New Pool Owner-Bad Chemist

Jump to latest Follow Reply
D

DirtyBlue

0
May 23, 2017
8
Houston,TX
New Pool Owner here. Just a little history... I recently bought a house in November 2016, so I had the pool for about 6 months. When I moved in, I knew absolutely zero about pools, therefore I used the method that the previous owner used to maintain the pool.

The previous owner, shocked it on a regular basis with Leslie's Chlor Brite and used their Ph up and other alkalinity products. Therefore I used the same method before finding about BBB last week.

I just opened the pool on Saturday 5/20, the pool has a tinge of green. I went to Leslie's got my water tested and my FC was 0, Ph 7.2. I had 2 lbs of Chlor brite shock left so I used it to shock the pool and added 2 gallons 128 fl oz of 10% bleach to the pool. I checked my Ph on Sunday and it was 7 ppm. It rained Monday night and today I went to buy a better test kit, I've bought a Taylor Technologies K-5820 - OTO Deluxe Test Kit from Lelslies (got the CYA tester separately) and I got my water tested again due to the rain. To my surprise, once again my FC went down to 0, but my CYA is at 95-100. The pool clerk told me that the Chlor brite was adding extra CYA to the pool and that I need to stop using it. He recommended to switch to Fresh and Clear with he states does not have CYA. When I asked about just using bleach he said you can but bleach will add extra CYA as well. I read up on this, and bleach doesn't add CYA.

FC 0
TC 0
Ph 7.4
TA 150
CH 210
CYA 100

With these values, I've added the recommended acid to get my TA to 100. I plan on Shocking/SLAMMING the pool tonight with 5-6 gallon of 10% bleach.

I want to stick to BBB, but...
  • What can I do to maintain my chlorine levels on a consistent basis? Do I need to add a gallon of bleach to the pool every night (I've read some people do that).
  • I have a tower which I put the 3" chlorine tablets in, I was under the impression that it should keep the chlorine levels high enough, but that's not the case. Also the pool clerk told me I should get a chlorine floater to put additional 3" chlorine tablets to help supplement since my tower is not providing enough chlorine for the high CYA. Is that a good option? I've also read that people put the Chlorine tablets in the skimmer basket to avoid a floater? Is that also another option? Or should I completely stop using the 3" chlorine tablet because I read that it also increases the CYA.
  • I've been reading with my high CYA level, I may have to partially drain the pool to get the levels down. Do I need to do that? If I set my pump to waste, would that be an efficient way to drain it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
The tablets will only make your cya higher. Ditch them completely at this point. And go with liquid chlorine (bleach)

You will need to slam the​ pool, which means hold it at shock level, until your water is clean and clear. Your FC will continue to drop quickly to zero as it gets used up killing the algae that are actively growing in your pool. Once your water is clear, your chlorine won't drop so quickly to zero.

And you will likely want to drain some water to lower your cya. Probably about half of it to get your cya to 50ish. Setting your pump to waste could work, if you have a floor drain. Otherwise you'll lose suction when you get below the Skimmer (try with the vacuum hose)

Generally daily, or at least every other day, testing and adding bleach is the way to maintain the chlorine. Once you get a handle on it, it literally takes two minutes every day or two.

Have you read pool school and understand SLAMing and the relationship between cya and chlorine? Those are the two key things you need to have a handle on now.
 
Time to drain at least 60% of the water ,unless you want to spend more on bleach. Get your ph to 7.2 and dont worry too much about TA just yet. After the refill, retest your water adjust and start the SLAM.

Felipe
 
First the bad news....

