We are *much* less concerned about pH than we are FC. pH's affect upon FC is limited compared to adding or not adding chlorine to the pool. Get the chlorine in there and deal with pH later.
Our pool has been black for a month
- Thread starter SpongyMothKilledOurPool
- Start date
DrewLG
Gold Supporter
- May 31, 2022
- 675
- Pool Size
- 8000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-20
If you know your skimmer model, sure. See if there's a part number or model name embossed on the underside of the lid.
Do not worry about the cya as we need to keep it on the low side for the huge chlorine need they are facing.
pH is really easy to adjust. Just add MA per poolmath recommendation, let it circulate 15 minutes, check again. Do this as many times as needed to get you around 7.2 to 7.5. It can be a bit hard to get it to start moving, as you can't really tell how far above 8.2 you might be.
You can have your pH in range in less than an hour, and start adding chlorine!
Vacuum to waste until there is no more yuck at the bottom. Refill. Get CYA to 30 and PH to 7.2 then SLAM. You might need a lot of chlorine for that water over the next few weeks. If you want to swim sooner, consider draining and getting all the muck out, refill then start fresh. After reading through the whole thread, it doesn't look like your routine focused on keeping FC high enough. I keep my FC at 5-8 with a CYA around 50. Stick with the FC/CYA chart and you should be fine after your SLAM is complete.
OK here's what I squeezed in today in between work and deck staining (rain forecast changed again because of course it did!)
I did a buttload of vacuum sets back-to-back. Then added more Muriatic Acid. Yesterday's MA I measured 3.5 cups in per Pool Math's advice, but since that left the pH still unmeasurably high, today I just eyeballed about half of the rest of the jug of MA.
Didn't get the fun brown-clumpy-floaty reaction this time, unfortunately, or I would have scooped it with my enhanced scooper (was actually able to fit one of the skimmer socks over the net).
Next pH test finally clocked a change, at somewhere between 7.5 & 7.8!! Whoohoo! No idea if it's lasted like that, because I used the standalone chlorine test for the next bit (instead of the daily dual chlorine/pH).
Added another full jug of liquid chlorine, tested at 5.5 FC shortly after (Yay!!) but back down to 1 FC 20 or 30 minutes later (boo!). Probably the "scoop the muck out or you'll never get your FC to stay up!" crowd has got it right.
I did a buttload of vacuum sets back-to-back. Then added more Muriatic Acid. Yesterday's MA I measured 3.5 cups in per Pool Math's advice, but since that left the pH still unmeasurably high, today I just eyeballed about half of the rest of the jug of MA.
Didn't get the fun brown-clumpy-floaty reaction this time, unfortunately, or I would have scooped it with my enhanced scooper (was actually able to fit one of the skimmer socks over the net).
Next pH test finally clocked a change, at somewhere between 7.5 & 7.8!! Whoohoo! No idea if it's lasted like that, because I used the standalone chlorine test for the next bit (instead of the daily dual chlorine/pH).
Added another full jug of liquid chlorine, tested at 5.5 FC shortly after (Yay!!) but back down to 1 FC 20 or 30 minutes later (boo!). Probably the "scoop the muck out or you'll never get your FC to stay up!" crowd has got it right.
I'm assuming "vacuum to waste" is something involving equipment I don't have, where you can just set your vacuum to pump nasty sludge-water out to drain wherever?
Yeah the "vacuum to waste" is not something you can do. You can do the same thing but using a water hose to make a syphon so the gunk goes out of the pool. Hubby will need to help you with it. Make sure to be adding water with a different hose at the same time as it will lower fairly fast with the syphon hose taking it out.
I went back several pages and didn't find it -- have you tested your CYA with the new kit?
Great job on learning this quickly. Leave the measuring cups in the kitchen. It’s a swimming pool not a chocolate cake (even though the water might look like chocolate right now…). A few extra ounces of acid or chlorine above/below what’s needed isn’t going to measurably affect anything so I’d make it easier on yourself by getting good at estimating.
If you ever decide to use some pool store potions, (you won’t ever do that, right?!) you should measure those carefully though.
Last edited:
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,662
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,662
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
A little inspiration? (And more tough love?) This just in, today, from a "newbie" that was really struggling with her pool and algae. She's been SLAMing the whole time we've been helping you. Same dealio, a bunch of members offering advice, her sorting through it all as best she could, but not quite keeping up with it. She was certain she wasn't making any progress at all. Frustrated. And then, she had her epiphany, and followed a piece of advice she probably ignored three times:
The folks here at TFP really do know what they're talking about. And when they tell you your pool isn't going to clear until you get all that gunk off the bottom, all of it, it's because they've helped others, many, many others, with the exact same problem. So get to it this weekend, you and yours, clear the day(s), and just get 'er done, so you can then get to SLAMin', so you can post your own "OMG!!! The OCLT passed!!! YAY!!!"
We're all rootin' for ya!
And now she's done with her SLAM, and her pool is clear, and beautiful.OMG!!! The OCLT passed!!! YAY!!! I didn’t think there was anyway water and algae could have gotten in there with the stoppers on the bottom of the ladder…wish I would have paid attention to that suggestion a week ago
THANKS everyone!!!!
