My problem child

[Lflsjet]

I was pumped that my house had a pool when I bought it a few years ago. I have the "I can fix anything" attitude typical of an automotive technician. It has since become a very expensive and humbling hole in the ground.

I have been back and forth with algae issues with this pool forever. I can never seem to stay ahead of it. It has been a lot better for the last two summers though. But I have to keep 3 chlorine floaters fully stocked with Tri-chlor and brush daily. Then hit it with a dose of Phosfree and algaecide once a week. But even then, if I miss a step the pool will bloom up very quickly. I also noticed that I had a hard time keeping my FC levels up high enough to even register on my test kit.

I bought a good test kit and started researching. Now I think I've figured out some of the errors in my ways, but I'm looking for a little hand holding

Current water
FC 3
Ph 7.2
TA 200
CYA 200 would be my guess based on how quickly the black dot went away on my Taylor kit
Cal 190

Now I see why I have such a hard time keeping chlorine in this pool.

So from these numbers, would you recommend doing several partial drain in refills or run a high chlorine system?

Any recommendations for chlorine since it seems that I should ditch the 3" tablets?

Thanks for any help or suggestions. And let me know if you have car issues

Ryan

 

[Butterfly]

Welcome to the forum

Yeah, you really need to start the drain/refill dance

Did you do a dilution test for the CYA?

Since you did not list CC, do you not have the FAS/DPD test?

- - - Updated - - -

oh, recommendations! Use bleach/liquid chlorine. Or, you could consider a SWG.

 

[woodyp]

Welcome. Search the from for the Liquidator and Stenner injection pumps as well.

 

[Lflsjet]

Welcome to the forum

Yeah, you really need to start the drain/refill dance

Did you do a dilution test for the CYA?

Since you did not list CC, do you not have the FAS/DPD test?

- - - Updated - - -

oh, recommendations! Use bleach/liquid chlorine. Or, you could consider a SWG.

I do have a FAS/DPD kit. I didn't write down the CC. I'll test tonight and repost.

Where can I find how to do a dilution test?

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

First things first, welcome to the forum.
Second stop using the chlorine tablest. Each one is adding CYA as it adds chlorine. The chlorine you need daily as it dissapates and is used up. The CYA is cumulative and the only way it goes down is by replacing water !!

You might want to do a CYA dilution test to see where you really are at. You must drain off water number one and the CYA is what is literally making your chlorine worthless.

CYA testing trick:

If it reads over 100. Don't toss out the solution you mixed... Dilute it and retest.

Add one part tap water and one part of your mixed solution of reagent and pool water. Redo the test and multiply the result by 2.

You can even go one step further if that reads to high. Take the dropper bottle Abd fill with the 50/50 solution. Poor into another vial/cylinder. Add enough tap water to reach the label like you do when mixing the normal solution. Then dump this into the vial with the already diluted solution and mix them. This results in 2:1 dilution and the result is tripled.

On this chart http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/128-chlorine-cya-chart-slam-shock you would need to have a chlorine level (FC) of 7ppm minimum and should be around 12ppm and that is only if the CYA level was 100, and 100 is way too high.

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

The reason you are fighting the algae so much is you have never killed it. You need to read Pool School http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/ and you need to do a SLAM http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/125-slam-shock-level-and-maintain-shockingl after you've dumped and refilled enough water to get down to 30 or 40. You'll likely have to dump (pump) more than half the pools water depending on what the real CYA number is.

If you try this method it will serve you so much better, you won't have to do daily battle with algae and you'll likely save some $$$

 

[Butterfly]

Here's a link to Extended Test Kit Directions. Scroll down to post #8 for CYA:

http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/24188-Extended-Test-Kit-Directions

 

[Lflsjet]

Ok so my dilution test showed 12-13 drops before the dot disappeared. So I guess 240-260 on the CYA.

I also have a cc of 2

Slam or drain first?

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

It's not really even an option to treat CYA 250 water the amount of bleach needed would be ridiculous.

IMHO you drain off the high CYA water first. That way you don't need as much bleach to treat the now lower CYA level water. That way you don't spend money on bleach to clean up water you are going to throw away and you will use less bleach at a lower FC level to clean up the water you are going to swim in.

 

[Casey]

Drain/refill/retest CYA then drain/refill/retest CYA. Do this until you get to at least 50ppm CYA level.

 

[Iciee]

Drain first cause the lower you get the cya the less chlorine you will need to slam. If it truly is that high I would just drain it all if you can. I drained mine and thought I had drained enough but guessed wrong and ended up draining partially again.
Please stand by as one of pool experts chimes in lol


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