First time Intex 14 x 42 owner - Need advice on green water, filtering and maintenance

[Gelo]

Hello all,

I have recently become an owner of a Intex Prism Frame Clearview pool 14ft x 42in that fills up to 3,357 gallons. I live in Honduras, a tropical country in central america. Setting up the pool and the Intex pump went through well, did not run into any major issues with it. I've finished filling out the pool as of today, and started last sunday. This is due to water rations.

First few days the water was crystal clear but was only filled about 5-10%. I had been reading a lot of entries from TFP + Youtube + Reddit on pool maintenance. However, my country has limited supplies for pools. Please note I can order things from US Amazon but it takes about 20 days to be delivered here. There are pool shops where I have bought basic chemicals, as advised by them, which will suffice in maintaining my pool.

The problem I am facing right now is that the water has turned green, it started light green but has now turned a bit darker and a bit cloudy. This happened around Wednesday.

Here's what I've got so far:

1. Crystal Blue Multiclor power (According to the labels this is isocyanuric Triclor)
2. Sparkle Super Clarifier (Attaching an image to this post)
3. Alcamas (Formulated Sodium bicarbonate)
4. Blue Devil B7228 Test Kit
5. Due to the water turning green I reached out to the company that sells me these products. They provided me with Nu-Clo Algaestroy

I have been testing my water daily. As for the PH kit from Blue Devil, all readings have consistently indicated that the P.H levels have remained on around 7.4-7.6. This kit instructs that you can measure your free chlorine levels right after adding the drops for chlorine. Chlorine has stayed on 1.5, but when testing it the next morning, goes back to 0.6 or below.

This is the routine I was instructed to use.

• Run the Intex pump for about 6-8 hours.
• Add 13 grams of the Multiclor ( isocyanuric Triclor) power dissolved in water and run it around the pool.
• If water is murky or cloudy, add 3/4 of an FL oz of the Super Clarifier.
• If PH is low add the Alcamas (Sodium bicarbonate) solution. - I have not done this yet, as the PH levels have been in range. No way to test alkalinity yet.

I was worried that the pool's coloring issues could be due to the water having some sort of metals in it. I gambled for trying the algicide solution that was instructed by them. After ~ 10 hours of adding the algicide solution I have noticed that after adding it, the pool walls have a sort of dark green, gooey substance around them that brushes in my had and turns it green after cleaning it with my hand. I checked the Intex filter and it was in a gooey, brown colored state and when rinsed with water the water was murky brown.

At this point I am not sure whether I am doing anything wrong, whether my pool has algae or metals in it that are causing these issues. I am currently running the filter again, wanting to see what I can do to have my pool top notch. It has been a bit quite stressful and I do not wish to throw away the water in my pool unless it is a last resort solution due to the water situation in my country. I have the possibility of buying the test kit " 00-486 Jed Pool" but I am not sure if this would be good enough.

I will be attaching pictures of the pool to this post.
Extra: Hopefully this is not against the rules but these 2 websites below pretty much show what I have access to in my country for buying pool supplies. Sorry if its a bother for anyone to go through this but maybe I could further understand a bit of what I need to buy. If anything else is required, I will physically look for it in those stores as they have other supplies that are not listed.
Website 1
Website 2

 

[kellyfair]

Hello, welcome to the forum. You have a difficult situation due to your water restrictions. If not for that, the pool is so small that it might have been easier to just dump it, rinse it, and refill it.

Even with filling it slowly over days instead of all at once, you still needed to have chlorine in the water In order to prevent algae. Did you add any of the trichlor while filling?

You don’t need the baking soda or the clarifier, and algaecide isn’t going to clear up the pool, and it might add things to the water that you don’t want.

Are you able to get liquid chlorine in your country?

 

[Gelo]

Hello, welcome to the forum. You have a difficult situation due to your water restrictions. If not for that, the pool is so small that it might have been easier to just dump it, rinse it, and refill it.

Even with filling it slowly over days instead of all at once, you still needed to have chlorine in the water In order to prevent algae. Did you add any of the trichlor while filling?

You don’t need the baking soda or the clarifier, and algaecide isn’t going to clear up the pool, and it might add things to the water that you don’t want.

Are you able to get liquid chlorine in your country?

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I get the water service every 2-3 days which is free flowing water. Every day in between I have to work with water in my tanks.

I messed up, ended up adding triclor on the second day when the pool was about 30% filled.

I have been searching for liquid chlorine, I am guessing this is the 12.5% solution. So far I was not able to find it but I will call some industrial chemical stores on Monday.

I have access to regular bleach as of right now.

I went out to the store today, found some chemicals. I found multishock which seems to be diclor. Could this help my situation ?

 

[kellyfair]

The problem with other forms of chlorine is that you are also adding other substances to your pool. You need to read the labels to see what these things add to your pool, and don’t use anything that adds things like copper or sulfates. You do want cyanuric acid (CYA) but you want to control the amount that is in the water. It’s the relationship between the amount of CYA and the amount of chlorine that will keep your water clear.

FC/CYA Levels

Do you have a way to test the amount of CYA that is already in your water?