Open Green and Cloudy & No CYA

[Winicott]

This is my second year with this forum. You guys helped me have the best year for clarity since I have owned my pool. My wife was impressed after nearly freaking out when she saw me adding Borax last year. Now she is a believer in BBB. I ditched the pool frog set up and this year plan on using it to hold di-chlor tablets.
This was me last year: http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/21223-King-Technology-Pool-Frog-system-AND-green-pool

I feel pretty comfortable with my water this year, but I am still checking in to make sure I am on the right track.

Today the water tested at 0 CYA and 0 chlorine. Ph was just a tad over 7.

My opening move was to shock to 15 ppm with liquid chlorine (12.5% concentrate that I get from the feed store of all places). I am running the pump 24/7 until clear this year.

The plan: Maintain shock levels (10ppm) until it is mostly clear. Continue to clean the cartridge multiple times a day until clear. Then maintain 2ppm. Once clear then add dichlor tabs. Maintain chlorine levels as directed in the best guess chlorine chart. Let me know is this is the right plan of attack.

Thanks to Doc for the post in my thread to help me determine how much di-chlor to add so I can know how much stabilizer I am adding.

Looking forward to another great clear year of swimming.

On another note I am wishing I started 30 days earlier. when I peeked under the cover beginning of May the water was clear, but here is was still in the 40s overnight. Next year I want to start way earlier so I can be ahead of the algae instead of catching up like this year.

[Watermom]

Sounds like you have a pretty good understanding of what you need to do. Just a couple of comments.

Keep an eye on your pH if it is just a tad over 7. You don't want it to drop any lower. As a matter of fact, I'd go ahead and add a little Borax.

Those tabs are trichlor and not dichlor. They will add CYA and you need some but it takes time so you may find that until the CYA builds up some, you'll have trouble keeping chlorine in the pool. You may want to use dichlor instead of the trichlor tabs. It is a granular form of chlorine which means it is quick dissolving and thus will build up your CYA level a little faster. Then, once your CYA is where you want it (most pools do well at about 50), you'll want to switch to just using liquid chlorine or bleach so your CYA doesn't get too high. If you do use dichlor, you have to be careful. A lot of places sell blended dichlor which has unwanted stuff in it. If you have a Sam's Club near you, you can buy their PoolBrand dichlor which is fine.

Now, a question. What was your CYA reading when you closed last fall? Some pools lose all their CYA over the winter when it biodegrades, leaving a huge chlorine demand. I hope this doesn't turn out to be the case in your pool. Let us know if you are losing chlorine really fast. Especially telling is if you are losing more than 1ppm of chlorine overnight.

Welcome back for another season on the Pool Forum!

[Winicott]

Glad to be back. I reccomened this site to a buddy of mine who had mustard algae last year. He asked me for the site this year when he opened after the great year I had last year.

The place I looked had Dichlor in 1' tablets. They also had granules as well. I hear you saying that I need to get the CYA up to 50ish then use liquid chlorine? The resource page says use liquid chlorine until I can maintain 2 ppm then add stabilizer.

CYA was around 30 when I closed. I kept it low so I could use less bleach to maintain proper levels.

I think I am losing chlorine fast, but not sure. Added a gallon @ 700 after the sun went behind the house and checked at 9. 1ppm. Added 3/4 a gal of bleach and at 10 it was at 2 ppm. I am going to add another gallon now and check it in the morning.

[Watermom]

What resource page are you referring to? I am not aware of dichlor tabs. Do you have a link to them somewhere?

Are you adding the 121 oz jugs of 8.25 bleach?

[Winicott]

Here is the resource page:
http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/spring-swimming-pool-startup-problems.html
Problem #2 item 4.
"Initially, your stabilizer-eating bacteria and biofilms will STILL be active in your pool. So, do NOT use stabilized chlorine to start with -- you could end up making your problem worse, faster than you make it better. This means NO dichlor powder. Use bleach or calcium hypochlorite only."

I will have to take a pic of the #50 bucket of the 1" tablets I saw. I may have read the ingredients wrong.

The bleach I have is 12.5% concentration. I buy it from the feed store. I get deposit bottles. When I come back with the bottles I get my $6 back. I understand he fills them there himself. The chemical company is Funshine. They are 1 gallon bottles. With the deposit taken into account it is about the same price as the 10% Pool Store For pool only bleach, but everything at the feed store is cheaper. Accessories are less and I can also get the dog food and the chicken feed there as well. It is win win for me. If there is a good argument for the 10% bleach with the throw away bottles I would love to hear it. Even if my 12.5% ends up being the same concentration as the 10% bottles I would not mind since they use the bottles over and over all summer instead of throwing them away.

