Got my pool last year and was extremely happy with my pool builder (he did an awesome job). Went through pool school and got the "throw pucks in and you'll be fine" method. OK, so he's NOT a chemist. I run trouble free for a year, dumping my pucks in and cursing TFP for making me question (for weeks) whether I should have gone salt or not (LOL). Thinking to myself this is easy, I test the water once a week and throw a few pucks in, what's the big deal. Literally run like this for a year with crystal clear water, no algae, really easy, low, maintenance.
I come out one morning this spring and I see this brownish-green gunk on the walls and around my returns. Tell my wife she needs to sweep the pool because that was the deal (we get a pool, she takes care of it). Come out the next morning, curse at my wife because she didn't sweep the pool, to which she replies "I did". I call her a liar and sweep it myself. Come out the next day and more green stuff...then I have to apologize to wife. Go to Leslies, CYA at 110, phosphates over 3000, lots of food for algae and lots of ineffective chlorine. Call pool builder, tells me to drain 1/3 to get my CYA down (good advice by the way). After draining 1/3 of the pool once, and 1/2 the pool a second time, CYA finally down to 60. I've switched over to liquid chlorine and am in the process of finding that right balance of daily maintenance needed to keep my water blanaced.
I'm fine that I didn't go with SWG...I have lots of natural stone and I didn't really want to lug salt into the back yard and deal with that. But I knew immediately when I got that test back and saw that CYA level that most everything I read here had been spot-on. The pucks elevated the CYA to where the chlorine level I had been maintaining became useless / not enough. Yeah, I need to test a little more often and add liquid chlorine daily (hot Texas sun really burns it off), but it's not too bad.
I come out one morning this spring and I see this brownish-green gunk on the walls and around my returns. Tell my wife she needs to sweep the pool because that was the deal (we get a pool, she takes care of it). Come out the next morning, curse at my wife because she didn't sweep the pool, to which she replies "I did". I call her a liar and sweep it myself. Come out the next day and more green stuff...then I have to apologize to wife. Go to Leslies, CYA at 110, phosphates over 3000, lots of food for algae and lots of ineffective chlorine. Call pool builder, tells me to drain 1/3 to get my CYA down (good advice by the way). After draining 1/3 of the pool once, and 1/2 the pool a second time, CYA finally down to 60. I've switched over to liquid chlorine and am in the process of finding that right balance of daily maintenance needed to keep my water blanaced.
I'm fine that I didn't go with SWG...I have lots of natural stone and I didn't really want to lug salt into the back yard and deal with that. But I knew immediately when I got that test back and saw that CYA level that most everything I read here had been spot-on. The pucks elevated the CYA to where the chlorine level I had been maintaining became useless / not enough. Yeah, I need to test a little more often and add liquid chlorine daily (hot Texas sun really burns it off), but it's not too bad.