I'm in the Houston area, and we're starting to try to get back to normal after Hurricane Ike.
We had about a million palm tree berries blown into our pool thanks to our three palm trees that didn't even have the courtesy to be blown down (I hate them, but don't want to pay for tree removal). I scooped out as many as I could once the wind and rain stopped on Saturday, but a number remained in the pool. Due to our not having power for a week, we couldn't run the pool vacuum to get the remainder out, and they've leached out some sort of substance that is making the water green, cloudy, and kind of viscous. There is no visible algae on the walls/steps. A test of dumping some of the berries into a glass of water turned the water in the glass a similar colour to what's in the pool, so we know they're the source of the current problem.
I would really rather not drain the pool since it's 22,000 gallons and that's a lot of water to dump into the sewer system, not to mention the cost of refilling the Dang thing on top of everything else we're going to have to lay out in the next month or so (think new roof).
Anyone have any ideas as to how to get the water cleared up? We've been running the filtering system since power was restored last night and got the last of the berries out today with the pool vacuum. I've shocked the pool twice - once on Wednesday and again on Friday - and am running the salt chlorinator on 95ppm. The water is clearer than it was a few days ago, but no where near what I would expect for 17 hours of continuous filtration.
I'm testing with strips right now, which I realize isn't optimal, but I don't have a good test kit anymore. The pool store near me doesn't have power back yet, so I'm reduced to buying at Home Depot -not the best choice for pool supplies.
Per the strips, the water chemicals are as follows:
Hardness 250 (normal)
Total chlorine 5ppm (high)
Free chlorine 0 (low)
PH 7.8 (normal-high)
Alkilinity 180 (normal-high)
Cyanuric acid 30-50 ppm(low-normal)
We had about a million palm tree berries blown into our pool thanks to our three palm trees that didn't even have the courtesy to be blown down (I hate them, but don't want to pay for tree removal). I scooped out as many as I could once the wind and rain stopped on Saturday, but a number remained in the pool. Due to our not having power for a week, we couldn't run the pool vacuum to get the remainder out, and they've leached out some sort of substance that is making the water green, cloudy, and kind of viscous. There is no visible algae on the walls/steps. A test of dumping some of the berries into a glass of water turned the water in the glass a similar colour to what's in the pool, so we know they're the source of the current problem.
I would really rather not drain the pool since it's 22,000 gallons and that's a lot of water to dump into the sewer system, not to mention the cost of refilling the Dang thing on top of everything else we're going to have to lay out in the next month or so (think new roof).
Anyone have any ideas as to how to get the water cleared up? We've been running the filtering system since power was restored last night and got the last of the berries out today with the pool vacuum. I've shocked the pool twice - once on Wednesday and again on Friday - and am running the salt chlorinator on 95ppm. The water is clearer than it was a few days ago, but no where near what I would expect for 17 hours of continuous filtration.
I'm testing with strips right now, which I realize isn't optimal, but I don't have a good test kit anymore. The pool store near me doesn't have power back yet, so I'm reduced to buying at Home Depot -not the best choice for pool supplies.
Per the strips, the water chemicals are as follows:
Hardness 250 (normal)
Total chlorine 5ppm (high)
Free chlorine 0 (low)
PH 7.8 (normal-high)
Alkilinity 180 (normal-high)
Cyanuric acid 30-50 ppm(low-normal)