[Watermom]

Your 12.5% bleach is just fine.

It was late when you added bleach so you may have not had time but when you are trying to determine if you have a chlorine demand, we like to be able to measure overnight chlorine loss. The best way to do this is to add chlorine when the sun is off the pool in the evening. Then, a couple hours later test so you'll have FC and CC numbers to compare with the next morning's readings which should be taken within an hour of sunrise.

[Winicott]

I will do that tonight and tomorrow morning.

My first reading was .6ppm, but 1.5 hour after sunrise, but no time to get full FC reading. I added a gallon of bleach, just to keep the pressure on the algae, but I figure it will be gone by lunch.

I hope that since there was SOME chlor this morning that I an not dealing with the larger issue.

[Watermom]

By the way, what is your wall height on your pool? I think you may be overestimating the volume of your pool. I'm assuming it is 54" (same as mine ;)) which means your water level is around 50 inches. This puts your volume at more like 18K gallons. I was trying to determine how much chlorine a gallon of 12.5% bleach would add to your pool (assuming it is that strength) and need an accurate volume to do so.

[Winicott]

We had this same discussion last year. Here is the post link.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/21223-King-Technology-Pool-Frog-system-AND-green-pool?p=110075#post110075

TL:DR- I have a deep end that is about 5 1/2', sometimes deeper when the water runs high after it rains a lot.

I use a chlorine calculator that I thought I found on here. It is an .exe and it calculates in L as opposed to gallons. If you have one you like to use then let me know. From what I can tell if I want to increase 10 ppm then I need to add 6L of chlorine.

[PoolDoc]

.
http://pool9.net/bleach-calc/

May not work with Windows 8, unless you run it in a compatibility mode.

[Watermom]

We had this same discussion last year. Here is the post link.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/21223-King-Technology-Pool-Frog-system-AND-green-pool?p=110075#post110075


Sorry I didn't remember. We answer thousands of posts on this forum each year and there is no way to keep details straight! ;) You might want to put in your signature --- AG 27' with 5-1/2' deep end. You can edit your signature by clicking on the tab in my signature.

[Winicott]

I never thought you would remember. I just posted to save us the time of going over it again :).

FC is 1. CC does not register. I would think that the CC would be high since that means it is bonding with all the stuff I want to kill? Adding bleach now and will check back in an hour.

[Watermom]

If CC doesn't register, that means it is 0 which is what you want it to be!

[Winicott]

1.5 hour after adding 6l of bleach I am at:

FC 1.8
CC 0

I figured 6 liters would get me to 10 ppm. Do I hit it again for 6 more liters before I go to bed?

[Watermom]

Yes.

[Winicott]

I think I need to do a bucket test to figure what this pool needs. Right now I feel like I am feeding a bottomless pit.

6:45 am the FC was 1.8 CC was 0. Added 1.5 gal bleach and checked again at 830. FC was .8 and CC was over 2. Could this rapid burn off be from the sun? I added a dose to get me to 10 ppm and in under 2 hours it was lower than when I started?

Will adding CYA at this point help with any chlorine demand? I wonder if getting the FC levels to hold longer will help.

[PoolDoc]

You certainly can do that => http://pool9.net/bucket-demand/

But a lot of times, it's not really useful, unless you are willing to drain and refill your pool. That's the only other option.

[Winicott]

Harumph. I think since it is holding some FC overnight I will just keep dumping in chemicals.

[Winicott]

So...
Based on what I added in Dichlor I am at 28 cya.

I have readings this morning of FC=10 ppm. Hooray.

Cloudy blue, but I just figure that I need to brush and filter to fix that.

What concerns me is my Ph is now less than what the scale reads on my test. I added 2 cups of Borax to bring it up, but I wanted some guidance before I did much else. The test read a yellow color.

Hardness 290 I filled with well water and the well has very hard water.
Alk 120

Thanks for any assistance.

[Watermom]

Get the pH up ASAP. Readings below 7.0 are acidic and can damage your pool. Add a half a box of Borax, wait a couple of hours, retest and keep re-dosing until your pH is above 7.

