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You need chlorine. Now. See FC/CYA Levels. Liquid chlorine only.

But you should also drain/exchange 50% of your pool to reduce CYA.

Start working a plan to get to drain.
 
What Marty said - you can either drain about half of your pool and refill to lower the CYA down to 50 or so, or you can start chlorinating for 90ppm of CYA.

The fact that you can't hold chlorine with 90ppm of CYA is worrisome, and indicates you may need to SLAM your pool. The levels of FC needed for a SLAM at 90ppm will be VERY high. Is exchanging half the water an option for you?
 
IceShadow said:
What Marty said - you can either drain about half of your pool and refill to lower the CYA down to 50 or so, or you can start chlorinating for 90ppm of CYA.

The fact that you can't hold chlorine with 90ppm of CYA is worrisome, and indicates you may need to SLAM your pool. The levels of FC needed for a SLAM at 90ppm will be VERY high. Is exchanging half the water an option for you?
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I’m not sure how to drain my pool. The only time this was done was by the PB.
 
Marty has a good way of doing it where you'd basically rent a submersible pump, pump out from one end (deep or shallow) and add fill water to the other end. I'm sure he'll be by with some copypasta for that soon. Do you have a way to get 9k gallons of fillwater from somewhere at a reasonable cost? Where do you get your fillwater from?
 
IceShadow said:
Marty has a good way of doing it where you'd basically rent a submersible pump, pump out from one end (deep or shallow) and add fill water to the other end. I'm sure he'll be by with some copypasta for that soon. Do you have a way to get 9k gallons of fillwater from somewhere at a reasonable cost? Where do you get your fillwater from?
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We filled the pool with our water hose in the past to fill from empty.
 
You can exchange some water without draining.

If you place a low volume sub pump in the deep end and pull water from there while adding water in the shallow end (through a skimmer or into a bucket on a step so you lessen the water disturbance) you can do a fairly efficient exchange. That is assuming the water you are filling with is the same temperature or warmer than your pool water. If your fill water is much cooler than your pool water, then switch it. Add the water to the deep end (hose on bottom) and pull water from the top step.

The location of the pump and fill hose may change if you have salt water, high calcium, etc.
In my pool, with saltwater and high calcium when I drain, I put the pump in the deep end and hose in shallow end. The water in the pool weighs more per unit volume than the fill water from the hose.

Be sure to balance the water out and water in so the pool level stays the same. Also be sure your pool pump is disabled during this process. Once started do not stop until you have exchanged the amount of water you wish.
 
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It's really not that bad. You basically have the hose adding water at one end and rent a pump to pump water out the other end.

You can try to manage the pool with CYA at 90 but it will be very difficult. I would get it to 50 and then use only liquid chlorine (unless you need to be away on vacation and can't have someone stop by every day to put some liquid chlorine in for you while gone).
 
IceShadow said:
It's really not that bad. You basically have the hose adding water at one end and rent a pump to pump water out the other end.

You can try to manage the pool with CYA at 90 but it will be very difficult. I would get it to 50 and then use only liquid chlorine (unless you need to be away on vacation and can't have someone stop by every day to put some liquid chlorine in for you while gone).
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I have an auto drain on my pool. Could I dilate by putting the water hose in and after my pool reaches a certain level it drains to maintain that level?
 

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That depends on where the drain is, and the temperature of the fill water compared to the pool water. Is your fill water warmer or colder than your pool? Where on the pool is the water draining when the auto drain goes?
 
IceShadow said:
That depends on where the drain is, and the temperature of the fill water compared to the pool water. Is your fill water warmer or colder than your pool? Where on the pool is the water draining when the auto drain goes?
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Drains at the deep end pool water from hose is pretty warm. I don’t even trust my judgement on the CYA levels. I feel like that is the most subjective test. Exactly when do I stop adding the mixture. As soon as the dot gets blurry or totally not visible at all? And are we positive that the 4800 phosphate level isn’t affecting my chlorine. I believe the phosphates are so high because the yard guy got fertilizer granules in the pool.
 
Phosphates don't make one whit of difference if your chlorine is at an appropriate level. All they do is act as food for algae, but if algae can't live because the chlorine level is high enough, then it doesn't matter if algae food is in the pool.

The CYA test is certainly a bit subjective, but when the dot disappears is the end point of the test. See this video:


If our drain is at the bottom of the deep end and the hose is warmer than the pool, then yes, you could add to the pool and drain from the auto drain to exchange water. I would recommend first filling a 5 gallon bucket and seeing how long that takes. That will give you an idea of how long to run the hose in the pool.
 
IceShadow said:
Phosphates don't make one whit of difference if your chlorine is at an appropriate level. All they do is act as food for algae, but if algae can't live because the chlorine level is high enough, then it doesn't matter if algae food is in the pool.

The CYA test is certainly a bit subjective, but when the dot disappears is the end point of the test. See this video:


If our drain is at the bottom of the deep end and the hose is warmer than the pool, then yes, you could add to the pool and drain from the auto drain to exchange water. I would recommend first filling a 5 gallon bucket and seeing how long that takes. That will give you an idea of how long to run the hose in the pool.
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Why does the hose water need to be warmer than the pool water?
 
If it is cooler, then the water you add will sink below the warmer water and go to the bottom.

If they're about the same temperature then it will work fine too. The pool water will have more dissolved stuff in it (CYA, calcium, salt, etc.) and so will stay down where the new water will stay on top.
 
If you wish to use the exchange method follow what I posted. You cannot rent a low powered sump pump, you buy it.

An option is to rent a high powered sump pump from Home Depot or Lowes. They pump about 4000 gph. You quickly drain what you need and start refilling.

The risk in that is if you have a high water table the pool shell can pop out of the ground. The plaster should not be exposed to a hot sun beating on it as it can dry and crack.

If you hire a pool service to do it, they will bring a high powered sump pump, let it run awhile, and put a hose in the pool. You will have to indemnify them from all risks. And pay them several hundred dollars.
 
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