how to drain it other than renting a pump.
3. How to remove the black algae stains? I have seen information on how to kill it, but assuming that the algaecide did its job, how do I get rid of the black/brown stains that seem to sit in rough spots of the plaster?
Thank you VERY much in advance.
Robert
We bought this house about a year ago, first pool, and had been going to Leslie's for advice, buying Phos-Free and other stuff, and using a basic test kit. Admittedly this winter we really fell down on the job. We live in the country, and had a TON of leaf accumulation in the pool and pretty much disregarded the chemistry all winter - some family issues had our attention elsewhere.
I hired a local pool company to come out and do a one-time clean and vacuum out all the leaves - their pool tech tells me we have black and mustard algae and describes this PoolRx thing that they want to sell me and claim that it'll clean this pool sparking clean in a matter of days. I bite, and they throw this copper algaecide thing into the skimmer basket, then move it to the pump basket. The pool looks clear now, but I'm left with what I am assuming are black algae stains/spots/? all over the pool - it's embarrassing as ****.
So I got mad, searched the Interwebs and found this site. It's kind of like drinking from a fire hose. I bought the TF-100 kit and today took my first readings:
FC: 0
CC: 10
Alk: 100
CH: 50
CYA: 90-100 (?)
pH: 7.5
FYI, yesterday I added 4 pucks to the auto-chlorinator, and the pool water level is low, need to be raised. It's a 27,000 gallon pool with a DA filter, which I plan on cleaning out tomorrow.
Obviously I have two problems - the chlorine level and the black algae. Or maybe three, with the high CYA level (although this test seemed really subjective). So I have three questions:
1. Should I start the SLAM process with the CYA this high?
2. Is there a way to lower CYA other than drain/refill? I am unsure how to drain it other than renting a pump.
3. How to remove the black algae stains? I have seen information on how to kill it, but assuming that the algaecide did its job, how do I get rid of the black/brown stains that seem to sit in rough spots of the plaster?
Thank you VERY much in advance.
Robert