6 (121 oz) jugs of 8.25% bleach will only bring your FC level up to 19. 6 full gallons of 12.5% pool chlorine will bring FC to 30. Shock level for 100 CYA is 39. It's going to require this to SLAM a pool at 100 CYA.
attachment.php


Now the worse news... your CYA may be even higher than 100. When it reads 90 or better, we suggest the dilution method to get a close approximation just to get an idea of how much water needs to be replaced to get CYA to something manageable. See note 8

And while I'm bearing bad news, I might as well tell you that your test kit isn't up to the job. Bare minimum, you need to add the FAS-DPD test to what you have. It can read FC up to 50. Your test probably stops at 5.... and what's worse, the dye can bleach out at really high FC levels and make you think it's way lower than reality. You can get a whole test kit or just the individual FAS-DPD test from TFTestkits.net.

Replace enough water to get CYA between 30 and 50 and have a useful FC tester and we can walk you through the SLAM process. Otherwise it's just going to be by-guess-and-by-golly if the pool ever clears.
 
DirtyBlue said:


With these values, I've added the recommended acid to get my TA to 100. I plan on Shocking/SLAMMING the pool tonight with 5-6 gallon of 10% bleach.
Click to expand...

With a FC of zero it definitely won't hurt to get some bleach in there to prevent things going further in the wrong direction, however I think we need to look at your order of operations here. Lowering that CYA should be priority number 1, dumping 5-6 gallons of bleach in there and then draining half of the pool will just waste half of that bleach. Cut the CYA in half, verify where you are, and then start adding precise amounts of bleach to reach the SLAM FC level. Just dumping in random amounts isn't going to get you where you want to be.
 
Thank you, everyone, for the replies. Even though my chemistry is bad, my pool is crystal clear. But it doesn't indicate it's sanitary since I have zero chlorine.

After doing more research on the cya and chlorine, I see it will take 10 gallons of 10% bleach to SLAM my pool to raise the FC to 39 for my high CYA. that's a lot of chlorine.

I'm very hesitant to drain the pool, but I'm going to SLAM it and see how much Chlorine it will take to keep my FC high enough on a daily basis. If it's too much and is not cost effective, then I will give draining a shot next week, as it plans to rain all week.

I plan on investing in the recommended test kit once/if I drain the pool.
 
So the point Richard made about your CYA is really important here DirtyBlue. 100 is the max reading of a test. Your CYA could be 100, it could be 200, it could be 250...who knows. Without knowing the true value, you are dumping bleach in blindly...and a lot of it. Your FC of 39 wouldn't be close to high enough if that CYA is actually 100+. Without draining you won't know for sure where you are at. Do 25% if you want, we'll still be able to see the number move if its really at 100. 50% should really be the starting point though.
 
Just a quick update. Since the original post about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I've completely been on the BBB method. No Pucks, no shocks. From my original post, my main concern was my CYA level, which it is still and my hesitancy to drain the pool. I've bought and have been using the TAYLOR TECHNOLOGIES INC K-2006 TEST KIT COMP CHLORINE FAS-DPD kit. As I stated before, when I originally check my CYA it was at 100. Once I got my kit, I ran the CYA dilution method and my CYA was actually at 200. For the past two weeks it's been raining a lot, so I've drained the pool 3 times just below the skimmer basket, and I've backwash once due to my filter pressure getting a little high. The rain has calmed down, and I just did the CYA dilution test today and my CYA reads 160. I'm not sure it if was a combination of the draining and the rain, but it's going down. I'm not sure if I've drain 10% or 20% of the pool in the past two weeks, but it's working. So I plan on giving the Bio-Active Pool Stabilizer Reducer/Cyanuric Acid Reducer - 8 oz. a shot. I know it has mix reviews, but I'm going to test it out starting today and will let you all know how it goes.
 
Take the money for bioactive and throw it in the trash, then wait a week with a greener pool.

Or you can listen to proven advice here based on 40 years of science and get your pool back to clear right away, with 100% chance of success.
 
cfherrman said:
Take the money for bioactive and throw it in the trash, then wait a week with a greener pool.

Or you can listen to proven advice here based on 40 years of science and get your pool back to clear right away, with 100% chance of success.
Click to expand...

