Inherited a new pool and need help to recover

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Koyle

Member
Jul 30, 2024
7
Maryland
I just moved into a new house and with it I inherited an (I think) 5,000 gallon above ground pool. With all of the moving and unpacking, I let the pool's chemistry get away from me and I've now got a lovely algae garden and I'm struggling to get it under control. Yesterday I got a Taylor testing kit and tested everything:

pH 8+
Free Chlorine 10+
Total chlorine 10+
Total Alkalinity 140
CYA 100+
Calcium Hardness 170


Last night I added 22oz of ph Down and got it to around 7.6 and then drained and refilled a few hundred gallons of water to try to bring the CYA down. Then at night I added about 4lbs of 53% concentration shock. After work I'll make sure I scrub the walls and vacuum, but I'm not sure how best to proceed without just spending hundreds of dollars on shock if I don't need to.

I realize that the CYA being literally off the charts is going to be a challenge, but the previous owner used pucks, so I'm kind of stuck for this year unless I keep draining and refilling it (which I'd like to avoid). It is also hard to properly measure my chlorine as well because it's all off the charts of my test kit.

How should I proceed? I think I will probably add another 4lbs of shock tonight and I put another puck in the floater to help maintain the levels during the day but I'm sort of working blind since my CYA and chlorine are off the charts.
 
Do no use pH down, contains sulfates. Use muriatic acid to lower pH.

Perform #8 here to get a more accurate CYA.

CYA - Cyanuric Acid Test​


You likely need to replace a large % of your water. See No Drain Water Exchange:

Draining - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

After you replace water, follow the SLAM process to clear the pool. Link-->SLAM Process
 
I just retested the water and got 140ppm for CYA and 34ppm for free chlorine.

I started a water exchange, but I am only getting maybe 200 gallons an hour. I think the pool is 5000 gallons, when would you say I should retest the CYA?
 
I think I might be able to get away with less than that. I re-checked the CYA after 2.5 hours of doing the water exchange and it's down to 100ppm now, so it's going down by maybe 15ppm every hour. I'm going to let it go for another 3 hours or so and check the CYA and chlorine again. I'd do it sooner but I'm almost out of CYA reagent already.
 
You have to let the pump mix the water for 4 hours AFTER the exchange...you likely just pulled water that was partially mixed.
 
PoolStored said:
You have to let the pump mix the water for 4 hours AFTER the exchange...you likely just pulled water that was partially mixed.
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Thanks! I didn't realize I needed to wait.

I did many many hours of water exchanging and got the CYA down to 70ppm, which is still a bit high, but it's a huge improvement. I also realized that my pool is actually about 7500 gallons, so that's helpful to know. The free chlorine is about 24ppm today and the water is starting to clear up quite a bit. I'm sure the water exchanging has contributed to that a bit, but I also think the algae is starting to get eradicated. I put about a half gallon of liquid chlorine in the pool this evening, so I'm hoping tomorrow it's even clearer. Probably at some point this weekend I will do a few more hours of water exchanging just to bring the CYA down into the normal range, and then just keep shocking it until it's blue and clear, then recheck my pH and TA. Moving forward, I'm sort of on the fence about using the pucks the original owner left for me since I might run into the same problem with the CYA again, but I'll have to stay really on top of the chlorine if I don't. We'll see how it goes.

Thank you for all your help!
 
Okay so I've done SLAM for over a week and my pool is blue again, but it's cloudy and doesn't seem like it's clearing up particularly fast. I've done backwashes, vacuumed the pool, scrubbed the pool, cleared debris daily, and it's still pretty cloudy. One other weird thing is that the free chlorine is consistently 16ppm even when I skipped a night of shocking and it was 16ppm the evening after putting in an lb of shock powder. CC is zero, so I guess this is all a good thing, but it's a bit perplexing. Worth noting that it's been cloudy here and my pool is shaded for a lot of the day because of trees. I know I should keep SLAMing since the pool is cloudy, but I just wanted to check in and make sure that I don't need to adjust something. Here are the results of this evening's test.

FC 16
CC 0
pH 7.7 (I'm ignoring this since it's mid-slam)
TA 100
CH 170
CYA 50

Am i doing something wrong? I have only been adding shock at night.
 
You have a smallish pool. It is likely that you have smallish equipment and a sand filter. Sand filters take the longest to clear. For CYA of 50, slam level is 20.
 

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Yeah it's all small and a sand filter. I am reasonably certain that the filter has a broken lateral because sand shoots out of the jet into the water every time I turn the pump on, but I don't expect that part of my problem. I was planning to fix it next year at opening time. The pressure gauge is also busted, so I'm not sure how well the pump is functioning either, but I'm going to try and fix that. It almost seems like it can't be replaced, but I'll find out soon.

Anyways, so is the cloudiness just dead algae and it just needs to get all filtered out over time, or do you figure I still have an algae infestation at this point?
 
Koyle said:
Anyways, so is the cloudiness just dead algae and it just needs to get all filtered out over time, or do you figure I still have an algae infestation at this point?
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Likely dead algae or organics. The point of maintaining SLAM until clear, is that you don't know if the cloudy is dead or still alive. Get everything out that can consume FC other than UV. Slam on!
 
Got it - I can handle adding 6oz or so of shock every night until it's clear. Whatever it takes!

Do you think I should avoid using pucks for the rest of the summer? I finally got the CYA down, so I have been avoiding them, but I don't know how fast the CYA creeps up and I want every bit of help I can get to keep the pool clean.
 
I would punt the pucks for now.

Koyle said:
Got it - I can handle adding 6oz or so of shock every night until it's clear. Whatever it takes!
Click to expand...
Adding once a day isn't going to cut it. Read the SLAM process and follow it. Print it out, read it three times, keep it with you. Link-->SLAM Process
 
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