This thread strikes a familiar note. We where out of town for three days. Before I left, I checked the pool - clear, FC 2, CC 0, PH 7.2, CYA 20ish, TA 180, Salt 3800ppm. I had the IC 40 set to 60% and pump run times of low speed 17.5 hours and high speed 2.5 hrs (1 hour morning during the cleaner run, two 15 minutes burst during the day, and 1 hour in the evening) for a total of 20 hours a day. I've never had to run my generator that high (i20-40% range in the past), but I was loosing the FC battle. The CC is always 0 or occasionally up to .2, but never higher. My FC kept creeping toward 1.
Two days before we left the PH was about 7.4. The day before I left, I gave the cell a quick acid bath thinking the cell may have some scaling and causing it to not be as efficient and set it for a 24 hour 100% boost. I also dropped about 3 lbs of CYA in the skimmers thinking I need to bring the CYA up. I've always had problems keeping the CYA number in the 70-80 range, but I've attributed it to backwashing the sand filter and all the splash jumps off the diving board by the teenage kids. Prior to the 3 lbs, I'd already added about 8 lbs so far this summer. Whenever I'm out of bleach and the pool needs to be shocked I add 1-2 lbs of 47% di-chlor, so I figured I'm adding a little CYA along the way. The day we left, the pool was at the first numbers listed above except maybe the CYA. I didn't check CYA since I didn't think the 3 lbs would be fully dissolved. I attributed the drop in PH to the addition of CYA.
The part that strikes a chord is when I returned from our trip (3 days), the pool was milky, FC .2, CC 5, CYA 0, and PH 7.0. Friends opened the cover once the first day we were gone to swim for a couple of hours, but that was the only time the pool was uncovered. Another familiarity was twice in the prior 14 days I had to pump a significant amount of water off my auto cover and pumped it into the pool through the skimmer that may have added accumulated dust/dirt. Once my family left the slide valve open. The 2 speed pump kicked to low and the slide water stopped flowing. Later the family assumed the slide was shut off and shut the pool cover. During the normal pump cycle in the morning the pump kicked up to high and the slide ran for an hour dumping water on top of a closed pool. The second time, we had a huge rain and since the pool was just about ready to be topped off, I pumped the rain water in through the skimmer. I'm sure I added all kinds of dust, pollen, fungi, whatever that had been blowing around settled on the cover. I've done this in the past and usually just drop about a gallon and a half of bleach in the pool. I added about a gallon and a half after each of these pumpings.
The pool cleared up almost completely in less then 2 days. I added close to 17 gallons of bleach, 4 lbs of di-chlor (between runs for more bleach, I keep some shock bags for just such an occasion), and the SWG at 100%. During that whole time my FC was never above ten. Although I didn't test FC immediately after adding, but usually 30 minutes later. At first, the CC was 6 and FC < 2. At the returns where I would expect the FC to be higher from the SWG, the FC was 1 and the CC was 8! I just kept adding chlorine, kept it covered so the sun won't burn it off, and open the cover periodically to let the CC air out.
I'll see how it looks in the morning, but most of the cloudiness is gone. I added another 3 gallons of bleach before shutting down for the night. Hopefully the FC will stabilize (it's already showing signs of that). The CC number is now down to 1 and the FC is going down much. Once the FC stabilizes I'll then backwash the filter before I add more CYA. I'll test the CYA in the morning, but I'm assuming it will be 0 and I'll need about 3 lbs.
Two days before we left the PH was about 7.4. The day before I left, I gave the cell a quick acid bath thinking the cell may have some scaling and causing it to not be as efficient and set it for a 24 hour 100% boost. I also dropped about 3 lbs of CYA in the skimmers thinking I need to bring the CYA up. I've always had problems keeping the CYA number in the 70-80 range, but I've attributed it to backwashing the sand filter and all the splash jumps off the diving board by the teenage kids. Prior to the 3 lbs, I'd already added about 8 lbs so far this summer. Whenever I'm out of bleach and the pool needs to be shocked I add 1-2 lbs of 47% di-chlor, so I figured I'm adding a little CYA along the way. The day we left, the pool was at the first numbers listed above except maybe the CYA. I didn't check CYA since I didn't think the 3 lbs would be fully dissolved. I attributed the drop in PH to the addition of CYA.
The part that strikes a chord is when I returned from our trip (3 days), the pool was milky, FC .2, CC 5, CYA 0, and PH 7.0. Friends opened the cover once the first day we were gone to swim for a couple of hours, but that was the only time the pool was uncovered. Another familiarity was twice in the prior 14 days I had to pump a significant amount of water off my auto cover and pumped it into the pool through the skimmer that may have added accumulated dust/dirt. Once my family left the slide valve open. The 2 speed pump kicked to low and the slide water stopped flowing. Later the family assumed the slide was shut off and shut the pool cover. During the normal pump cycle in the morning the pump kicked up to high and the slide ran for an hour dumping water on top of a closed pool. The second time, we had a huge rain and since the pool was just about ready to be topped off, I pumped the rain water in through the skimmer. I'm sure I added all kinds of dust, pollen, fungi, whatever that had been blowing around settled on the cover. I've done this in the past and usually just drop about a gallon and a half of bleach in the pool. I added about a gallon and a half after each of these pumpings.
The pool cleared up almost completely in less then 2 days. I added close to 17 gallons of bleach, 4 lbs of di-chlor (between runs for more bleach, I keep some shock bags for just such an occasion), and the SWG at 100%. During that whole time my FC was never above ten. Although I didn't test FC immediately after adding, but usually 30 minutes later. At first, the CC was 6 and FC < 2. At the returns where I would expect the FC to be higher from the SWG, the FC was 1 and the CC was 8! I just kept adding chlorine, kept it covered so the sun won't burn it off, and open the cover periodically to let the CC air out.
I'll see how it looks in the morning, but most of the cloudiness is gone. I added another 3 gallons of bleach before shutting down for the night. Hopefully the FC will stabilize (it's already showing signs of that). The CC number is now down to 1 and the FC is going down much. Once the FC stabilizes I'll then backwash the filter before I add more CYA. I'll test the CYA in the morning, but I'm assuming it will be 0 and I'll need about 3 lbs.
