What the heck went wrong....

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G

gtnos

Well-known member
Jun 9, 2013
549
Newcastle, Oklahoma
so i posted yesterday about the cloudiness. Its not due to high CH level. here is my test results:

FC: 3.5 Goal is 6.
CC: 0
pH: 7.5
TA: 70
CH; 190
CYA: should still be 50. last tested 2 weeks ago. tested twice. No significant water change. So im still going with 50 for now.

Passed OCLT last night. Pool lost 1ppm.

But it still looked dirty and murky. thought maybe it was dirt. but it never settled. Been running pump on high all morning.

Finally, I said the heck with it, and mixed up the two bags of Quick Shock the pool company gave me with the pool in a bucket and tossed it in to see what would happen. Within about 10 minutes, the brownish murkiness started to fade to blue.

needless to say, SLAM process started. I added 2 bottles of 8.25% since im not sure how much chlorine that quick shock **** has. im gonna wait an hour and test FC. Im going to go ahead and target my FC level for mustard algae because I dont know what the deal is.

test results good. passed OCLT.

what the heck is going on?

this ticks me off. i have never had to SLAM with the TFPC method. and I stay on top of it.

I must have dropped the ball somewhere. I would like to know where so that I can prevent it in the future.
 
dang. i thought it was 3!! some days it would go below 4 and others not. i just tested FC. 16.5. Just added 3 more jugs. (on this pool every 30 oz is 1 ppm) So its now at 29 which is mustard algae level. it is clearing up fast so whatever is, its dying a fast death. :party:

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tim5055 said:
And with those two bags of Shock your CYA may have gone up. Most solid forms of chlorine have substantial amounts of CYA.
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yeah, i wouldnt think 2 bags would up it that much. but I had them, dont ever buy them, figured I might as well use them. Ill recheck CYA level later. At this high of a FC level, i should be OK.
 
jblizzle said:
That was trichlor I think and the 2 pounds added 11ppm FC and 6.7ppm CYA.
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thanks jblizzle. I dont have any more quick shock and wont use anymore, I just thought it would give my slam a nice kick start. With the amount of water my kids splash out and i have to replenish, 6.7 wont last long.

I tested again. FC went down to 14 from 29 in 3 hours. Pool is blue but still not crystal clear. CC is 1.5 ppm. I hit it with 2 more bottles of 8% to bump it back up to about 22 ppm. (16 is target). I noticed filter pressure was up to 18 psi, normally 10, so I backwashed. its back down to 10. water was nasty dirty. probably dead algae. I have had Barracuda going since 230 cleaning up the bottom.

i do seem to be winning as it looks better everytime I go look at it.

well. this will teach me to keep a better eye on the pool. im going through my bleach reserves.... :(

im going to head to walmart in a bit and grab about a dozen bottles.

i still dont know how this snuck up on me.....:brickwall:
 
Do not overshoot the shock level so much or you will damage your liner. If your shock level is 16ppm, that is what you should be targeting.

Remember to backwash when the pressure rises 20-25% over the clean pressure (that is at 12psi ... waiting up to 18psi is way too long).
 
well, i got her right back! :party: water is crystal clear. FC is still at 20ppm from last night. Im not adding anymore. Tonight ill do an OCLT to make sure im done slamming.

I tested CYA, its at 55ppm. Im just gonna leave it as with my boys' splashing, and my adding about 200 gallons a week in replacement water im sure it will drop back down below 50 within a month.

I havent tested pH or anything else since FC is still above shock level.

Looking back, I should have had a higher target value for my FC. TFP goal on pool calc was 4-8 ppm. In the past, I always split the difference and targeted in the middle of the range. So I was hitting 6 ppm as a target, and I mistook the bottom end as 3, instead of 4. it was frequently dropping to 3 and 3.5 ppm which evidently is enough to allow an algae bloom. :shark:

with 55 ppm CYA, now the range is 4-9 ppm FC. I will stop splitting the difference and target for the high end of the range at 9. This mistake wont happen again, ill make sure that FC never even drops to 4, let alone below it.
 

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jblizzle said:
Do not overshoot the shock level so much or you will damage your liner. If your shock level is 16ppm, that is what you should be targeting.

Remember to backwash when the pressure rises 20-25% over the clean pressure (that is at 12psi ... waiting up to 18psi is way too long).
Click to expand...

thanks for all your help Jason. The only reason I went over shock level was that I was at work. I would stop by the house every couple of hours to re-test FC and add more bleach. At first, the pool was consuming it very fast and with my job, I can very easily get tied up for 3 -4 or more hours. I was going over shock level in case I couldnt make it back home, I would have a bit of a buffer to make sure FC didnt go below 16. the mustard algea shock level was 29, so I figured as long as I didnt go above that, there would be no chance of liner damage.

on my filter, my old intex 2650 never had a psi gauge, just a green - yellow - red guage and instructions were to backwash when filter gets in the yellow. No idea what psi that is. Im still getting used to having "real" pool equipment. :lol:

i didnt know what psi to backwash at, now that I know its 12, I will certainly follow that.

again, thanks for all your help, as always, your spot on!

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tim5055 said:
Maybe it's time to add a Stenner pump?
Click to expand...

a whaaaat? :confused: link please... :p
 
gtnos said:
a whaaaat? :confused: link please... :p
Click to expand...
A pump to automatically add chlorine to the pool.

Here is my install

You still have to test and adjust, but you are not carrying bottles to the pool every day. Mine is sitting with about 12 gallons in it now and it appears I will be able to go around a week without manually adding. I'm still playing with the settings and how much it delivers.
 
tim5055 said:
A pump to automatically add chlorine to the pool.

Here is my install

You still have to test and adjust, but you are not carrying bottles to the pool every day. Mine is sitting with about 12 gallons in it now and it appears I will be able to go around a week without manually adding. I'm still playing with the settings and how much it delivers.
Click to expand...

interesting.... any pics?:p

EDIT: never mind on pics. my browser didnt load that page right the first time. once I refreshed.... now I see.... very interesting.
 
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