Lessons not easily learned..

[Liltfy]

Homemade 30k ingrown pool. SWG and glass media in sand filter with new hayward heater. Rubber lined pool and all plastic lines throughout. Trace metal (iron and Cooper .1 on ea) I'm sequestrating with GLB Sequa-Sol. I'm absolutely done with pool stores. I'm in Rural PA and NOONE....I MEAN NOBODY knows much about pools here. They all sell what the computer spits out and what will maximize your purchase to fix the next nightmare that the chemicals will surely cause. I've never been able to get my chlorine levels up. Lots of history for sure but right now I'm trying to recover from a phosphate removal that has left me cloudy for 7 days. I'm filtering 24/7 and adding chlorine from Bleach to try and keep some kind of reading....I used 8 gallons of bleach 2 days ago to shock pool...with SWG running at 100%. Never had a FC reading...Stabilizer was added a few days before per pool store and is now 100ppm. Thier window is 30ppm to 150ppm. But now I can't get chlorine to stay with me at all. So I have cloudy blue water that I can't seem to clear and no chlorine. It's clearing very little and has been this cloudy since the phosphate treatment that I didn't need to do.... so....

1. Do I put more sequestrant in and shock every night until it clears.

2. Does "In the swim " pool shock that is calcium hypochlorite degrade my sequestrant??
3. Should I use a floculant to clear the cloudy???

Current numbers:

Chlorine 0
FC. 0
Ph. 7.6
Hardness 100
Alkalinity 127
CYA 100
30000 gallons
Salt 3200

 

[clambert1273]

Do you have a good test kit yourself?

 

[Liltfy]

I have a Solaxx Dogital safe dip and an hth test kit.

 

[clambert1273]

I have a Solaxx Dogital safe dip and an hth test kit.

If it were me I would get a good kitTest Kits Compared

then follow the standards hereABCs of Pool Water Chemistry

 

[Liltfy]

Ok longer range goal and I'll look into that. Any suggestions for today's situation?

 

[clambert1273]

Ok longer range goal and I'll look into that. Any suggestions for today's situation?

Without reliable testing not sure how much advice can be given

 

[clambert1273]

If ur results are correct then draining 40-50% would be my start to get the cya reasonable

 

[stricttime]

Here's my suggestion for today--order your test kit. Seriously. Just add chlorine (best bang for your buck is liquid pool chlorine from Walmart, Home Depot, etc) until the test kit arrives.

 

[zea3]

Adding high amounts of chlorine is going to eat up the sequestrant. Did you use a copper algaecide at any point or do you use well water? Do not use flocc! It will leave you with an even bigger mess! What kind of filter do you have? If water is inexpensive enough it may be best to partially drain and refill the pool. Do not use any dichlor/trichlor products, they will just raise the CYA more.

 

[Donldson]

Ok longer range goal and I'll look into that.

Having the ability to obtain accurate data to work with is not a long range goal, it's Step One.

 

[Newdude]

Hey Lifty and Welcome !!! Just last week we had a new member that the pool store tested their CYA at 115 requiring an almost 75% drain. They ordered their own, reliable, test kit and it was perfectly at 30. I honestly don’t know what’s worse, their absurd test results or the $300 a trip in bogus fixes that they push based on the awful results.

 

[Oly]

Hi Liltfy, your post is a tough read, sorry about your situation but know we see this happen to many unsuspecting pool owners every year.

A step wise progression is required for achieving and maintaining balanced pool water. The foundation of this process is a proper test kit and the owners ability to test at home and as needed. When you skip this step everything you do going forward is simply an assumption, often based on bad data and creates additional and more complicated issues. You may be facing a partial drain and refill but you need to start with step #1 and have the proper tools to test your water, yourself at home with accuracy and precision.

 

[Oly]

 

[Newdude]

Found the thread. First time at TFP, First Pool, First Problem

We have an uphill battle with most new folks to get their mind in the right place and invest 1/3 of a trip to the pool store to be able to do everything dirt cheap after that. Not one person who bought a reliable kit has come back to report they weren’t happy after they saw the light. Not one. Out of thousands.

