Trying to restore green Pool

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I bought the ammonia test kit from petco (testing for NH3/NH4+) and did it twice and came back with results between 0 and 0.25ppm (Color was a little bit in between yellow (0ppm) and lime green (0.25ppm). So pretty much non-existent? I guess this would not be my problem of the missing CYA?

I'm very confused now, I would have felt a lot better if it WAS bacteria because at least I would understand why CYA was at first 40 and now 0.

So should I just add conditioner and then perform my previous plan of raising pool to shock level and maintaining it there until it holds?
Or would it be better to perform the bucket test to see what I'm going to be facing as far as chlorine requirements goes?
 
I would start this evening and bring the FC up to 10ppm. I would simultaneously put in enough CYA to get to 30-40ppm.

Tomorrow AM, I would bring FC up to 15 or so ppm and hold it there with constant chlorine additions until.....
1. Your pool water is sparkling
2. Your CC's are .5ppm or less
3. You can hold your FC overnight without losing more than 1ppm.

That may take a few days and a lot of chlorine but doing the test is irrelevant to getting your pool clean. Since your CYA loss is unexplainable, I would consider it irrelevant as well.

Get back to shocking your pool and focusing on only that process until you are through. That's gonna' be the cheapest way in the long run to clear your pool.
 
Well I raised the shock level up to 20 last night just to see and this morning it was at 5ppm. What is freaking me out is that I also simultaneously emptied a bottle of conditioner in it and it has CYA = 0 this morning.

I tried the test with some conditioner and tap water to double triple quadruple check to make sure I was doing the test right and I was getting a result from tap water/conditioner mixture. So I'm sure I'm doing the test right with the tftestkit (fill to bottom of label with pool water and fill to top of label with R-0013 agent and shake 5 seconds and wait, pour down tube until black dot is not visible).

How does Conditioner work? Does it need something to latch onto in order to stabilize? Could the liquid bleach be neutralizing it? It doesn't make sense, but my CYA disappeared when I started using cholorox bleach instead of cal-hypo chlor shock packets. Could it be possible something within the cartridge filter is trapping or neutralizing the CYA?

My chlorine reading this morning was:

FC: 5
CC: 1
PH: 7.2
 
The filter cannot trap CYA that is already dissolved. When you say you added a "bottle" of conditioner, it sounds like you mean the liquid stuff. That's predissolved and can't be caught by the filter either. How big was the bottle? According to the pool calculator, it takes about 1 quart per 10,000 gallons to get 10ppm.

Did you try the bucket test?
--paulr
 
I'm very confused on why Bleach is the only chlorine recommended here. While I agree that bleach is the gold standard on this forum (and use it myself almost exclusively), would it not have been prudent to advise the use of a stabilized chlorine to help with adding CYA to this pool? (When I opened this season, my CYA was 20ppm (and it was slightly green). In my pool, that's too low, so I used stabilized granular chlorine to open and shock. CYA is now sitting pretty at 50ppm, and I'm back to bleach. I think we lose sight of the effectiveness and appropriateness to using other chlorine sources.)

Just wondering.
 
I used this:
http://www.intheswim.com/Pool-Chemicals ... nditioner/
Added about 1/2 -3/4 gallon into the pool.

I did a bucket test last night. Added 1/2 teaspoon into 2 gallons of water just to see and got

FC- 28ppm
CC- 1ppm

waited 1.5 hours and tested again and got:

FC- 23ppm
CC- 1ppm

Could CYA disappearance have anything realistically possible to do with the filter? It is cartridge filter and the only thing I have been doing to clean it is hose it down from top to bottom on the outside and inside. Haven't cleaned them with chemicals yet because waiting for all chemicals to become stable and pool to be near clean first. I let them sit out in the sun to dry. I have not changed the filter after adding all the chlorine and conditioner last night.

Ammonia reading was still at 0. Is it possible soil bacteria is in there and I can't detect because FC has been at 0 for months?
 
Ivyleager, I've read post after post after post on this forum in the last month and found that as time goes by once things are stable, balanced, chlorinated, TFPs members are very good about recognizing the benefits of all different types of chlorine in the pool. To me it seems a 'crawl before you walk, and walk before you run' sort of attitude.
So many of us are just used to the dump it in cuz the pool guy told me to mentality that it is difficult to untrain us! :-D I JUST got rid of half a bottle of algaecide this weekend because I just wasn't sure I wouldn't need it.

