Clear blue pool turned green after adding baking soda

[amodali]

Hi there! We had a crystal clear pool up until yesterday. We started to treat the different levels by adding baking soda for alkalinity and pH. Unfortunately, we added much less than we needed than we had to and now our pool has a green tint. The residue in the skimmer basket sock is brown. We worked really hard to have our pool go from swampy green to clear blue and now we are terrified. We don't know what to treat first.

Below are the water results from an hour ago at the pool store:
Free chlorine: 7.4
Total chlorine: 8.8
pH 6.3
Total alkalinity: 0* (adjusted)
Calcium hardness: 91
Cyanuric Acid: 201
Iron: 0
Copper: 1
Phosphates: 3090
TDS: 900

 

[reggiehammond]

Test Kits Compared
The only way you can manage your pool is through accurate, self-testing. We cannot trust the pool store numbers enough to give any relevant advice.

If the pool store numbers are even remotely correct, you have sky-high CYA from using chlorine tablets, poor sanitation as evidenced by the 1.4 CC, very out of whack pH and TA, and a good amount of hair-staining copper in the pool. Your chemistry is a gigantic mess that will require draining and refill with fresh water.

There's a better way to take care of a pool that we can help with...

Pool Care Basics