Worst Opening in 15 Years...Help!

[jimsky]

I’ve been maintaining my 16’ x 32’ vinyl in ground pool with DE filter by myself buying stuff from Leslies for over 15 years. About 8 years ago I got a Loop Lock cover, no more water bags and scooping leaves but at opening the water requires way more effort to get swimmable. Opened this year and was amazed at the swamp I had, worst I’ve ever seen it. Pea soup green in color, verging on muddy brown…very, very dark cloudy water. No large debris in the water but lots of algae on all surfaces with tons of floaters too. I did my typical toss in a couple of bags of A&H baking soda and tried to vacuum the pool but way too much algae…clogging the filter in just minutes. Took filter apart and fully cleaned it.

Figured this time I had to shock it to kill of the algae first, I found some online references about typical shocking, 2X, 3X and 4X shocking. 4X shocking was reserved for “swamps”…and since that’s what I had I decided to go for it. The typical 20,000 gallon opening kit has 4 lbs of shock, so I figured 16 lbs should do it. I happened to have a bucket of Leslies Power Powder Pro shock…so I broadcasted 16 pounds into the pool.

I was amazed when the whole surface of the pool bubbled up white like a million Alka-Seltzer’s were tossed in. I brushed the whole pool. About an hour later there was no free chlorine was per my test strips. I’ve run the pump non-stop since I opened it, brushed the pool each night and backwashed the filter several times…with one full additional disassemble and rinse.

5 days later the pool is a very deep murky blue, with very cloudy water. I found this website and ordered a real test kit. I don’t want to use any more powdered shock as my CYA I believe is at a decent level. At lunch today I stocked up on 8.25% bleach at Costco and went home to get the best water numbers I can with my test strips:

pH: 7.0
FC: 0
TA: 120
CYA: 30-50

Anyone care to comment on a plan of attack here, I’m all ears!

 

[Casey]

Welcome to TFP.

Read these:

:lookhere: Chlorine CYA Chart
:lookhere: Defeating Algae
:lookhere: Turning Your Green Swamp Back into a Sparkling Oasis
:lookhere: SLAMing Your Pool
:lookhere: PoolMath
:lookhere: Overnight FC Loss Test

 

[duraleigh]

Welcome to the forum.

I think a good plan of attack is to kind of "hold what you got" until you get your testkit and can post some really good numbers. Right now, your pool doesn't look too bad and those results from the strips don't look too bad but the new kit will really help you home in on what you need to do.

I would suggest you put one jug of Clorox into your pool each evening. Nothing else until your kit gets in and you post your results. At the same time, clean/backwash your filter as needed and try to get ANY remaining solids out of the pool.

All the articles above are important but the overarching one I would suggest is "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School. That's the basic one that will lead you to the others and then back to the forum with questions. All of us here will help you get that pool crystal clear....won't take too long, I think.

 

[jimsky]

Test kit came in:

FC: 3.0
CC: 1.0
pH: 7.0
TA: 150
CH: 8.0
CYA: 90

 

[zea3]

I would re-test the Calcium. 8.0 is extremely low unless you have very, very soft fill water. Also you will need to lower the CYA in a series of partial drain/refill cycles until the CYA is around 30 in order to complete the SLAM process.

 

[jimsky]

I retested the CH...8 for faint blue, call it 9 for full blue.

 

[Casey]

You should start a drain refill to get the CYA down and once you've refilled, retest the CH and CYA.

 

[duraleigh]

I think jimsky is forgetting to multiply by 10 and his CH should be 80 or 90.

I would suggest a drain/refill to get CYA down around 50 ppm and then SLAM the pool.

read "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School. That should get you a better understanding of the parameters involved when you test.

Then, read "SLAM" in the "How To" section up in Pool School. That will clear up your pool and we'll provide lot's of help along the way.

 

[bridgman]

I retested the CH...8 for faint blue, call it 9 for full blue.

Sounds like 8-9 drops ? IIRC you multiply the # of drops by 10 if you used a 25ml sample size, or by 25 if you used a 10ml sample size, so your CH reading would be 80-90 or 200-225 depending on whether you started with 25ml or 10ml of water.

 

[jimsky]

Sounds like 8-9 drops ? IIRC you multiply the # of drops by 10 if you used a 25ml sample size, or by 25 if you used a 10ml sample size, so your CH reading would be 80-90 or 200-225 depending on whether you started with 25ml or 10ml of water.

Yep, rookie mistake. 10X so that would be 90. Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[jimsky]

How much water can I remove at a time without fear of damaging the pool?

 

[duraleigh]

1/2 to 1/3 is always safe. Uses a bit more water by doing partials but not as much as folks think

 

[zea3]

If you don't know how high the water table is then only drain a couple of feet at a time. If you do know the water table is low then you can drain down to about 1 foot of water in the shallow end. If you start to see the sides of the liner "puff up" stop draining and refill asap.

 

[jimsky]

Only about a foot left in the shallow end...time to add water.

 

[smforte]

Hey that's looking pretty good....can't wait to the the process and final results....keep posting pics...we love pics!

 

[jimsky]

Refilled, topped it off this morning as it needed more water when I went to bed last night. I backwashed the filter and will let the pump mix up the water for about 6 hours or so, then post new water test results.

 

[bridgman]

Looks a lot better already

 

[jimsky]

New water tested as follows:

FC: 1.0
CC: 0.5
pH: 7.0
TA: 110
CH: 80
CYA: 45

 

[jimsky]

Just SLAM'ed the pool, we'll see how it goes.

 

[jimsky]

Well 3 hours after the first SLAM and got this:

FC: 4.5
CC: 5.0

Just SLAM'ed it again, I'll see what the chlorine numbers look like in a hour or so.