[Winicott]

I started at PH 7.2 then I added chlorine bleach, then I added Dichlor to bring up CYA. Which of these lowers Ph?

So Far I added 2 box of Borax. Test at 1130 pm indicates I am still at 6.8~7ish.

[Watermom]

Dichlor is acidic and lowers pH. Continue adding Borax to get pH up over 7.0.

[PoolDoc]

Use this form to enter your test results:

http://pool9.net/pf-hist-form/


You can see your entries here.

http://pool9.net/pf-hist-chart/


Your thread number is 24097:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/24097-Open-Green-and-Cloudy-amp-No-CYA

[Winicott]

Thanks Watermom, that explains it! I added 8 lbs over 24 hours just to get some CYA in there due to the rapid decreases in FC. Didn't event think about checking the Ph. I thought Ph increases when chlorinating. Whoops. That is what I get for not keeping an eye on Ph.

I plan on adding more Borax today 1/2 a box at a time and see if I can get the PH up to something like 7.5. I worry about getting it too high. Since I am chlorinating with bleach I thought that increased the Ph.

I entered my data in the form. I will try to keep it up to date as I move forward.

[PoolDoc]

There are 2 forms, one for your pool equipment, and one for test and observation records.

It would be helpful if you'd complete that one as well:
http://pool9.net/pf-pool-form/

[Winicott]

...and my reagent for testing FC just ran out. I will be using my Taylor test that only measures up to 5ppm. The reagent will get here in 3-5 days. Why they don't make a larger volume bottle of product that fits in the test kits I will never know. Now my new 2oz bottle will not fit in my handy dandy Taylor Test Kit case.

I understand that I can still test the higher levels of FC using the smaller test by diluting the sample and then using some multiplication. So fill the tester 1/2 full, then fill the other half with distilled water. Take the reading and then multiply the results of the test by 2? I understand that the results will not be as accurate, but I need some idea since I want to maintain 6 ppm and over based on my CYA. Is it ok to limp through using this until the good stuff shows up?

I totally have this pool on the ropes. I can smell clear water (and I don't think it is the odor from combined chlorine).

[Watermom]

Yes, you can dilute the sample and get buy for a few days while you wait on you refills. Another option is to use an OTO kit (no dilution necessary) and the color chart here to help you read 'off the scale' colors. http://pool9.net/oto-chart/

As far as the fitting the bottles in the case issue, you can always just buy larger bottles and just refill your smaller ones. I'm pretty sure that 4-oz bottles are sold and maybe some other sizes as well. I'm not sure what all is available size-wise on Amazon, but one place we have used before is www.spspools-spas.com.

Something you can do if you are running out of your R-0871 to help stretch it out a little longer is to drop the water sample size to 5ml, and then each drop will be 1 ppm, instead of 0.5 ppm.

[Winicott]

Update:
I have been maintaining the FC at shock level based on my CYA. I have been adding Dichlor and keeping track of how many lbs. For me 1 lb = 3 CYA. CYA should be around 38. My goal is to get it to 50-60. Once at 50-60 I will stop adding Dichlor and only use bleach. The borax is offsetting the Dichlor's tendency to lower my Ph.



When the pool finally was clear enough to see the bottom I found a pile of leaves. This was not there in the fall and I can only assume they blew under the cover this winter? Anyway, I cleared them out so hopefully I will not have the drop in Ph that I had last week.

Opened the pool Sunday. This was the fastest open since I have owned it. There are still some clarity issues, but nothing some vacuuming can't clear up. Last year you could see the bottom drain in the deep end from the kitchen window. Best pool year ever!

Thanks for your help. I finally feel like I am in control of the pool instead of it controlling me.

[PoolDoc]

I'm glad we were able to help!

[Winicott]

We are having a great summer with the pool. It looks great and is crystal sparkly clear.

Ph is up to 7.8. I have some muratic acid but not sure what volume to start adding. Do I start by the cup or do I add by the liter?

Thanks!

[Watermom]

You don't want to actually measure muriatic acid as it is too likely to splash on you. Just estimate your dose. I'd probably do about a quart and then after awhile, retest and redose if needed. Please read the info at the following link about using it safely.
http://pool9.net/ma/

[PoolDoc]

Since we don't know your TA, add approximately a pint - 1/8 of a gallon jug. Don't measure, just guesstimate.

Wait a day, and retest.