Terrible water at opening and SLAM

[oimamlion]

New pool owners last year and we did not get it covered soon enough or well enough for winter. The water is UGLY. We have gotten all the big stuff out that we can and are running our robot and sand filter. We started to attempt a SLAM yesterday with a CYA of about 35. We have a 14,000 gal above ground pool. If I'm understanding correctly, our SLAM level for FC should be 14. Pool Math tells me to add 1 1/2 gal of 12.5%, but we have not been able to reach SLAM level. If we check an hour later, we are down to a 2. That being said, the water is becoming clearer. Should we be doing something different? My concern is that we are wasting chlorine, and we all know we don't want to do that right now.

 

[Texas Splash]

f we check an hour later, we are down to a 2.

That's a huge drop, so that means you have a very heavy organic and chemical issue happening. Don't wait so long to re-test and add chlorine. It's imperative to keep the FC at 16. I say 16 because we would just round-up your CYA to 40. So try to maintain an FC of 16. You'll test more frequently at first, but eventually the chlorine will over-take the junk in the water and begin to hold much better. The early part though requires a bit of babysitting.

 

[oimamlion]

That's a huge drop, so that means you have a very heavy organic and chemical issue happening. Don't wait so long to re-test and add chlorine. It's imperative to keep the FC at 16. I say 16 because we would just round-up your CYA to 40. So try to maintain an FC of 16. You'll test more frequently at first, but eventually the chlorine will over-take the junk in the water and begin to hold much better. The early part though requires a bit of babysitting.

Thank you! This is exactly what I needed to know. And yes, there's a huge organic issue. Our fault and it won't happen again lol. What do you think? Every couple of hours?

 

[Texas Splash]

What do you think? Every couple of hours?

Maybe for now. Once the chlorine gets on top of the algae and stuff, it will hold much better to the point you should only have to check teh FC every few hours or so. You'll get a sense of how it holds as each day passes. Have a nice weekend.