Palm tree berries in swimming pool?

[prudence9]

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)

 

[JasonLion]

Chlorine will clear up the water, though it might take a little while. More chlorine will move things along more quickly. I would try bringing the pool up to shock level once and then see how the SWG does on it's own from there.

 

[prudence9]

Thanks. Someone on another forum suggested that so I've been dumping more shock into the pool and brushing down the sides. Should I be considering algacide? I'm not chemical averse, I just don't want to damage the plaster, and I need to be able to see the sides and bottom better to assess damage for ins. purposes.

 

[JasonLion]

No, don't use algaecide. It won't help and might hurt.

You need to give the chlorine and the filter time to do their job. If you absolutely must have clear water right away you could try a floc treatment but I don't recommend it.

Do you have a test kit that can measure high FC levels reliably? That would be a big help. With a FAS-DPD chlorine test you can measure your overnight FC loss and get a fairly good guess of what is going on and how long it will take. Without that there is a fair bit of guess work involved.

 

[prudence9]

I don't have a good test kit right now. Our pool storage unit was trashed and the contents flooded and/or blown who knows where. The strips were inside, so they were intact. The pool supply store was open and able to run a water analysis for me, but was sold out of almost everything. It measured my free Cl at 3, Total Cl at 3, PH at 7.4, TA at 100, and hardness at 290. CA was 60.

I tossed in a bunch of shock - enough to raise the free Cl by 27 ppm according to the package - and I'm leaving the filter running overnight, so we'll see how it looks in the a.m. I can wait a few days to assess damage, but the sooner the better if we need to amend our insurance claim. This is the first time we've had to deal with something like this, so I'm totally lost as to why my pool looks like a swamp and the neighbor's is still crystal clear.

Thanks for your help thus far.

 

[XtremelyTropical]

Try shocking it then give the filter time to work. Patience since it might take a bit of time.

 

[polyvue]

If there is a tree like a Palm tree near in your swimming pool Is your pool will not be messy? I am planning to have a swimming, but I will choose the plants that I am going to put near in my pool. It is really hard to clean a big pool.Artificial Trees

Hello LitZer,
You must have stumbled in from the Garden Web forum....? :-D

I wish I had planted palm trees near my pool instead of sequoia sempervirens, white birch and almond! But the pool was a latecomer to the back yard. Except during a week or two in late fall, it's not too hard to keep the pool clean. Just requires regular removal of leaves with a net and once a week emptying of the skimmer basket.

EDIT Object of this post evidently withdrawn or deleted... but I stand by the sentiment expressed in my response. END-EDIT