Newbie - Need Help with Green Water and Very High

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After my first night of draining from the deep end and adding freshwater both from my auto-leveler and a hose stuck in the shallow end, my CYA dilution test registered a 100! Down from 180!

Feels good. Hopefully with a little more time tonight, I should be able to get my CYA down to 50 by tomorrow morning. If I didn't know that people turned there green swamps back into blue water... I'd feel pretty hopeless right now. Instead, although still a little daunted by the SLAM, I feel like this is doable now. Here's what the pool looked like as of this morning with a CYA of 100.

iUsHiiFl.jpg
 
I do not see any tadpoles. That means you do not have a swamp LOL. There have been some that DID have tadpoles and they were able to turn their pools around with TFP.

It can be done. Just look at what you have already done!

Kim
 
After all, it's just water and if you work at maintaining the higher SLAM FC level it will clear up and you'll be swimming in sparkling blue water and it's present green state will be a distant memory.
 
Update!

After renting a pump from Home Depot (because my Harbor Freight pump didn't pump fast enough when using the sewer cleanout) I was able to get my CYA down to a 60 (which I double checked) after a full day of pumping and refilling. Around 8pm last night, I proceeded to do the pool math to get my pH down to a 7.3 and I started the SLAM after a trip to Sams Club.

I checked the shock values for my CYA of 60 (CF 24) and added the appropriate bleach. It jumped to 30. I think I don't know how many gallons are in my pool due to the funny shape and weird grading on the bottom of the pool. As I add chemicals, I've tried to do reverse calculations to determine that I'm between 12,000 gallons and 15,000 gallons, but I haven't nailed it yet.

Anyways, last night I checked the shock values 5 times before going to bed without adding any bleach the entire time.

Here they are:
10pm - FC 30 / CC 1
11pm - FC 30 / CC 1
12am - FC 33.5 / CC 1 (this reading confused me)
1am - FC 30.5 / CC 1
2am - FC 29.5 / CC 1

When I woke up today, the pool definitely isn't green!

Progress Pic:
7tHHj65l.jpg


When I woke up, my FC was 22.5 and CC was 0. This confused me, but I had to return that pump to Home Depot, so I used the calculator and added my bleach to keep the shock until I had a chance to talk to you guys. Again, because I think I have the wrong gallons for my pool, the FC ended up at 36.

Then things got weird. I decided I better do all the tests, to see where I'm at.

Here are the results:
pH - 7.8
FC - 36
CC - 0.5
CH - 650
TA - 120
CYA - 80

Ugh... my CYA is at 80. Now, before I did the SLAM, I cleaned my filters. My thought for why my CYA might raise from 60 to 80 is that there was chemicals in the filter that got added back, or I messed up the test. I re-did the test this morning, and got 80 again. So, I'm moving forward with a CYA of 80 and a shock FC of 31. Still way better than 180!

So, now my pool still has visible algae on the walls, and is cloudy. I don't have a vacuum for the pool, so I think that's my next move.

Any advice appreciated, Thanks!
 
Yep. Just take it out and have look inside to see if anything is in there. If there is algae in there just scrub it out with the pool water. Maintain your SLAM level.
I've seen where people are SLAMing and everything is good, water crystal clear, zero CC's but can't pass the OCLT. Algae in the light niche, so just check it out. ?
 
This is what you hope NOT to find in there but it's still better to find it now rather then after you fail 2, 3, 4 ... OCLTs and can't figure out why :?
 

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48 Hours into the SLAM. Still a lot of sediment on the bottom of the pool whenever I take a brush to it. I'm not sure my circulation is in tip-top shape (which I will tackle after I get this SLAM done). I got a tube and a vacuum today at the pool store on the way home from work and tried manually vacuuming today by sticking the tube into the skimmer hole, but I immediately kicked up so much stuff off the bottom that I stopped cause I couldn't see what I was doing.

Brought FC back up WAY over my shock value to try to keep it up for a longer period this time. I'm supposed to be at 31, so I used pool math to get try to get it to 46. Any thoughts on this? How high is too high?
 

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I just vacuumed, really slowly, really zen like. And it worked better this time.

I'm going to get up early tomorrow, before the sun comes up, and see what my FC loss is overnight.

I gotta say... going through this experience will serve as a good reminder to stay on top of pool maintenance.
 
pwrstrk said:
46 is too high to go with your shock level. Wasting bleach. You can take it to 32-33, would be fine. ?
Click to expand...

I guess what I don't understand is whether or not you need to "maintain" the 31 shock level, or if that's your goal number each time you re-balance with bleach. If I'm supposed to maintain that 31 or higher until the SLAM is over, then before I go to work, I need to increase that number significantly, if my next test is in 8 hours after the sun has hit my pool.

Thoughts?

In other news, I've pulled the light out and the light housing looks ok. I'm going to try to scrub out the fixture hole that's now exposed to the pool. But the pool is looking better than it has so far!

I tested last night and then this morning around sunrise and I had a FC drop of 2, but my CC went from .5 to 2.

I'll keep everything running, and try to scrub out that light fixture hole.

Overexposed pictures of my pool as of this morning:
0MRu5Ral.jpg

aWgILRrl.jpg
 
That's looking more and more like swimming water :goodjob:

For your CYA level that 40+ is a bit much. If you're going to be gone for 8hrs you should be able to guess at what you need to over shoot your 31 by so you don't drop too much below. Maintaining 31ppm is the key but it's not always possible and there are just times life gets in the way and you just need to do the best you can.
 
kiss4afrog said:
That's looking more and more like swimming water :goodjob:

For your CYA level that 40+ is a bit much. If you're going to be gone for 8hrs you should be able to guess at what you need to over shoot your 31 by so you don't drop too much below. Maintaining 31ppm is the key but it's not always possible and there are just times life gets in the way and you just need to do the best you can.
Click to expand...

pwrstrk said:
You want to maintain the 31 as best you can. It makes the process go quicker. I just thought 46 was a bit too much. Do the best you can with your schedule.
Your doing a good job. ?
Click to expand...

Gotcha! Thanks for the encouragement... this has been a roller coaster of emotions. My FC is definitely too high then. I'm going to chill out on the bleach for awhile..and let it drift back to the 31-35 range.
 
Alright... advanced SLAMing theory time. It's raining here in Phoenix right in the middle of my SLAM!!! I just tested my water when I got home from work and I'm reading FC 36.5 and CC 1.5.

I was hoping tonight would confirm my 1ppm overnight FC loss test, CC < .5, and clear water test! Now I don't know what to do. Should I just add bleach to raise up the FC for the night, and hope that I get a clear night tomorrow or what?
 

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