Hello, my name is Jeff Minch and I live in Austin, Texas. I have a gunite, Pebbletec, 24,000 gallon pool with a largish spa that spills into the pool like a waterfall. I have a Pentair system that is about 15 years old. I have replaced a few pumps through the years. I have a sectional DE filter.
In the recent bad weather and freeze in Texas, I lost five 45' blueberry trees that dumped all of their leaves in my pool.
I use a pool service company and just before the bad weather, my pool was perfect, but it was a little cold so no use.
After the leaf dump and a long period of inattention with a foot of leaves in the bottom, the water quality went to heck.
I tried to recover with a normal shock regimen, but my CYA was off the chart, so I have drained the pool and pressure washed it -- every bit of it including taking out the lights and cleaning the niches (which were awful with algae).
Now, I am going to change out some bulbs and refill the pool.
I think I am going to go to calcium hypochlorite rather than anything that contains CYA and I want to learn about liquid chlorine/Clorox.
I am an engineer and prepared to do the work to learn what I need to learn.
So, here I am. Thanks.
In the recent bad weather and freeze in Texas, I lost five 45' blueberry trees that dumped all of their leaves in my pool.
I use a pool service company and just before the bad weather, my pool was perfect, but it was a little cold so no use.
After the leaf dump and a long period of inattention with a foot of leaves in the bottom, the water quality went to heck.
I tried to recover with a normal shock regimen, but my CYA was off the chart, so I have drained the pool and pressure washed it -- every bit of it including taking out the lights and cleaning the niches (which were awful with algae).
Now, I am going to change out some bulbs and refill the pool.
I think I am going to go to calcium hypochlorite rather than anything that contains CYA and I want to learn about liquid chlorine/Clorox.
I am an engineer and prepared to do the work to learn what I need to learn.
So, here I am. Thanks.
For future reference, we use the 