In fact, the process you mentioned with using stabilized chlorine to raise CYA has been outlined in several instances. For example, dichlor can be used when starting up a spa with new water, a temporary pool startup, etc. to get the stabilizer level in there where is should be. Then switch to bleach. But the process is rather slow.

Another example is the common suggestion that trichlor tablets are ideal for vacations where daily checking/adds of bleach are impractical. But pool owners need to understand the long term effect of using those tablets so they know what to do when they return.

From what I gather, and someone correct me if I am in error, adding actual stabilizer is faster and easier to control the way it raises the CYA. Many many people have never been told the importance of CYA in proper levels. And many of us have found, me included, that the high levels of CYA related to FC targets are why we were having the same problems year after year.

Bleach, as you know, just doesn't add anything else in the long term to worry about so it seems like a more simple approach to pool management. Start basic, then tweak as we gain more knowledge.

:wave:
 

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ivyleager said:
I'm very confused on why Bleach is the only chlorine recommended here. While I agree that bleach is the gold standard on this forum (and use it myself almost exclusively), would it not have been prudent to advise the use of a stabilized chlorine to help with adding CYA to this pool? (When I opened this season, my CYA was 20ppm (and it was slightly green). In my pool, that's too low, so I used stabilized granular chlorine to open and shock. CYA is now sitting pretty at 50ppm, and I'm back to bleach. I think we lose sight of the effectiveness and appropriateness to using other chlorine sources.)

Just wondering.
Click to expand...
If one wants to intentionally raise the CYA level, then using stabilized chlorine such as Dichlor can be an effective way to add both at the same time. I've done that before in my own pool, though usually I just use pure CYA when I want to add larger amounts of CYA. Others have used Trichlor pucks they have leftover (from past purchases before BBB, usually) to start the season to bring up the CYA. Some others even use Trichlor at low feeder settings to keep the CYA more constant during the season if they have lots of dilution from rain and backwashing.

It's all about knowing what's in your pool and what adding various chemicals does to your water parameters. Though bleach or chlorinating liquid (or an SWG) are the most common methods of adding chlorine, people do use stabilized chlorine when they want the CYA higher (or are on vacation for a week or two) or Cal-Hypo if their CH is low.
 
With measurable FC in the water, you don't have bacteria in there anymore. That is, if you dump chlorine in and the FC doesn't get to zero right away (i.e. in minutes), then they are definitely dead so will not be converting CYA anymore. The high chlorine usage just means there are still chemicals left to oxidize and this requires maintaining shock levels to help accelerate this. These chemicals may be partially oxidized CYA that won't show up as either CYA nor as ammonia. Or it could be other chemicals that are part of dead bacteria. So you just need to hit this hard by adding chlorine frequently to keep the FC level up high.

The liquid stabilizer should register the CYA as soon as it is thoroughly mixed, but it shouldn't get caught in the filter. However, if this was added while the FC was still zero and while bacteria were still active, then any added CYA could get broken down. So that's why it's important to get some sustained measurable FC in the water even though it may be dropping over time where you need to add more.
 
Chem geek: Wow that first sentence you typed made me feel so much better.

I'm planning to continue adding Bleach into the pool until it is stable as everyone has mentioned. Is it ok to do this even without CYA? I'll probably be waisting more bleach doing this, but I'm ok with it as long as it will work.

Once FC is stable, will the possibly broken down CYA magically come back and register? Or did I just loose a gallon of conditioner for nothing and need to get more once the FC is stable?
 
With the FC holding at least somewhat when there isn't sun on the pool, you can add CYA to help prevent the chlorine from breakdown from sunlight and to moderate its strength. You are right that if you have FC with no CYA in the water, then the chlorine will be too strong. In fact, you may find that the rate of chlorine loss may be quite low and tolerable once you get some CYA in the water. I thought, however, that you already put in some CYA so it's probably not really at zero anyway, though could be low. At this point while shocking, you don't need to overdo the CYA -- 30 ppm should be plenty at this point in time. After things get very stable and you are done shocking, then you can raise the CYA to your final target.
 
mkenyon2 said:
Personally? I don't know... I'm learning too. But I know they say don't use the scented stuff, since it adds other chemicals. I'd assume to get 'unscented' they have to change the chlorine in some way as well.
Click to expand...


Well I guess I'll have to check tonight. I use chlorox, but then I also have some walmart brand (great stuff?) bleach that I believe says unscented. It was on-sale for like $1 a jug. I looked at the ingredients and they both say 6% sodium hydro something something and 94% other ingredients so I just assumed they were the same thing.
 

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