Current water test:
FC: 1.5
CC: 0.0
PH: 7.2
TA: 60
CYA: 40
Following the TFP method I've been using bleach to clean my pool and things have been going wonderfully. When I went on vacation I set up the chlorinator and it worked perhaps a bit too well. Coming back my pool looked green so I ran my tests and came back with a PH of 7.2 but a FC level of around 12. Yikes. I used well water and at the beginning of the year the pool looked green (my iron level is slightly high when the well was tested a year ago), but I managed to filter it out over a few days by putting a few socks in the skimmer. I'm assuming iron is the issue here as well... no pun intended.
So now things get interesting:
I tried my same method, the skimmer sock method, to filter out the iron except this time I got a little more fancy and put a sump pump in the pool to add another pump and thus another sock filter. A good idea that lacked execution. I replacing the socks every couple of hours as well as scrubbing the bottom of the pool with an algae brush and after a few days things didn't appear to be getting better. I perform another water test and find my PH had risen up to a solid 8.0. I've never seen PH rise without adding something to the pool so this kind of baffles me — I assume that this is why things seemed to be progressively getting worse. The only thing I can think of is that the sump pump was somehow aerating the pool.
Fortunately I have muriatic acid on hand (31.45%) that I've diluted and poured into the return jet. I've tried to push it down just a little each time, testing a couple of hours later, and then adding more. Odd thing is my readings are always higher than they should be. I was at at a PH of 7.4 yesterday and added 3 cups of muriatic acid which should've brought me down 7.0 but when I got home this afternoon I'm only at 7.2. Either way I'm trying to push down to 6.8 since I've thrown in the proverbial towel and resorted to ordering Mineral Out and I'm hoping that my FC will hit 0 around that time. I've never used this stuff before but in my reading it sounds like it's suggested that my PH be around 6.8 and FC at 0 beforehand.
When this adventure started about 4 or 5 days ago the water was much more of a darker teal color. Now what I'm looking at is more yellow. Here are some pictures of what I'm dealing with (I dusted off the top step for comparison):
I rang out one of my socks into a measuring cup to get a closer look:
I'd appreciate any suggestions based on what I'm doing and/or planning on doing. I'm still only about a year into owning a pool and am just kind of winging it based on what I've read on TFP. Please let me know if I am missing anything. Thanks for any feedback.
FC: 1.5
CC: 0.0
PH: 7.2
TA: 60
CYA: 40
Following the TFP method I've been using bleach to clean my pool and things have been going wonderfully. When I went on vacation I set up the chlorinator and it worked perhaps a bit too well. Coming back my pool looked green so I ran my tests and came back with a PH of 7.2 but a FC level of around 12. Yikes. I used well water and at the beginning of the year the pool looked green (my iron level is slightly high when the well was tested a year ago), but I managed to filter it out over a few days by putting a few socks in the skimmer. I'm assuming iron is the issue here as well... no pun intended.
So now things get interesting:
I tried my same method, the skimmer sock method, to filter out the iron except this time I got a little more fancy and put a sump pump in the pool to add another pump and thus another sock filter. A good idea that lacked execution. I replacing the socks every couple of hours as well as scrubbing the bottom of the pool with an algae brush and after a few days things didn't appear to be getting better. I perform another water test and find my PH had risen up to a solid 8.0. I've never seen PH rise without adding something to the pool so this kind of baffles me — I assume that this is why things seemed to be progressively getting worse. The only thing I can think of is that the sump pump was somehow aerating the pool.
Fortunately I have muriatic acid on hand (31.45%) that I've diluted and poured into the return jet. I've tried to push it down just a little each time, testing a couple of hours later, and then adding more. Odd thing is my readings are always higher than they should be. I was at at a PH of 7.4 yesterday and added 3 cups of muriatic acid which should've brought me down 7.0 but when I got home this afternoon I'm only at 7.2. Either way I'm trying to push down to 6.8 since I've thrown in the proverbial towel and resorted to ordering Mineral Out and I'm hoping that my FC will hit 0 around that time. I've never used this stuff before but in my reading it sounds like it's suggested that my PH be around 6.8 and FC at 0 beforehand.
When this adventure started about 4 or 5 days ago the water was much more of a darker teal color. Now what I'm looking at is more yellow. Here are some pictures of what I'm dealing with (I dusted off the top step for comparison):
I rang out one of my socks into a measuring cup to get a closer look:
I'd appreciate any suggestions based on what I'm doing and/or planning on doing. I'm still only about a year into owning a pool and am just kind of winging it based on what I've read on TFP. Please let me know if I am missing anything. Thanks for any feedback.
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