The folks here at TFP really do know what they're talking about. And when they tell you your pool isn't going to clear until you get all that gunk off the bottom, all of it, it's because they've helped others, many, many others, with the exact same problem. So get to it this weekend, you and yours, clear the day(s), and just get 'er done, so you can then get to SLAMin', so you can post your own "OMG!!! The OCLT passed!!! YAY!!!"
We're all rootin' for ya!
Yes, it was under 20ppm (filled the tube all the way & the dot never disappeared)
I don't know about siphoning out the bottom layer of sludge... Might have been a good idea a few weeks ago, but as of this morning, when I did a few more rounds of vacuum--I was still getting sludge in the vacuum, but was seeing almost none of those big billowing dramatic clouds of brown in the pool that I was getting before. So I think we might actually be close to getting the mucky bottom stuff gone! Or reduced enough that it's dispersed throughout & not making a dredge-able layer at the bottom, anyways.
I've forgotten to mention an upcoming challenge: We're going out of town Sunday, husband will return Weds but I won't be back till almost August. Family visit that I absolutely can't put off.
I don't know if it's realistic to ask my husband to go whole-hog testing & adjusting, although he'll certainly keep cleaning the pump & stuff. Should I still forge ahead with chlorinating the Crud out of it till I'm gone, to make whatever progress I can? Or would it make more sense to wait till I'll be there to see it through to the (clear blue) end?
If you stop trying to clear it up, All progress you have made up until this point will be canceled and it’ll go back to what it was.
You can consider having him add 1/2 gallon of chlorine every day.
Or f you can teach him to measure just the FC with the kit, he can add enough FC to raise it back up to 16 every day. Suggestion would be to do both in the evening.
I mean, he'll still be pulling solids out via the filter & maybe a bit of vacuuming, just slower than with me tag-teaming it. And yeah, telling him to dump x amount of chlorine in daily seems much more reasonable than asking him to take over multiple daily tests & adjustments till I return.
The pool filter cleanings are showing change now, they are covered in green when we rinse them instead of covered in brown!
Progress has definitely been made, and I don't think we'll go backwards to square one with brown sludge since that was mostly or entirely caterpillar poop, and they've all turned into moths now. The pool is no longer taking in abnormally high amounts of organic matter, just a few bugs & leaf detritus now, at levels that would be very manageable if not for the mountain of stuff that got dumped in over the month of June.
Comparison of from my initial post 2 weeks ago, vs today... doesn't look like much, but in person it's much greener, & the difference in what we're hosing off of the filters is night & day!
(those chlorine bottles are empty & rinsed, never fear... I know better than to leave em in the sun!)
(those chlorine bottles are empty & rinsed, never fear... I know better than to leave em in the sun!)
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,662
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Sorry, in a lot of threads and this one got long. @kimkats, @Mdragger88, was it discussed already? It's a 10K AG. Is there a structural reason, or a water cost reason, that they don't just drain the pool, power wash it, and start over clean? Then SLAM to make sure all the nooks and crannies get freed of hidden algae?
If they're going to get into vacuuming to waste, how much water/money would that save vs just refilling the pool? It's only 10K. That'd be less than a couple hundred bucks where I live, and water is not cheap here. I'd do that before I'd want to vacuum and SLAM that pool for a month. They could spend that much in chlorine alone!
If they're going to get into vacuuming to waste, how much water/money would that save vs just refilling the pool? It's only 10K. That'd be less than a couple hundred bucks where I live, and water is not cheap here. I'd do that before I'd want to vacuum and SLAM that pool for a month. They could spend that much in chlorine alone!
- Jun 1, 2018
- 16,027
- Pool Size
- 26000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
Using a trash pump to vac out the sludge on the bottom may be beneficial here if u don’t have the ability to vac the bulk to waste. It looks like you’re on a hill, perhaps u could rig up enough hose to siphon vac, the end of the hose would need to be lower in elevation in the yard than the vac head end in the pool.
This will mean your cya will be diluted a bit as u replenish the wasted water. But the organics have gotta go- they are chewing through your fc & not allowing for alot of progress.
Scooping with a fine mesh net should work too. Buy several & make it a family affair.
Without a solid 30ppm cya you will lose fc at a rapid pace to the sun. So get some more cya in there asap & chlorinate accordingly FC/CYA Levels.
This will mean your cya will be diluted a bit as u replenish the wasted water. But the organics have gotta go- they are chewing through your fc & not allowing for alot of progress.
Scooping with a fine mesh net should work too. Buy several & make it a family affair.
Without a solid 30ppm cya you will lose fc at a rapid pace to the sun. So get some more cya in there asap & chlorinate accordingly FC/CYA Levels.
- Jun 1, 2018
- 16,027
- Pool Size
- 26000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
You can’t drain it fully, also if it’s buried you can only drain to ground level on the buried area. Draining with an older liner has risks but so does blindly vacuuming for weeks.
Lowering the water level some would definitely allow for them to much easier see what they need to remove. I think rigging up a trash pump to vac with or siphon vacuuming the debris is the answer here. It will do both.
The filter will be working on that sludge forever otherwise. When the bulk of the debris is out -
Then a SLAM Process must still ensue.
Having him scoop out sludge every day would be super beneficial as long as there’s some chlorine in there to prevent algae and all the other stuff from growing which is what that green stuff is.