New Pool Owner - Green Pool!

[Kenny22]

Little update: My levels as of this morning are:

FC: 10.5 ppm
CC: <=0.5
CYA: <30, still building

The sock with stabilizer has been hanging in front of my filter return jet for about 36 hours, and almost all of it has dissolved, but there’s a little bit left to go, so I’m not surprised it wasn’t up to 30 yet. As for CC, not sure if that’s good or not. After adding the 5 drops after the FC test, the solution did turn light pink, but a single drop of the R0087 turned it back to clear.

FC has been steadily dropping since I began, so I’ve had to add a little chlorine every test! I just added enough to get back up to 12 (maybe slightly more).

The pool itself is still green, of course, but it seems to show slight improvement, which is a good sign. We can see the bottom a little more clearly now! I’ll attach pictures below:

 

[mknauss]

Have you been brushing/vacuuming the pool each day? Keep the FC up at 12 ppm. The color should go cloudy blue very soon.

 

[Kenny22]

Have you been brushing/vacuuming the pool each day? Keep the FC up at 12 ppm. The color should go cloudy blue very soon.

I did on the first day, but yesterday I did not brush or vacuum. I should’ve, and I don’t know why I didn’t, but I just spent a good hour vacuuming, brushing then skimming (not much floating around to skim, though. Thankfully no trees are terribly close to the pool to drop leaves in).

When I started vacuuming, I could see the bottom decently, of course after stirring everything up it’s just opaque green again, but I measured the FC at 10 ppm after all that and added some more to get it back up to 12 so it can go to work on it all! I’ll check back in an hour!

 

[IceShadow]

CYA can take a couple of days in the pool before it will register in the test. That's normal.

 

[Schnozz]

Kenny22..Keep up the good work.....You're well on your way to a TFP clean pool...

 

[milesvdustin]

Keep at it. If you keep you FC level where it needs to be the magic happens. Follow all the steps to the SLAM and the exit criteria and you will be rewarded with a clean clear pool to enjoy!

 

[Kenny22]

Another update: Pool still green, but I think I figured out the issue. When I cleaned the filter (cartridge filter), I didn’t do nearly as good a job as I needed to. I just spent an hour cleaning it very meticulously, and when I turned the pump back on it was several times stronger, and the pressure on the filter dropped from near 20 to only 1 or 2 PSI.

I’ll keep doing everything I’ve been doing for SLAM, and I’ll definitely be monitoring that filter pressure much more, now that I know.

I had seen a video online of a pool pump running, and it blew my away how fast it was going, so I thought I’d look up how to properly clean mine. Glad i did!

 

[Selenap]

This probably goes against tfp standards but once I had a swamp when I opened. I ended up buying a couple of jugs of this United Chemical No Mor Problems - Gallon. It works. I could watch the water clear. It was crazy. You have to follow the directions and you combine this with bleach.

 

[mknauss]

It works.

It is Sodium Bromide. It can make your pool a bromine pool. That requires you to drain the pool to attempt to manage the chlorine in the pool from then on. Do not use that product.

 

[Kenny22]

Yeah, I don’t want to start adding different things after having already been working on the SLAM process anyway, but thanks @mknauss for explaining the harmful effect of that stuff!

This morning I checked my pool and the filter was indeed in need of cleaning again, so I cleaned it and got it going again! I’m excited because that means the algae is making its way out of the pool water!

 

[clambert1273]

Im just here to cheer you on!! A job well done so far!!!

 

[Kenny22]

@clambert1273 Thank you, I appreciate that! I have definitely gotten a bit discouraged, but I keep pushing and I know it will be worth it in the end!

 

[Kenny22]

An update:
Today is day 7 since I started maintaining the chlorine at 12 ppm. It’s day 4 since I realized I the filter needed to be cleaned thoroughly to keep the pump running strongly. I did miss vacuuming on day 2, but I’ve been keeping up on vacuuming/brushing/skimming out leaves every day other than that. The pool seems to appear no better than before the start, and I feel so demoralized by it.

In addition to checking my FC this morning, I checked the CYA and CC. Upon adding the 5 drops R-0003 after the FC test to start the CC test, the water barely turned pink (see picture), and one drop of R-0871 turned it clear again. Should my CC be so low even though the pool is so green? This feels weird to me, but I am a total pool newbie, so I don’t know whether it’s expected or not.

As for the CYA, I had added stabilizer through a sock hung in front of the filter return jet last week. I did the test this morning, and it still seemed a little low. In the picture below, the tube is filled to the top. If I moved my eyes back slightly, the dot does disappear, but that’s cheating, right?

I also attached some pictures of the pool to show how green it is. I wish I had started with TFP a month ago, because the pool was not nearly this green, and I had made progress by adding 3 gallons of shock at one point, but I didn’t realize how quickly it would burn off and algae would grow more.

