new owner outside chicago

[MattP22]

I recently purchased a foreclosed home. I have 30 foot above ground pool 4 foot deep. Based on what I have read I have been using 30000 gallons for all chem so far. now this pools was left untouched and uncovered for 2-3 years.

initial kill off I used 5lbs shock and 15 gallons of 8% bleach over a 2 day period.

cya is still at 0
ph is 7.6
cl 1.2
calcium is between 350-400

I am having trouble keeping the cl above 1. I have tablets in the filter basket at all times and am putting 1-2 gallons of bleach per day in it.

I have some built ups scale on the outside wall of the pool and the water is very cloudy.

going to try and raise the cya by adding some stabilizer hoping this will help with the cl issue. any ideas on the cloudy water and scale on the side

 

[duraleigh]

Welcome to the forum.

read "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School. You need a refresher on the basics. Your CYA should be about 20-30 ppm and can only get in your pool if you add it.

Your FC will not stay in the pool for 2 reasons.......you have organics in your pool that consume chlorine as they are killed and, most importantly, without CYA the sunlight will quickly destroy the chlorine which renders your SLAM useless.

 

[Richard320]

Welcome, Matt!

I hope you saved the empty bags of "shock" so you know what was in it. Powdered Chlorine will add either Calcium or CYA. So you might actually have some CYA in the water, just not enough to show up on the test.

What test kit are you using?

 

[MattP22]

Taylor Complete FAS-DPD Kit

it was a 5lb canister of shock and I tossed it.

 

[Richard320]

Taylor Complete FAS-DPD Kit

Excellent!

Just do what these people did:

First Time Shocking with Bleach
Pretty black pool
A little encouragement for those with algae and new to BBB
Frog Filled Green Swamp to Oasis---Work in Progress!!!
Before and After Pool Pics
Before and after!
A final picture set of how well the BBB method works!

Once the water is clear, then worry about the scale.

 

[MattP22]

last nights #'s
1700
fc 0
cc .5-1
PH7.2
CYA still showing 0 but there has to be some in there
started the slam with 4 gallons of 10%
1730
fc 10
cc>.5
added 4 gallon of 8.4 % bleach
1830
FC 20
CC>.5
1930
FC 20
cc>.5

since it stayed the same over the hour I left it alone overnight to see how it held up

this morning
FC 10
forgot to check CC

Will start the slam again when I get home see if I can get the FC to hold overnight. The water is still very cloudy. I am getting a 10% raise in psi every 24 hours so I am backwashing every day. Was going to get some DE to add to the sand filter today when I get home see if that helps.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Welcome neighbor....Keep us posted. Where outside Chicago?

 

[Smykowski]

Will continue the SLAM when I get home see if I can get the FC to hold overnight.

Was going to get some DE to add to the sand filter today when I get home see if that helps.

I changed a couple of words above. It's a subtle difference, but it's very important. The whole process is the SLAM process (even if you have to let up on it a little to go to work).

Don't bother with the DE yet. If you're going up 10psi every day, the filter is working fine, and adding DE at this point will only slow the process.

 

[MattP22]

I live in Sycamore, IL easier to say Chicago fro climate purposes.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

There's a great restaurant with a nice martini list in Sycamore. Drawing a blank on the name...

Good luck - let us know if you need anything....

 

[MattP22]

I have to imagine that would be Nats on Maple

 

[MattP22]

slammed it again Friday and it held FC overnight. was out of town sat and Sunday and came back to FC4 cc 0 ph of 7.1.
I though it was strange that ph went down while I was gone since I didn't;t do anything with it.

water is still cloudy. I was in it yesterday and there is a white powder that comes off the side walls when touch it so I ran the vacuum along the walls to see if it helps. would this be to the high calcium?

 

[Pool Tool]

Glad to see I'm not the only one from Sycamore making a go of it.

 

[MattP22]

think I bought Walmart out of bleach had to hit up target on Friday night.

 

[timerguy]

Something's missing here-how much cya did you add? In the OP you mentioned keeping tabs in the skimmers-are they perhaps cal hypo tabs? My gut tells me your powdered cl was cal hypo.

 

[MattP22]

Not sure on how much CYA is there. Since I added 5 lbs of powdered shock and probably 7-10lbs of pucks have gone in it. I am guessing there is some CYA there but the test was still registering 0 on friday. I was going to wait a few more days and test CYA again see if it registers.

 

[timerguy]

You said you are going to try to add some cya, so how much did you add? 2lbs, 4lbs? not asking for ppm. Assuming you still have the bucket of tabs, what kind are they? You said you threw out the canister the powder came in so there's no way of knowing what that was. I'm trying to figure out how much cya you might have in your pool if any. As far as I can tell all you say is there is 0 based on some kind of test.

 

[MattP22]

I have not added any CYA yet. I was going to ask what would be a good CYA target to have

 

[timerguy]

Aha! So you're kind of depending on any cya you think was added by all that shock and tabs you've used that may not have any Stabilizer in them? 30- 50ppm is a good starting point. Half at a time, then retest to see how much more you need.