About ready to fill my pool full of dirt!!!!

[sbillingsley]

I have been fighting with my pool since we opened it. I got some good advise from this board, bought a good test kit, got the pool all pretty then it all went south. The water has been getting cloudy over the last couple days, we couldnt figure what the deal was. My husband finally figured out that the water was not filtering right. We pulled the pump apart, cleaned it all, and put in new sand. We fired it up and thought that when we got up everything would start looking better....nope. So I need some advise. I have done everything I have learned here and I don't know what else to do. These are the numbers I have been working with:

Midnight last night:
FC. 6.5
CC. .5 (it was a little pink, one drop tuned it clear)
CYA. 70
ALK. 90
pH. 7.4
We added 3 gallons of bleach, 1/4 box of borax, and went to bed


10 am today
FC. 11.5
CC. .5 (it was a little pink, one drop tuned it clear)
CYA. Didn't test
ALK. 90
pH 7.2
Add 1/4 box of borax, DH decided it needed water, forgot the water was on, added too much water :/

3pm today
FC 8.5
CC. .5 (it was a little pink, one drop tuned it clear)
CYA. Didn't test
ALK 150!!
pH 7.2

We have 30 people coming over tomorrow and the water is not pretty. DH is in panic mode and wants to dump a lot of aldeacide in it. I don't know what to do anymore. Any ideas?

[BigDave]

Did you add Borax ( 20 Mule Team) or Baking Soda (Arm & Hammer)?
Shock level for 70 CYA is 20 - you need to get it there and keep it there until you have less than 0.5 CC, and lose no more than 1 ppm FC between sundown and sunup, then one extra day.
Run filter 24/7 brush the whole pool daily.

Don't put the algecide in, you'll likely get foamy cloudy water.

[sbillingsley]

I added borax. That is why I was surprised by the ALK #? How often should I test it during this time? Should I try to get the pH up higher?

[BigDave]

I have no other guess about the TA. My guess ( and the reason I've advised you to bring the pool to shock level ) is that your FC got too low, an algea bloom started and you haven't gotten enough bleach in there to kill it. How's the pressure on you filter? Rising?

[True Blue]

I'll second the advice NOT to put algaecide in. I did that last year (before I found this forum) and I had a foamy, frothy mess! That and it didn't help kill the algae that was already present.

[PBLsQuad450]

What does "the filter's not filtering right" mean more specifically? by "pump" I suspect you mean filter since the pump pulls water through the sand, and I don't mean to be snarky, just couldn't make out the post. The pump/motor wouldn't need new sand. Nor should the filter in my experience? I have had 2 sand filters in my 30ish years of pool maintenance responsibilities and have never added or replaced sand. And I backwash often. Once a week at dead minimum. I suspect husband has shot you in the foot. Don't add anything but bleach right now, unless your ph goes to like 7, in my opinion. Get .5 to clearly 0. Just like Big Dave suggests. It looks like you may have gone low on Cl given your CYA level and had a bloom start, thus the cloudy water. Unless something really weird happened, I don't think the filter intervention did anything but give the algae the upper hand. Again, what does "clean it all" mean? Look, chlorine is literally an "antibiotic" and .5 of an infection is still an infection. Think like the doc tells you, take it all exactly as directed and take the full
course! You want to clean it all? I super shock my pool to 50ppm. No need to take it apart, just run Z Pack through it.

Good luck!