Check my progress

ShinerDraft · Sep 30, 2008

My pool fell into a little bit of an algae problem (my fault - not putting in enough bleach nightly, plus a storm evacuation and another weekend getaway..) and I just got around to addressing it this past weekend. I think it's going pretty well, but I'm new at this so I'd like some reassurance of my numbers..

Saturday afternoon - Bottom of the pool was pretty green, so I hit it with the vacuum. This got things stirred up a little bit, so I might have missed some spots towards the end. The water was pretty green and I was no longer able to see the bottom. I did a full round of tests at about 5pm and got the following results:

FC: 0 - CC: 0 - TC: 0 - CYA: 35 - pH: 8.0 - TA: 100

Using the pool calculator I added the following:
CYA to hit 50 (I've been working for a few weeks to build this up. Will re-test Friday)
Bleach to hit 16 (shock level for CYA of 40)

Here are my tests since then. After each test I used the pool calc and added bleach to bring the FC back to 16
Saturday 8pm - FC: 13 - CC: 0
Saturday 11pm - FC: 12 - CC: 0
Sunday 9am - FC: 14.5 - CC: 0
Sunday 12pm - FC: 13 - CC: 0
Sunday 3pm - FC: 10 - CC: 0
Sunday 6pm - FC: 14 - CC: 0
Sunday 10pm - FC: 14 - CC: 0
Monday 7am - FC: 12.5 - CC: 0
Monday 7:30pm - FC: 10 - CC: 0
Monday 10:30pm - FC: 15 - CC: 0
Tuesday 7:30am - FC: 14.5 - CC: 0

I'm highlighting the morning numbers because they reflect my overnight loss.

Is this looking right? Do I need to maintain shock levels for one more night? The water is still cloudy, but I can see the bottom and it's no longer got the green tint to it.

giulietta1 · Sep 30, 2008

One more night (or two) at shock level wouldn't hurt, especially since your water's not clear yet. Looks like you're getting close, tho.

JasonLion · Sep 30, 2008

I looks like you are still losing FC overnight, so you need to stay at shock level.

ShinerDraft · Oct 1, 2008

Continued progress..

Tuesday 6:30pm - FC: 9.5 - CC: 0.5
Tuesday 10:00pm - FC: 15.5 - CC: 0.5
Wednesday 7:30am - FC: 14.5 - CC: 0

Water is starting to look really nice again. Not quite "Crystal Clear" but it's about 90% there.

A couple of questions..

I added CYA directly to the skimmer on Saturday. Has it been long enough to retest for CYA or should I wait?

My CYA target is 50. I picked on the high end of the range because my pool has almost no shade. It gets 100% sun until about 4 or 5 pm. Is that valid reasoning?

JasonLion · Oct 1, 2008

I suggest giving the CYA a full week to dissolve before retesting. It almost never takes that long to dissolve, but it is much better to be sure and not risk overshooting your CYA target.

Your reasoning on picking a CYA level of 50 is good.

ShinerDraft · Oct 2, 2008

Next 3 tests..

Weds 6:30p - FC: 10 - CC: 0.5
Weds 10:30p - FC: 15 - CC:0.5
Thurs 7:30a - FC: 15.5 - CC: 0 <-- woohoo

Water has officially arrived at crystal clear. I'm probably going to keep this pattern up for one more night just to be sure I've got it all.

The only issue is that we're going out of town (again) tomorrow afternoon and will be arriving home on Sunday afternoon. I have a little solution in mind to keep the FC levels high while we're away though. Sort of a "poor man's liquidator".. I'll try it out and share the results (if it works)..

ShinerDraft · Oct 9, 2008

Ok, back to work on this..

To keep the FC up while we were out of town, I used a small needle to put a hole in the bottom of a bottle of bleach. I hung the bottle from my ladder. By the time I got back, there was about 1" of bleach left in the bottle. I did a full round of tests last night and...

FC - 3.5
CC - 0.5
CYA - 40
pH - 7.5
TA - 130

Unfortunately, some of the algae seems to have come back. It looks a little different this time. It was all concentrated into yellowish brown spots about 1"-2" in diameter that were fairly spread out across the pool. I vacuumed again last night and added bleach to get FC up to my target level of 5.

Questions:
1. Should I do anything with my high TA?
2. Since temps are cooling down a little, I put my solar cover on. Will this:
-- a) prevent algae?
-- b) prevent sunlight from cooking off my FC?