Shiny's about to get a SWCG!

[ShinySideUp]

First post, I've been lurking about a week.
27,000 gal IG gunite pool.

Put the order in today to the pool company for an Aquarite SWCG. It looks like the price will be a wash (if I have to replace a $500 cell in 5 years, that negates any chemistry savings!) but I'm hoping the pool water quality will go up and the maintenance will get easier.

So here's my question: I've lived in this house for 18 months, and I have NO IDEA how old the pool is. The water got a bit green over the Memorial Day weekend and my regular poolco was closed, so I went to KMart and bought 3 pounds of shock and put it in Sunday night. Monday morning I went to the poolco across the street (Leslie's). They tested my water.
FAC 3
pH 7.6
TA 100
CYA 40
Calcium Hardness 70
Phosphates 300

They had me pour in 45 pounds of Hardness Plus Monday night and shock with 6 pounds after 4 hours. They also wanted me to put in two 32oz bottles of PhosFree (or something similar). I read the bottles, and the recommended dose was 1 oz per 1,000 gallons....so I skipped that step (I know, why pay for advice if I'm not going to follow it).

We swam Monday and I dumped in the hardness plus at about 10 pm.

I shocked the water Tuesday at 6 a.m. and took a sample to my regular poolco around 10. I don't have the numbers, but they had me shock with 7 pounds of ezchlor 99% powder.

The water is STILL cloudy (but not green any more) and I took another sample in today. They said my phosphates were high, but they don't have any PhosFree. They said the FAC level was still low (sorry, no numbers - my fault) and had me broadcast 6 pounds of powdered alum across the surface of the pool and turn off the pump.

Did that at 10 am today, and the water is, if anything, cloudier than ever. They told me I would need to vacuum the pool after 24-48 hours, once everything settles out.

So, finally, here's the questions:
Does my poolco have a clue?
Is powdered alum a viable way to treat excessive phosphates?
What causes the FAC to bottom out, apparently at random?

And the big one, before I drop $1800 on the Aquarite... will the SWCG make ANY difference with this kind of situation?

FWIW, I have been using this poolco since we moved in, and they are always very nice, and their advice has always (eventually) gotten my water back to clean and clear. They can't really tell me what they mean when they say the pool is in demand, and they don't seem to know why phosphates would spike, or chlorine levels would drop... so I wonder.

[aylad]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!!

58 pounds of ANYTHING added to your pool can and usually will result in cloudiness, and your best bet is to give your filter some time to work to get it all out of the water. The alum that they had you broadcast over the pool is to clump together all the particles floating around in your water to drop them to the bottom so they can be filtered out....so you're about to vacuum out all the stuff you bought to add to the water! Next time, skip that step and give your filter a chance to work. If you have a sand filter, you can add a handful of DE through the skimmer to help it pick up smaller particles, and that will help dramatically.

Phosphates is only a real problem in very, very few situations, and I doubt yours is one of them. Posphate removers do a lot toward lining the pockets of the pool store, though--so I would completely skip that step...you're lucky they were out of phos-free.

For a CYA of 40, chlorine kept at 3-6 ppm is sufficient. I don't understand why, if they said your chlorine was too low, they didn't recommend that you add more chlorine--instead they recommended alum. That doesn't make any sense at all, so I would seriously question the advice that they're giving you. In answer to your question about the FAC bottoming out, I strongly suspect that you're not quite finished killing the algae that was turning your water green. With a CYA of 40, you need to add enough chlorine (we recommend plain, unscented bleach) to get your FC up to 15 ppm, and hold it there by testing and adding more chlorine as needed, as many times daily as you can. If you'll to go WalMart (or your pool store, for that matter) and buy the cheap OTO kit that uses drops to measure chlorine and pH, you can do this at home without having to rely on pool store numbers (and lists of unneccessary stuff they want you to buy). Brush the pool daily, keep the pump running 24/7, cleaning it as the pressure indicates, and maintain that shock level until the pool clears and until you're not losing any chlorine when testing at sundown and again at sunup. Then you can let your chlorine level drop and enjoy your pool.

The SWCG makes the pool as maintenance free as it can get--but you need to get your water straightened out before it's going to help you.

Janet

[ShinySideUp]

Awesome, fast, helpful answer. Thank You!

And a followup or two, if I may.

Do I buy the DE at the pool store, or the garden shop? Will it rinse out of my sand filter the next time I backwash and rinse?

I backwash and rinse weekly for general purposes. My pressure gauge on the filter is broken (it got COLD here last winter)...is it worth it to replace it annually?

Will the cheap OTO kit tell me how much chlorine to add to achieve 15ppm? And until it stabilizes and drops back to 3-4pm, I'm guessing the pool is closed?

I am behind the curve on the learning I need. I was probably typical: take a sample to the poolco, buy whatever they sell me and dump it in the water, rinse and repeat until the water looks good. No more.

[PoolDoc]

#1 - buy DE where you can find it. Home Depot type stores may be cheaper.

#2 - DE will rinse free from all filter types.

#3 - Fix your gauge ASAP -- it's the only way you can monitor performance and tell when to backwash.

#4 - A cheap OTO will distinguish 7 ppm from 15, but not 13 from 15. Use an OTO now, and for quick tests. Get a K2006 or 2006C for better info. (Amazon links in my sig).

Sounds like you're getting the hang of it.

Ben

[ShinySideUp]

Thanks! The cheap oto kit did not change color at all when I added the chlorine test drops. That's bad, right? :)

I'm off to buy some bleach and DE. And to find a calculator to figure out how much 6% bleach to add to 27000 gallons to get 15 ppm.

[PoolDoc]

A gallon of 6% bleach has about 1/2 # of chlorine gas equivalent in it. Your pool, at 27,000 gallons is a little less than 1/4 of the famous million pound pool. So, in your pool, each gallon adds (1/2)/(1/4) or 2 ppm of chlorine.

Ben