High Ammonia and cloudy pool open.

[Spyrus]

Hi All,

This is my first time posting. I have got my pool 2 years ago when I bought a house that already had one. The first year I had a company open, I opened last year, and this year I'm seeing some issues (minor I hope) opening. I bought the test kit to get me moving along and try to move from the expensive pool store chems to the easier store bought stuff.

About a week ago I pumped out about 5 inches of water and filled with fresh city water. I end up doing this every year due to high TDS numbers (is this really a concern I should worry about?) I started to open yesterday and had a lot of white-ish colored stuff in the pool and and it was pretty cloudy (but blue). I added 3 gallons 8.25% liquid chlorine and about 8 bags of Costco Shock to get me running. Fired up the filter and got it running. Started the heater to raise temp from a balmy 60 to about 72 right now. I let it run over night and my visibility is only about 4 feet into the water.

My tests show the following:

Chlorine ~ 3
PH ~6.9
FC = 6
CC = 0
TA = 240
CYA = 20

Pool store tests:
Ammonia 8.5-9
PH = 7.5
FC = .4
CC = 3.3
TA = 212
CYA = 43
Hardness = 451
TDS = 2000

Based on the ammonia levels (always a problem for me but normally around 1 not 8.5) they told me to just pump out water and add fresh. Basically advised I put the cover pump on one side of the pool and the hose on the other to get fresh water in. They didn't want to sell me anything because the ammonia issues. I don't know the best way to combat the ammonia or why my water is cloudy. I also don't understand why the ammonia is a big deal? I know lakes and such have it naturally but I assume it is eating my chlorine. I'm looking for some advice on what to do. I also see some discrepancies in my numbers vs the Pool stores. They use a neat digital tester so it seems like it would be more accurate than me.

Thanks in advance for bearing with the newbie

 

[kellyfair]

I am no expert with ammonia, but I wonder if their test is right, when your own testing shows that you have FC, and you have CYA. If this were my pool, I’d be inclined to believe my results, ignore theirs, and proceed to a SLAM.

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

First: what, exactly, is in those bags of Costco "shock"? If it's dichlor or trichlor, it added a bunch of CYA. If it was Monopersulfate (Sold as Non-chlorine Shock) then it interferes with the testing and falsely reads as CC. So find the emoty bags or go to the store and find out, because it can mess everything up.

Ammonia is bad because it takes about ten times as many ppm of Chlorine as Ammonia to neutralize it... as fast as you pour bleach in, it's gone, and it never got a chance to kill any algae. And algae is probably why your pool is cloudy. Often it's cheaper and faster to replace water than to neutralize Ammonia.

Trust your drop test over any fancy thing the pool store has. Theirs is designed to generate sales.

Plan of action: Run filter an hour or so, then test FC and CC. Use poolmath to calculate the dose to raise FC to 10 and add that much bleach. Perhaps make a lap around the pool with a brush to ensure it's all mixed. In 30 minutes, test FC & CC again. If you have Ammonia, FC will be pretty much all gone and CC will be really high. That's when you decide if you want to lug all that bleach or replace water. Still unsure? Post results and wait for advice.

TDS: irrelevent. That's EVERYTHING dissolved in your water -- Calcium, FC, Salt, you name it. Until some individual test gets so high you have to deal with it (like Calcium), there's nothing to worry about.

Anyway, once/if Ammonia gets dealt with, then proceed to SLAM Process the pool. It'll clear up in a few days.

 

[mknauss]

It would be unusual to record FC or CYA if you have ammonia. But, it is really easy to check using Chlorine and testing.

Add sufficient liquid chlorine to your pool to get to FC 10ppm. Circulate for 30 minutes. Check your FC, if 5 or below, add LC to get to FC 10 ppm, circulate 30 minutes, test for FC, etc. Once your FC is above 5 ppm at your test after 30 minutes of circulation, then the ammonia is gone.

TDS in itself is useless. We use testing methods that break out the TDS into the items we care about.
What test kit are you using for your numbers? We will always believe the pool owners test results over any pool store.

Take care.

Richard beat me to it!!!

 

[Spyrus]

Welcome!

First: what, exactly, is in those bags of Costco "shock"? If it's dichlor or trichlor, it added a bunch of CYA. If it was Monopersulfate (Sold as Non-chlorine Shock) then it interferes with the testing and falsely reads as CC. So find the emoty bags or go to the store and find out, because it can mess everything up.