Please advise, could there be something else I’m not doing? Is it normal to go this long without seeing amy progress when a pool is this green? Will I still be sane when this is over? (Okay, I will be, but this is quite rough on my stress level lately).

 

[Texas Splash]

Kenny, I know you didn't receive your test kit and actually start the SLAM until last Weds, but after about 6 days I would expect to see better improvement in the water. I have a concern that there was more to the water than just algae when you moved-in late last year. I say this of course assuming you have been vigilant on your FC testing to maintain the proper SLAM level of 12. Yes, your CYA is a bit low, but the water shouldn't be that green.

By any chance did the previous owners leave any pool chemicals behind? It could give us a clue to what's happening. Also, any chance you are on a well or local water known to have high iron content?

 

[Kenny22]

I wasn't feeling to great Sunday and ended up sleeping a bit and only checked the chlorine 2 or 3 times that day, but other than that I've been trying to check it every few hours. Usually it's either still good, or has gotten to 9, 10 or 11 ppm and I add chlorine. I do usually add a little more chlorine than what I need to just get to 12 so it doesn't fall too quickly below 12 again, but getting up to 15 or 16 ppm shouldn't hurt, right? It did get down to 6 ppm overnight Sunday morning, which was the lowest I've seen it get to, but it was at 12 ppm when I went to bed the previous night.

I am on public water in Fulton, NY. I don't know what the iron content is here, and I tried to google it but I'm having trouble finding anything about it. I will text some friends who also live here and ask if they know about it.

The previous owners left just a bottle of stabilizer from Cannon Pools and Spas, which is where I also have been going (there's one maybe two miles from my house). I should say that when I first looked under the winter cover when the snow here was beginning to melt, the water was pretty clear. I could very clearly see the bottom, and it was a little dirty, but not that bad. The problem was the wire holding the winter cover came loose, and the wind would blow the cover up so the water was exposed to sunlight for days at a time before I pulled it back over, because every time I pulled it back over the wind just blew it back off within a few hours, and I did not realize just how bad of a problem it would cause. I feel like a complete idiot for it now. I kept asking my dad "Should I just open it?" and he told me to wait because it might snow again (and it did once, actually), but gosh I really should've figured out a way to keep that cover on right.

 

[wireform]

Kenny,
Are you using a speed stirr and possibly having the spinner in the vial before bringing the the water to the 10ml line. Could you tell us how your checking the FC maybe that's where you're going wrong.

 

[Kenny22]

I don’t know what speed stirr is, so I doubt I’m using that! Attached is a picture of the vial with some water where I put it up to. This is just water from my kitchen sink, for the pool I use a water bottle to get some pool water (I get some water from as far below the surface as I can reach without pressing into the side of the pool). Anyway, I pour to 10 mL, looking at the bottom of the meniscus, as I remember being taught in High School chemistry. Then I add two scoops of powder (I try to be generous with the scoops), and I hold it from above and swirl it by hand for a few seconds. I squirted one drop at a time for the first few days, swirling for a second between each, and then because I know it’s not going to be super low I’ve been doing the first ten drops at once, and swirling for 10 or 15 seconds before doing 1 drop at a time, and swirling for a second or two between each addition. I did accidentally put too many drops in and it went to clear once, and when that happened I just dumped and restarted the test!

Also though, if I were putting less than 10 mL of pool water in, I'd end up underreading the RC from this test, right? So I'd end up adding more than necessary, so wouldn't that not be a problem? I'm always very careful to not put too much pool water, because say I had 11 or 12 mL in there, then each droplet would be less than 0.5 ppm FC.

 

[IceShadow]

Are you holding the dropper bottle completely vertical and letting the drops fall off the tip, only squeezing enough to slowly build up the drop until it falls off? If the drops are too small the FC will read as higher than it is.

 

[Kenny22]

Are you holding the dropper bottle completely vertical and letting the drops fall off the tip, only squeezing enough to slowly build up the drop until it falls off? If the drops are too small the FC will read as higher than it is.

I do feel like I’ve been pretty careful, but seeing as it’s still green I’ll try to be extremely extremely careful about the small details like this moving forward.

I did notice after work today that the filter hasn’t gotten clogged nearly as fast as it was a few days ago, and the pump is running very strongly.

 

[IceShadow]

So if the water is still green after several days of a diligent slam, something is off. I’m wondering if the CYA reagent has perhaps been compromised, though it’s usually very stable. What is the expiration date on those reagents? I think the kit typically comes with a few bottles. Maybe try the CYA test with a different bottle?

The one test we do trust the pool stores a bit in is metals. Could you get a pool store test and let us know the metal content for iron and copper?