I believe he is trying to reduce CYA first!
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
I do appreciate everyones advice and I am listening. I wanted to give the Bioavtive a try as it is a new product and seems to be the quickest and most effective way at reducing CYA. This is relatively new technology and it's intriguing to me. So I decided o give it a try. Some people have gotten good results while others have not.

I don't have an algae problem and my pool is crystal clear. It's been 5 days since I have added the Bioactive and my pool still looks the same. The only thing that it did was spike my pH to 8.0 for the first couple of days. I have not Check the CYA levels because I want to give it the full 7-10 days as instructed on the packet o give it time to work. My pool has not turn green.

If if it does not reduce my CYA levels, I'll be the first to say it's a waste of money. But if it does work, then it may be worth a try for the hose who do not want to drain their pools or are in water restricted areas where draining is not an option.
 
If it doesn't work for you, I wanted you to be aware of the tarp option. The idea is to spread a tarp over your pool and use a hose to add as much water to the top of the tarp as you simultaneously drain. If water restrictions are your main objection then this doesn't help, but if you were trying to avoid lowering the water in your pool it does.
 
You should be aware ahead of time that if it works, it does so by converting CYA to ammonia. It's supposed to have a second step that converts the ammonia to nitrogen gas. This is done via two types of bacteria working in conjunction. So your FC must be zero to avoid killing the bacteria before they have a chance to work.

The real problem with this is twofold - if that second step of ammonia->nitrogen does not occur, or if your FC stays too low for too long and you get a bad algae bloom. Either way this ends, you start out your pool with a huge chlorine demand (hopefully algae and not ammonia). This is why the drain-refill is most recommended here, because while it's painful, it at least keeps your pool in a known state. If your water started out clear then drain/refill would probably have had you a working pool by tomorrow. With this method, it may add many weeks of bleach pouring to your future before you can swim.

That said, water restrictions, wells, etc. can pose a major issue. So there are some for whom this process is the only option, painful as it may be.

So here's hoping that it doesn't just work to reduce your CYA, but also does not leave you with a bunch of ammonia, and that too much algae doesn't find a new place to make home. :)
 
It's been 13 days since I've added 24 Oz of BioActive to the pool and my CYA has dropped from 160 to 100 as of this morning. From my conclusions, it does work, but not to the degree that the company advertises. They recommend after the 10 day period to wait another 7 days before adding another treatment. I do not plan on doing another treatment. I think with my monthly backwash and with the amount of rain expecting to come down the next couple of weeks, I can get the CYA close to normal range.

The only issues that I faced over this past 2 weeks are that, once I first added the Bioactive to the pool, it severely affected my pH. It jumped my pH from 7.4 to 8.0. The other issue that I faced is that while trying to keep my FC below 3 which is the recommended range, I went the past 2 days without adding any liquid chlorine to the pool. I woke up this morning to a FC=0 and my water is very cloudy. At the same time, my filter pressure was above 20. Not sure if that was just coincidence.

Overall, 3 packets of the Bioactive cost me $98.40 on Amazon. IF I decided to do another treatment I think I could get my CYA to normal range. That would cost me another $98 dollars for a total of $200 dollars.

I got a quote to drain my pool from the company who installed my liner and they charge $600 dollars. This does not include the refilling of the pool. I would have to refill it with my own water. I estimate that would cost me $200 dollars in water bill. So I’m looking at about $800 to drain and fill the pool.

So that would be $200 dollars of Bioactive VS $800 dollars to drain and refill. There's a huge saving there.

I'm not sure if anyone else has gotten the same results, but this is what it so far.
 
So $200 to treat with bioactive, that may or may not work, v $200 to drain and fill that works every time.

Good to hear that one treatment is going to work, just make sure your cya test is right, such as a your own Taylor cya test.
 
No, we do not have any current water restrictions. I do not have a bottom drain so that poses an issue. Overall I'm just stubborn about draining the pool. I know I can rent a pump and do it, or use my vacuum pump or the tarp method, but was looking for a more efficient way to do it.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply