Helping neighbor with pool

[jilted]

My neighbor has been getting pool store'd! So I decided to lend a hand.

35,000 gallons, liner, light green water, they use a tablet feeder and granules.
They recently, earlier this week, shocked it with granules and its still green.

FC: 0 ppm
ph: below 7
ALK: taylor test turned pink right away instead of green! never seen that happen. does that mean 0 ppm?
CYA: 0 ppm

I had them go get like 8 jugs of bleach yesterday and told them to pour in 4 last night.
They were supposed to go to lowes and get 12 lbs of CYA also. The formula says to get to 40ppm would take 11.66 lbs.
I am going to go test today to see if any FC is still there and also start with the CYA. Should I start with 6 lbs and use a little pool owner patience or go heavier on the CYA?

Is this the right start or do we need to work on ph and alk?
I have never had to mess with my ph and alk so feel free to walk me through what to use and how to correct those issues.

thanks!

[aylad]

Hi Jilted,

The very first thing you need to do is have them get that pH up above 7.0. Start with about 1/4 box of Borax, poured very slowly into the skimmer, breaking up clumps as you go. Give it a couple of hours to circulate, and then retest pH. If pH isn't above 7.0, then add another 1/4 box. Keep this up until you have it between 7.0-7.8. Be careful to pour it very slowly so it won't clump up in the pipes.

Second...each gallon of 6% bleach is only going to raise the chlorine by 1.7 ppm, and with CYA at 0, the chlorine needs to be raised to 12-15 ppm and held there until the water clears up. So with the chlorine at 0, which I expect you to find today since the water is green and there's no CYA, the initial dose should be 7 gallons. They'll have to hold the chlorine there by adding bleach as many times a day as possible--but to know how much bleach to add, they're going to have to test the water to see what's been eaten up. They need to get a good test kit, or at a very minimum an OTO and keep the chlorine in the "orange" range. Of course, this is going to need to be done with the pump/filter running, preferably 24/7 until the water clears up.

I wouldn't start with the CYA yet until the water is cleared up. If they used tablets all last year, I expect that they closed with a high CYA, and since there's none now, there's gonna be a huge chlorine demand while the chlorine eats up the ammonia left when the CYA degraded. It's gonna take a lot of bleach to fix, but it can be done--and it needs to be, if they want to not have problems all summer.

Is the water light green and clear, or is there obvious algae growing on the walls? What is the chemical name of the granules (dichlor, cal-hypo, etc). Also, do you know what the CYA level was when they closed last year? Do you know if they have metals in the water? Have you checked the ingredients on the bucket of tabs to see if there is copper listed?

[jilted]

She doesn't even recall ever using any type of stabilizer ever from what she is telling me they are "heavy chlorine users" and go through many buckets. I'll look through their old stock to see if I see something that is CYA.

The jugs of bleach we get at the dollar store are 1.5 gallon jugs. I was just guessing at the dosage. I need to learn that formula for my own use also!

For the Borax, I have never had to look for that before. Walmart has it? Does it need to be that 20 mule team brand?

What about the alk situation? When should we worry about that?

I didn't see much on the walls if any, she had it clear and it just turned, also she still has some organics (leaves) on the bottom I told her to get the rest of those out asap.

thanks!
-stephen

[aylad]

The tabs are trichlor tabs, which contain stabilizer, and if they "go through many buckets", then her CYA was almost certainly high at closing. If she has none now, then it's because it was broken down by bacteria over the winter, and the byproduct is ammonia--which takes lots and lots of chlorine to break down. When she starts using the tabs again, her stabilizer (CYA) will again begin to rise, so I wouldn't worry right now about adding CYA. You'll want to add a little bit later, but not now. The tabs also tend to lower pH, too, because they are acidic, so chances are good that it will take more than one box of Borax (yes, the 20-mule team kind, in the laundry aisle at WalMart--get Borax, NOT the washing soda!) to raise the pH above 7.0, but acidic water can destroy a liner, so that's a priority.

Do not worry about the alk situation right now. If she doesn't have a heater or SWCG, then it's not a priority and can easily be dealt with later.

In order to clear this up and get the ammonia taken care of, regular testing is going to be required--she either needs to get a good test kit (drop-based, not strips, we recommend the K-2006 that can be ordered online through the Amazon link in my sig). If she's not willing or able to frequently test and do what's needed to maintain shock level, then it's going to be a waste of time and bleach. So--if you or she is willing to do what it takes, then we'll be happy to walk you through getting it cleared up and going for the season. But it's not a one-time deal--this process takes patience and consistency....and regular testing.

Check the label on the bleach that you're getting from the dollar store. If it's not 6%, then let me know, because the percentage of sodium hypochlorite will affect the doseage. The doseage I gave you earlier is for 35K gallons of water with 6% bleach. In your pool, at 28K gallons, each 1/2 gallon of 6% will raise your chlorine by 1 ppm.

Janet

[jilted]

Thanks for the info.
I think she meant many buckets of granules but I will find out.
The family dollar brand 182oz jugs (1.42 gallons) are 6%.
I'm going to help them get straight using my k-2006 but I'm going to either tell her to get one or sell her mine so I can upgrade to the bigger bottle kit! :-)
She's at the end of her liner life also and will be replacing after this year.
I'll report back later on this and will focus on ph and keeping FC high.

-stephen

[aylad]

We still need to know what the granules are--if they're Cal-hypo we'll need a calcium level on her water to make sure it's not too high and may cause milky water. If they're dichlor, that's also stabilized, and will drive pH low.

Janet

[jilted]

Real quick, the water is already much less green than it was yesterday!

The granules are EZ Chlor: Sodium Dichloro-s-Triazinetrione-Dihydrate

She put in 4 jugs yesterday evening, this afternoon the FC with my cheap OTO kit was still fairly dark yellow (possibly 5'ish ppm) which was about 18 hours later. I had her hit it again with 4 more. Also she happened to have a box of 20 mule borax, so I had her put in 1/4 box.

I went back about 3 hours later and the ph was still lower than 7 so we put in another 1/4 box. Also, the FC reading on the OTO kit was dark orange.

I'll go back in the AM and test ph and FC again. She is supposed to pick up more bleach and borax this evening.

One more thing, she got the rest of the leaves out.

Thanks,
-stephen

[jilted]

Morning report: The water is no longer green, it is now blue and sort of cloudy.

She got and added 2 more jugs bleach (2.8 gallons) and the FC test is still dark orange. The local stores are not restocking this weekend!!! haha

The pH test is still showing yellow (under 7) so I added the rest of the borax she had available, about 1/3 of a box.

I will test again later this afternoon.

-stephen

[aylad]

Sounds like you're making progress :)

Keep working on the pH until you can get it over 7.0, and have her try to keep the chlorine in the orange zone until the pool clears. She'll need to keep the pump and filter running to filter out the cloudiness, which is dead algae. What type of filter does she have, and does she know how and when to clean it?

[jilted]

Looks like my reply yesterday didn't save... weird.

So ok... today the water is much clearer, you can see the bottom in shallow and also pretty good in the transition to the deep end. The deep bottom is close I can barely make out the bottom drain.

I have continued adding Borax and even after a half of box (the second box) it still doesn't seem to be changing at all yet. I went ahead and added the rest of box 2 earlier this afternoon. Is this common to use this much Borax if the pool has not been kept up properly? Just curious.

They have been keeping the FC up high.

The filter is sand, was changed last year, capacity is 300 lbs. She knows how/when to flush but this year her gauge is dead so I'll help her replace it. The pump has been running 24/7 since I started helping them out.

-stephen

[aylad]

It is common to use that much Borax....trichlor and dichlor are very acidic, so there's no way to know how low her pH actually was. Keep at it with the Borax until you get the pH up above 7.0.

As the algae dies and begins to be filtered out, she's going to need to backwash her filter--probably more than once, so she really needs to get a new gauge on it ASAP.

Keep the chlorine levels up at shock level until you can measure at night and again in the morning before the sun hits the pool, and lose 1 ppm or less of chlorine. At that point, you/she can let the chlorine levels drift back down, but how far will depend on the CYA level.

[jilted]

Water update: You can see the deep drain now. Not perfect, but getting close.

Keeping FC up.

Even after the other half box of Borax, it looks like maybe, MAYBE, the color is starting to turn darker but still nowhere near 7.

There is a BORAX supply issue here right now, its been days and WALMART still has not restocked. I hate to get behind. If necessary, would you suggest we bite the bullet and pick up some pH+ from Lowes?

-stephen

[BigDave]

Did you ever get a reading you trust for TA? Baking Soda and Washing Soda will raise pH and TA so ... if the TA is low and you haven't any Borax, you can use either of those.

[jilted]

Nothing since the first try on the Taylor FAS-DPD kit.

According to the formula, just to get from nil to 40 ppm ALK for 35,000 gallons would be like 19 lbs! So maybe a few boxes just to compensate or what?

Thanks,
-stephen

[Watermom]

Your friend's pool volume is 35,000 gallons, right? Add larger doses of Borax. At least a box at a time and maybe even two boxes at a time until the pH starts to move. I *think* that an alk test that turns pink instead of green indicates really, really low pH. I need to verify this. At any rate, with such a high volume pool and adding a half a box at at time isn't putting a dent into it. Any other stores that carry Borax? Our grocery stores carry it and I think K-Mart. If not, you can use washing soda or soda ash if you can't find Borax. (They will raise alk and pH.)

[jilted]

I checked Winn Dixie last night with no luck. I was dosing Borax at the suggested rate of 1/4 box at a time to start and bumped up from there as 2 days passed with no progress in pH. I have never had to purchase Borax for myself so I had never looked for it anywhere! :-) Our KMart closed. We have a Target but I don't have time to run around town for their pool haha!

Also I have never had to purchase washing soda or soda ash is there a brand or anything in particular to look for? Available at same locations? Walmart etc?

Thanks,
-stephen

[Watermom]

I never used either since I always buy Borax. Washing soda is sold at Walmart, groceries, etc. called Arm and Hammer Washing soda. I agree -- let the neighbors do the running around part.

[jilted]

Water: Totally clear, not cloudy at all

They found some borax at target.

FC: Being kept high
pH: still not above 7, just added box number 4 this morning (the whole box) since I will be going in to work today and won't be able to test mid day.

So far, we have added 4 boxes of Borax and 1.5 bottles (3lb container) of ph+ that they had left over from previous year.

-stephen

[aylad]

If the water is now totally clear, then you can test for chlorine at night, then test again in the morning before the sun hits the pool. If there is 1 ppm or less chlorine loss, then you can let the chlorine levels drift back down--but how far will depend on a current CYA level. If you haven't started adding the CYA, now would be a good time...I would follow label directions to get the dose for 40 ppm, then add only half of that to an old sock and hang it in front of the return so it can start dissolving. It can take several days for the CYa levels to show up, so I wouldn't even test for it for 3-5 days.

Janet

[Watermom]

With pH below 7.0, you need to be more aggressively working towards getting it up than just adding Borax once per day. Have them pick up a cheap OTO/Phenol Red kit and they can test it themselves several times per day and each time add more Borax if needed.

Good news on the clear water!

[BigDave]

You've been using your K-2006? Did you do the base demand test? This seems like the kind of situation it might be usefull.

[jilted]

I used my K-2006 last Friday when we first started. I have been using a cheap OTO/Phenol Red test multiple times a day to monitor FC and pH.
I will run the full suite of tests with the K-2006 tomorrow. Last Friday I did not do a demand test after seeing an unreadable pH.
Current inventory is 3 more gallons of bleach and another box of borax.

-stephen

[BigDave]

Put in the Borax

[jilted]

Just got home and tested.
FC still nice and yellow.
ph still below 7.

will run full taylor tests tomorrow

[Watermom]

Add borax!

[jilted]

forgot to say yes i added the last box they are picking up more i told them to go ahead and add another this evening so that will be 2 full boxes this evening, plus one this morning.

[Watermom]

Good! Borax, borax, borax. Dose with Borax, wait 2 or 3 hours, retest, redose. Repeat. That pH needs to be brought up above 7.0 ASAP!!! It is acidic if it is lower than 7.0 and can damage the pool! That is the most critical issue with this pool.

You are a good neighbor to help them with their pool!

[jilted]

Well you guys helped me start learning last year (thanks!) and mine was much easier to get balanced so I am doing this as a nice neighbor but also because I like learning new things and this one is more of a challenge than mine was.

-stephen

[jilted]

Good morning!

Is this possible? The water is still clear but is starting to have a slight green tint to it. FC is high, was slightly orange this morning so I added 2 more jugs of bleach. Tonight will mark a week since we started attacking the pool. I can't lose it now! :-)

After adding 3 boxes of Borax last night and testing this morning, I THINK it MAYBE just MAYBE is slightly starting to get closer to the 6.8 pH level (the lowest window on the test kit). Added 2 more boxes of Borax after testing this morning. I will go run the Taylor tests in a few hours.

[jilted]

Water is still trying to turn green! FAST!

Ran the Taylor tests

FC is 18 right now
CC is 0
ph is still low
base demand:
15 drops to get to ph of 7
20 drops to get to ph of 7.2
15 drops to get to ph of 7.6
ALK: ~40ppm, last week it was unreadable
CYA is VERY HIGH actually AYLAD you were RIGHT! I didn't run the CYA test last week I just went with what they said that they have never added any stabilizer product. And also because they had just "shocked" it the day before and they had 0 FC. (I guess I may have learned a little lesson here! people may unintentionally lie, tests don't lie)

Did I read correctly in another thread, if CYA is high then FC need to be extremely high?

I am assuming this is a big issue since there is no chemical to reduce CYA.

Thanks,
-stephen

[Watermom]

What CYA reading did you get? If you got 100, then it could actually be much higher than 100 since the test can't differentiate levels past that. The chart you are referring to is the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below.

Is this pool on well water or city water?

[PoolDoc]

OK. Watermom asked me to take a look. Please do the following:

1. Add borax 3 boxes at time (slowly, in the skimmer, pump running).
2. You know your CYA is high, and you know you've got slime, so look at the Best Guess chart: you need 25ppm of chlorine! For a 36,000 gallon pool, that's 16 gallons. BUT, we've got to get that pH up first, so add ONLY 12 gallons for now.
3. Get a gallon of distilled water (must say "distilled", not spring, not Ozonated, not natural: "distilled"!) at Walmart in the water section.
4. Begin testing pH with 1/2 pool water and 1/2 distilled water. (With distilled water, the pH will still be about the same) High chlorine can create bogus phenol red results.
5. AND, retest the CYA, with 1/2 pool water and 1/2 distilled. In this case, multiple the result X2.
6. Let us know if the green color is CLOUDY green (algae) or CLEAR green (alkalinity or sometimes iron).
7. As SOON as you have a valid pH greater than 7.2, add 2 MORE boxes of borax, and then enough chlorine to get to 25 ppm.

Good luck!

[jilted]

Thanks. Yes on the CYA test the dot was gone well before the 100 mark. Since they are still not home from work I went ahead and added 9 gallons of bleach that I went and picked up. So until I can get those results do you suggest dilution at all? It needs vacuuming so they can waste vac some water and we can add some fresh if you think that will help.

So far the water is clear green but you can see a little build up on the surface.

Challenge accepted!

[PoolDoc]

You need to find out what you are diluting with, before you dilute!


build up on the surface -- what kind of build up??

[jilted]

looks like algae but i could be wrong.

[PoolDoc]

. . . better add more chlorine, and better get that CYA test done ASAP.

If the CYA is > 100 ppm, some forms of algae can continue to grow (once established) at 10 ppm of chlorine.

[jilted]

Right before (maybe an hour) they put 3 boxes of borax in.
Also, they did a little waste vacuuming this evening to get dirt out and that stirred things up so now we're green and just a little cloudy.

ok here's the 1/2 pool water and 1/2 distilled water tests:

pH: very close to 7 so let's just say 7. I am assuming this is a good thing? Finally getting close? :-)
Base demand: 5 drops to get to 7.4, 7 drops to get to 7.6
CYA: reading was 70, multiply by 2=140
I tested ALK with the 1/2 and 1/2 water and it tested 40 ppm just like earlier with only pool water.
Also tested FC with the 1/2 and 1/2 and it tested at 22ppm

Will test again in the morning. They wiped out the store of Borax again. I think they have 4 more boxes in inventory and 4 more jugs (6 gallons) of bleach.

thanks
-stephen

[PoolDoc]

Sounds like you are on the right track.

A few more boxes of borax, and you'll have the pH in range. You might want to do side-by-side OTO and FAS-DPD chlorine tests, so you can get a feel for what OTO at 22 or so on looks like. You can actually use OTO up to around 50 ppm!

Be sure and keep the chlorine up -- it will probably drop over night, with all that algae.

[jilted]

So the water is pretty much clear again this morning... 90% clear I would say... mostly blue

Did the 1/2 and 1/2 pH test again... it came back a little darker than 7 (barely). I added 3 more boxes of borax.

FC is still off the charts... around 20ppm.

So it seems like we are finally making progress and getting the pH under control. Also, I turned their chlorinator down to MIN to keep from adding more and more stabilizer to the pool. What are the next steps going to be once pH is where we want it? Remember I came to this forum as a salt guy because I had given up because of lack of education on standard chlorinated pool so I have never properly cared for a non salt chlorinated pool! The CYA is still going to be high. ALK is still at 40.

Thanks again for all the help,
-stephen

[Watermom]

Glad the pH is almost there. Keep at it.

Regarding next steps -----

The best thing would be to have your neighbor register here at Pool Forum and let him/her learn to take care of their pool themselves. Otherwise, the job will be yours forever! Seriously, if they are going to be pool owners, they really need to know how to take care of their own pool. Hopefully by now, they see that what you have learned at PF has been working for their pool and should be convinced that our methods will work. Send them on over!

(In all honesty, we typically don't help via a third party most of the time, feeling that is usually best for the pool owner themselves to get educated about pool maintenance. We have kinda bent our own rule in this thread. So, please don't be offended. We all should have as nice a neighbor as you!)

[jilted]

Thanks. I didn't realize the third party rule. :-)

Besides being a nice neighbor, I just wanted some more real world experience in dealing with a troubled pool. I like to learn stuff. :-)

[jilted]

OK! Water totally cleared up overnight and this morning and after adding 3 more boxes of borax pH is pushing 7.5 this afternoon. FC is still high.

[Watermom]

7.5! Perfect! When you can go from sundown one evening to within two hours of sunup the next morning without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine, you might want to hold the chlorine high one more day for added insurance and then let it drift down. Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below for what chlorine levels will be needed for maintenance. No more stabilized forms of chlorine for this pool meaning no more trichlor pucks or dichlor granules. With a CYA of 140, high chlorine levels will be needed all the time or they'll be right back with a green pool again in no time!

[jilted]

What about the CYA level? Should we try to gradually reduce it? They only need 1 more season out of this water before they get a new liner.

[Watermom]

Your choice. They can run a pool with high CYA as long as they run high chlorine levels per the Best Guess Chart. Or, they can do a few partial drains and refills. But do NOT totally drain the pool.

EDIT --- Just went back and looked at your original post to find out the volume of this pool. They have a big pool. That would be a lot of wasted water to do drains. Since they are planning on replacing the liner next year, I think I'd just live with the high CYA if it were my pool.

[BigDave]

I agree with Watermom. As you help them finish the algae battle ( lose almost no FC overnight and no CC ) start transitioning them to taking care of the pool themselves. Encourge them to start an account here and get a K-2006. They will be able to use the water they have this season - they'll need to run appropriately high FC levels for thier CYA, but no need to dump all that crystal clear water. Thanks for helping your neighbors.