Instead they are all over the moon happy when the refill kits go on sale in the spring so they can stock up and be covered for another 2 or so years

That should tell you something. The hard initial sell is understood. You don’t know us, or our ways. But take all the people before you who had your same thoughts, reluctant to buy their own kit, who literally ran to buy a 2nd one when the time came. Usually it takes a bit to pay for itself, although it always does, and many times over at that. For the post above it paid for itself several times over on day 1 and your story is awfully similar to hers at the moment.

 

[Liltfy]

Adding high amounts of chlorine is going to eat up the sequestrant. Did you use a copper algaecide at any point or do you use well water? Do not use flocc! It will leave you with an even bigger mess! What kind of filter do you have? If water is inexpensive enough it may be best to partially drain and refill the pool. Do not use any dichlor/trichlor products, they will just raise the CYA more.

No algaecide.....I use spring water....I have a 300# sand filter but I have glass media in it....

 

[Liltfy]

Ok.....post test kit info...

Alk - 110
1.8 FC
1.8 CC
PH 7
3200 SALT
90 DEGREES
120 HARDNESS
269 ORP

Still cloudy - I shocked last evening after cleaning everything down. I used 10 gallons of 7.5 bleach. And 6 bags of cal- Hypo with 65% available chlorine. No other additives in this chlorine source. I'm adding about 2 cups daily of sequestrant to keep up with chlorine. I have 2 CU-LATER bags in the skimmers although water testing shows hardly any metals at all but... water staining is hands down there without the sequestrant. So....CC is darn close to the same as my FC...so I need to keep shocking correct? And do I keep slugging sequestrant at this or let it turn brown and deal with it at the end?

 

[Mdragger88]

Ok.....post test kit info...

Alk - 110
1.8 FC
1.8 CC
PH 7
3200 SALT
90 DEGREES
120 HARDNESS
269 ORP

Still cloudy - I shocked last evening after cleaning everything down. I used 10 gallons of 7.5 bleach. And 6 bags of cal- Hypo with 65% available chlorine. No other additives in this chlorine source. I'm adding about 2 cups daily of sequestrant to keep up with chlorine. I have 2 CU-LATER bags in the skimmers although water testing shows hardly any metals at all but... water staining is hands down there without the sequestrant. So....CC is darn close to the same as my FC...so I need to keep shocking correct? And do I keep slugging sequestrant at this or let it turn brown and deal with it at the end?

Did u do the cya test?
Also brown sounds like iron.
There are ways to deal with that..

If you’ve got iron in your fill water, use Polyfill to remove it

EDIT: Found out this method only works if your iron is oxidized already, meaning it’s got a dull or bright green tint to the water, or a nasty brown tint. If you know you have iron in your fill water, but it isn’t oxidized yet, bring your pool to shock level and it’ll turn the telltale green...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Liltfy]

Definitely iron...no avoiding it where I am. I'm using sequestrant to keep it in solution. But I know the chlorine eats at it so they are fighting constantly. CYA TEST in my Taylor kit "starts" at 30.... it's just getting cloudy at 30....more stabilizer going in this afternoon..

 

[BenB]

Good job doing the testing!

Do you see how important it turned out to be? Your first round of results said your had CYA of 100. When you tested yourself, it turns out you barely had any. The first result if trusted would have had you drain over half your pool water, for no good reason!

Check out the info on here about using polyfill (I think there's been a featured thread in the last few days actually). I have no experience with it but the photos we see posted are AMAZING, and it requires no expensive chemicals that you have to keep on buying.

For your FC testing, you can use a 10ml sample which is plenty accurate and will save on drops - 10ml water, 1 generous scoop of powder, then each drop is 0.5 FC.

 

[BenB]

Couple of posts from this week

Iowa Vinyl Pool

Above, Marty notes how sequestrant interferes with chlorine and iron capture. Then in the posts that follow are some nice pics including one showing a bucket of fill that didn't catch much but is still brown and icky

This next thread, this is the one with some really impressive photos showing how quickly you can get the iron out of solution and then REMOVED once and for all.

Brand New Pool, Fresh Water, instantly Green

We got a 5,000 gallon pool, and we filled it via hose. I didn't know at the time that it was well water (setting it up at the grandparents and I thought they were on city water). As it was filling I started prepping the water for the chemicals it would eventually need. Added chlorine and some...

www.troublefreepool.com

You've totally got this!