My apologies for the "monster post" in advance, and for creating a useless post about this elsewhere. I'm attempting to do this the right way in order to gain some help in my current situation. I have a Taylor K-2005 kit on order as of yesterday morning, so I'm afraid I can't give readings that may further assist in this. I'll go to the pool shop and post back what I find and what they instruct me to do...
I recently converted to chlorine from Baquacil, primarily for cost reasons, but there are other reasons that ultimately pushed me toward the conversion. I've had sparkling clear water for months on Baquacil, but it was costing me about $80-100 a month, and from my calculations, it was more than likely going to stay that way. This was not acceptable for me.
I began the conversion by partially letting my water "go" in order to lose the remaining Baquacil sanitizer/algistat, while keeping the oxidizer levels in the green. Once the stuff was completely gone, I began adding chlorine... The water was still crystal clear at this point, and we continued to use the pool. I have an appropriate level of CYA in there now, but was initially unable to keep any liquid chlorine in the pool - even overnight. I had added the equivalent, per the pool store's recommendation, of 7 gallons of liquid chlorine total in a 4 day span between last Tuesday and Friday. The chlorine levels still registered as nil the following mornings.
Friday evening, I decided to listen to a different pool place that instructed me to throw two 1lb. bags of Cal-Hypo in there (I have a case of 24 of them that I picked up for half the price), and the water turned a brownish-green within minutes. Still, no chlorine registered when tested the following morning! And, the pool is now a consistent greenish tint... a far cry from the crystal clear water my family and I have fallen in love with. Yesterday evening, I threw in another "bucket" of CYA and another two 1lb. bags of Cal-Hypo and this morning I finally am able to read that there's a "good level" of chlorine in there using test strips. The only method I have to test at the house at the moment. The water, however, is still green. I can't seem to be able to get it clear by shocking it. Each time I had the pool tested, last week, the pH and alki levels were okay, and the CYA levels, though dropping each time tested, were still "acceptable". It's like something else was using up the chlorine I'd throw in there overnight. Due to the amount of chlorine I've thrown in there now, my pH levels appear to be rather low using the test strips, but I'll know for certain after returning from the pool store.
One thing that might be worth mentioning is that I also have a "Floatron" ionization device floating in there that's been in there for a few weeks now. The copper/silver ions are supposed to control bacteria and algae, I believe. Every time I test the water with the provided kit, the copper levels read *very* low. About 0.5 ppm, but it's really hard to tell using their kit. I've taken it out of the water as of yesterday morning in order to remove it from the equation altogether.
At this point, my wife and I are upset we went this route, since the water was already crystal clear, and I'm spending more than I thought on this process in order to kick things off. I still feel like I'm headed in the right direction though, and there's really no going back now. FYI - We're in the Central Florida area, and have been getting the typical mini-tropical storms every day/every other day. My pool is also in direct sunlight all day and has been consistently around 88 degrees or so.
My questions are:
- How do I get the water clear now?
- Is this stuff green algae?
- Will the Taylor kit even be able to shed any light on what this stuff is?
- I'm sure I haven't come close to hitting the mark, but what am I doing wrong here?
Here are photos of the process, and before/after shots - notice the difference in the hue...
Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.
I recently converted to chlorine from Baquacil, primarily for cost reasons, but there are other reasons that ultimately pushed me toward the conversion. I've had sparkling clear water for months on Baquacil, but it was costing me about $80-100 a month, and from my calculations, it was more than likely going to stay that way. This was not acceptable for me.
I began the conversion by partially letting my water "go" in order to lose the remaining Baquacil sanitizer/algistat, while keeping the oxidizer levels in the green. Once the stuff was completely gone, I began adding chlorine... The water was still crystal clear at this point, and we continued to use the pool. I have an appropriate level of CYA in there now, but was initially unable to keep any liquid chlorine in the pool - even overnight. I had added the equivalent, per the pool store's recommendation, of 7 gallons of liquid chlorine total in a 4 day span between last Tuesday and Friday. The chlorine levels still registered as nil the following mornings.
Friday evening, I decided to listen to a different pool place that instructed me to throw two 1lb. bags of Cal-Hypo in there (I have a case of 24 of them that I picked up for half the price), and the water turned a brownish-green within minutes. Still, no chlorine registered when tested the following morning! And, the pool is now a consistent greenish tint... a far cry from the crystal clear water my family and I have fallen in love with. Yesterday evening, I threw in another "bucket" of CYA and another two 1lb. bags of Cal-Hypo and this morning I finally am able to read that there's a "good level" of chlorine in there using test strips. The only method I have to test at the house at the moment. The water, however, is still green. I can't seem to be able to get it clear by shocking it. Each time I had the pool tested, last week, the pH and alki levels were okay, and the CYA levels, though dropping each time tested, were still "acceptable". It's like something else was using up the chlorine I'd throw in there overnight. Due to the amount of chlorine I've thrown in there now, my pH levels appear to be rather low using the test strips, but I'll know for certain after returning from the pool store.
One thing that might be worth mentioning is that I also have a "Floatron" ionization device floating in there that's been in there for a few weeks now. The copper/silver ions are supposed to control bacteria and algae, I believe. Every time I test the water with the provided kit, the copper levels read *very* low. About 0.5 ppm, but it's really hard to tell using their kit. I've taken it out of the water as of yesterday morning in order to remove it from the equation altogether.
At this point, my wife and I are upset we went this route, since the water was already crystal clear, and I'm spending more than I thought on this process in order to kick things off. I still feel like I'm headed in the right direction though, and there's really no going back now. FYI - We're in the Central Florida area, and have been getting the typical mini-tropical storms every day/every other day. My pool is also in direct sunlight all day and has been consistently around 88 degrees or so.
My questions are:
- How do I get the water clear now?
- Is this stuff green algae?
- Will the Taylor kit even be able to shed any light on what this stuff is?
- I'm sure I haven't come close to hitting the mark, but what am I doing wrong here?
Here are photos of the process, and before/after shots - notice the difference in the hue...
Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.