Ammonia is bad because it takes about ten times as many ppm of Chlorine as Ammonia to neutralize it... as fast as you pour bleach in, it's gone, and it never got a chance to kill any algae. And algae is probably why your pool is cloudy. Often it's cheaper and faster to replace water than to neutralize Ammonia.

Trust your drop test over any fancy thing the pool store has. Theirs is designed to generate sales.

Plan of action: Run filter an hour or so, then test FC and CC. Use poolmath to calculate the dose to raise FC to 10 and add that much bleach. Perhaps make a lap around the pool with a brush to ensure it's all mixed. In 30 minutes, test FC & CC again. If you have Ammonia, FC will be pretty much all gone and CC will be really high. That's when you decide if you want to lug all that bleach or replace water. Still unsure? Post results and wait for advice.

TDS: irrelevent. That's EVERYTHING dissolved in your water -- Calcium, FC, Salt, you name it. Until some individual test gets so high you have to deal with it (like Calcium), there's nothing to worry about.

Anyway, once/if Ammonia gets dealt with, then proceed to SLAM Process the pool. It'll clear up in a few days.

First, thanks for the advice from all so far!

Costco bag is a 1lb bag with:

• 63% Dichloro-s-triazinetrione
• .25% copper
• ~37% other

I ran my tests using the TF-100 kit and I bought extra chlorine tests knowing i'd probably need it this year. I also grabbed the magnetic mixer to make things eaiser. so I'll proceed to properly investigate how and do a drop test. Filter ran for about 20 hours before the most recent results I shared. I'll need to vacuum all the crud off the bottom but can't see what I'm doing at the moment due to the cloudiness.

Thanks again!

 

[mknauss]

It would be best to not use the bags from Costco. Use Liquid Chlorine.

The bags had Chlorine, CYA and Copper in them. The CYA fed the ammonia if you have it, making it worse, and the copper, if added often, can stain your pool and turn blonde hair green.

Take care.

 

[Spyrus]

It would be best to not use the bags from Costco. Use Liquid Chlorine.

The bags had Chlorine, CYA and Copper in them. The CYA fed the ammonia if you have it, making it worse, and the copper, if added often, can stain your pool and turn blonde hair green.

Take care.

OK, I've been a bit busy since my last post. I pumped out a bunch of water while putting water in.

Today I tested the water and had the following:
FC=3
CC=0

I added 1 Gallon of 8.25% bleach came back 30 min later and had:
FC=5.5
CC=.5
TA=230
CYA=30

I added 2 more gallons of bleach and came back 1 hour later:
FC=7.5
CC=.5

Should I keep adding in bleach to get to the 10 mark? Poolmath said I only needed ~2 gallons to begin with but I'm at 3 and still not to 10.

Thanks again. The water looks clearer (due to the water exchange) but is still cloudy.

 

[mknauss]

Did you follow this from a previous post?
Add sufficient liquid chlorine to your pool to get to FC 10ppm. Circulate for 30 minutes. Check your FC, if 5 or below, add LC to get to FC 10 ppm, circulate 30 minutes, test for FC, etc. Once your FC is above 5 ppm at your test after 30 minutes of circulation, then the ammonia is gone.

 

[Spyrus]

Ammonia and confusion

I had another post about having high ammonia when I went to the pool store and wasn't sure what to do. I ended up running a pump on one side of my pool in the deep end and a hose on the shallow side for about 10 hours trying to filter out clean water. This fixed an issue I was having with cloudiness but while I was doing this I also purchased an ammonia test kit.

I'm confused because I show really high ammonia on the test kit but I still have decently high FC and my chlorine seems to be holding alright. I don't know if I should just SLAM and call it a day or do something else.

2 days ago I added a gallon of 8.25% liquid Chlorine and yesterday I tested the pool with the following results:

FC = 7
CC = 0
TA = 220
CYA = 20
PH = 4.5
Chlorine test showed about 4
Ammonia is testing darker than the test strip goes so it should be higher than 8 if its correct.

Any help on what I should do would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Edit: I use the TF-100 test kit

 

[Donldson]

Re: Ammonia and confusion

Your FC and CC readings rule out ammonia. I would say either your test strip is being affected by something in the water, or is bad.

 

[Spyrus]

Re: Ammonia and confusion

The ammonia test is a drop kit. I tested it on my tap water after I tested on my pool. Tap water shows about .5 ammonia and pool shows way over 8 like I stated. I was under the impression of what you are telling me though which is if I had ammonia then I wouldn't have any FC. Should I just treat the pool accordingly and ignore the ammonia tests? I still don't have super clear water I'd like to see which makes me think my CH is either up (need to test again) or I still have some kind of algae in there