Hello from a newbie in trouble!

[MorphingGem]

Hi from Southern California, everyone!

This resource has been great so far; my pool started turning green a few weeks ago and Leslie's wasn't confidence inspiring so I started reading here, as winter wraps up I've been having trouble keeping clorine levels above zero for any length of time since I thought the tablets were the way to go. I got the TF Test Kit and versus the Leslie's guidance it gave me both a lot more cause for alarm and a lot more understanding about why I can't get on top of the algae.

I estimate my pool capacity at around 20,000 gallons. I suspect it's an Anthony pool given the light and the plate covering some sweeper attacher thing. It's really deep, which I love; at about 32' long it's 8' deep for at least ten of that and then a pretty linear rise to 4'; it's over 6' deep within ten feet of the shallow side wall. I've got a Sta-Rite Modular DE PLDE 48 filter which I just cleaned out today, leading to more reading and understanding here today. A Zodiac Barracuda G3 creeps around and seems decent but I'll have questions about that at a later time. (I replaced the bellows in this a year ago when I moved into the house.) Actually the tip that things were really bad was that the Zodiac stopped running; with my pump at 2700rpm it had been doing great but noticing the filter pressure I had to take the pump all the way up to 3100 as of last night to get it to move around the pool, and that pushed the filter pressure up even higher, ugh.

By the numbers I'm sure my problems are clear (and the pool isn't actually too bad at the moment); numbers are from before I cleaned the filter if it matters:
FC ~5ppm
pH 8.3 (on both the electronic pH tester from TFTestKits and it's off the scale on the pH/OTO block) (my tap water is also ~8.4 which seems weird to me?)
TA 110ppm
CYA >200ppm (at 2:1 dilution with tap water it's still over the 100 mark)
Hardness 525ppm
CSI computed by PoolMath to be +0.37
Water temp was 56F when I checked this morning.

I got some DE and bleach from Leslie's this morning to clean the filter as it'd jumped from 15ish to 25 since the algae started getting bad (and hit 30 yesterday when I bumped the pump up to 3100rpm to get the Zodiac going again). After rinsing the filter and coming back here to get some guidance I discovered that the Leslie "one pound" DE scoop is not one pound of material, it's actually ~10-11oz of DE on my scale. Also against my former pool guy's advice the label says 7.2# of "pre-coat". I put 11 scoops (not packed, and not completely full at first because I thought it was 1# scoops for the first seven until I came back here to read up!)... Anyway, I've poured a bunch of bleach in there and I'm also working on getting the pH down and the filter reports 10psi at the moment.

Anyway... With these numbers the guidance seems to be to drain my pool almost empty so now I come to all y'all. Since that's the "official guidance" from this great resource I should accept it but then it becomes a question of how; I've drained my (free standing, fiberglass) hot tub into the sewer by siphoning it through a hose and some strong lungs but I don't think that'll work so well with the pool given the elevation so do I just throw down for a submersible pump and it'll take as long as it takes or can I just hang on and some of these numbers will just come down on their own?

Part of me is "ok" with the draining; maybe I get that light replaced and maybe I fix some of the peeling plaster on the steps, but ugh I just want to not have another project at the moment beyond pouring jugs of chemicals into the water.

Thanks in advance for the warm welcome. I've been reading the site for about a year now and only finally today got the brain space to sign up... actually the PoolMath app on my phone basically required it so I figured I might as well post.

I'll take these problems to the correct forums if they get too crazy but the welcome message said to introduce yourself so... that's my introduction!

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Welcome neighbor. Great first post! Sounds like you have a good grasp on what your pool needs. Number one is to reduce CYA to a manageable level. It's not worth doing a SLAM at this point with your CYA being so high. Invest in a submersible pump. Sounds like you'll get good use out of it with the hot tub and pool.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

By the way, the Leslie's DE scoop that I have is about 36 fluid oz which equals about 0.75 lb of DE period

 

[wireform]

Hi and welcome. If your numbers are correct you need to empty and refill most of the pool. Be sure your water table isn't high as it won't be safe to have an empty pool. The floater in the pool isn't helping you either as it's either adding CYA as or calcium which you don't need. I'd not waste another dime on chlorine until the water has been replaced. You can rent a bigger pump from a tool rental and have it empty in 2-3 hours to move on your plans.

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

Read about our No Drain Water exchange to lower CYA and CH at...

Draining - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Once you do the water exchange to lower your CYA to 30-40, you will need to follow our SLAM Process. You will have dumped much of the algae into the water, but there will still be some algae in the pool.

Lowering your CYA and getting fresh water into the pool should be your first priority. No reason to dump chemicals into the pool until you lower the CYA and get fresh water in.

 

[MorphingGem]

Hey everyone, thanks for your responses. I appreciate those and I am happy that my reading of this site up to my time of posting has been leading me generally in the right direction; this is a great resource and you all are awesome.

Thank you also for the warm welcome and the notes about the water table, just going ahead and getting a pump (is a $100 Jacuzzi brand 1/6HP going to last enough to be worth it or should I really round-trip the local do-it-yourselfer store and rent a "fancy" pump for $50? (The rental is ~$500 new so I assume way better than what I can get for $100ish but I also don't need to return the one I buy!)

Thanks too for the tip on the in-place water replacement, that seems like a good idea although it intuitively feels that the math is backwards; if the pool water is colder than the fill water, the existing pool water will be heavier so you should put the pump in the deep side, whereas if the new water is colder then you'd want to drain from the shallow side since the new water will sink.

Before posting I'd actually poured a couple gallons of bleach in and the pool actually looks ok now a week later and the chlorine level is still high but it's been raining a lot so not so much sun burning off the chlorine. Since I'd really like to get the light working maybe I'll take the opportunity to have The Professionals come by to give me a bid for that work and fix up some of the plaster issues while they're at it. (I'm guessing that folks here don't refer to specific pool companies but the two people I've talked to so far came off as completely uninterested in the work.)