I am soo so frustrated =/

[cdwa223]

So I have been following this site since opening in April. I have learned sooo much so thank you for that! Now for the problems

I had been maintaining pretty well with liquid bleach. 2 weeks ago we were going to be out of town a lot so I resorted to using 3" puck for a few weeks ( tricolor 99%). Monitored for a few days and it maintained a steady fc level or 7-8. Then bam green... Over night almost.
I have a dolphin extreme I run almost every day and my pump runs 24-7. I added 2 gallons of 10% bleach yesterday to try and shock or begin a slam if necessary. Tonight these are my levels (and I'm so confused)
Fc 18
Cc 0
Cya : out of reagent but it was 30 before using the pucks used about 5 lbs if pucks.
Ta 50
Ca 90
Ph 70-7.2 if I'm being generous.

It's a cloudy green. Last step is visible.

I test almost daily and my numbers are almost always perfect but I keep battling clarity and green????


Problem 2: I think I may have some cracked laterals. I'm getting a lot of sand / dirt collecting on the floor. If the dirty sand is constantly blowing back in, could this be my nemesis????

Please help me make sense of this guy's, this pool is making me insane

 

[canjones]

I have been following trouble free for a year now and what I have learned is knowing your CYA is crucial. If it's below 20 your chlorine won't hold and you will have algae problems. If it's too high, and you aren't aware if the CYA level then you probably aren't adding enough chlorine and you will have algae problems. Find out what your CYA is so you know what level you need to be at for SLAM. Also SLAM may take several days. You will need to test often daily to keep your FC at the level needed. Not sure about your other issue. I'll let someone else chime in.

 

[AftonJeeper]

Tying a sock on the return jet will help identify if you have cracked laterals or not. Just read another thread that had a similar issue with their sand filter and they are currently deep cleaning it. How did the laterals look last year when you replaced the sand?

Get some CYA reagent on order, it will be good to know exactly where you are at.

 

[FattyLumpkin]

I think you need to SLAM, but you need an accurate CYA before you can do that. In 18,000 gallons, 5 lbs. of trichlor will add ~20 CYA. You could assume that level and start a SLAM at based on 50 CYA, or you could wait until you are able to accurately read it.

 

[Richard320]

I think you need to SLAM, but you need an accurate CYA before you can do that. In 18,000 gallons, 5 lbs. of trichlor will add ~20 CYA. You could assume that level and start a SLAM at based on 50 CYA, or you could wait until you are able to accurately read it.

Almost verbatim of what I would type.

This sand on the floor.... does it behave like dust bunnies that just go poof when you get within a few inches with the brush? If so, that's dead algae clumping. You can easily check if it's sand by rubber-banding a hole-less sock over the returns for a day and see if there's sand collecting inside it. Beats tearing the filter apart.

A bad filter could blow sand into the pool, and it may contribute to cloudiness (Or at least fail to clear it), but you can't blame green on the filter. That's algae. And until you start killing it faster than it can reproduce, you'll never get the water clear. Even if you kill half of it every day and manage to filter it out, the other half will still double in size and you're no better than you were. You have an endless supply of dead bleached algae carcasses to cloud the water.