keeping up

MHi everyone. For the past 2 years I've been taking care of inlaws pool. Father in law had passed away, mother inlaw worrks full time, and brother inlaw is useless/doesn't want to keep up with it. My kids swim several times a week. Past 2 summers I do chem....etc. every summer pool is clear then turns green. I go to pool center, they test water and $$$$$ the water clears up. And few weeks later same cycle. I work a few jobs and usually can't get to check pool on regular basis. The pool is above ground 15x24 4feet deep. It has a de filter that I have set on a timer for 7 hours 9am till 4 ish. Pool is in sun alllll day. Is there such a way to make it more low matainance? Salt water maybe? All I want is clear water.........is it possible. Lol. Thanks in advance for reading. Am posting this from phone as kids are dominating the computer .

If your pool is OK now, just maintain till you can get a testkit:

#1 - Order K2006 or 2006C kit -- Amazon links below -- and learn to use it.
#2 - Avoid pool store goop: if the pH is below 7.0, raise it; if it's above 7.8, lower it, other wise don't mess with "balance" for now.
#3 - Shock with 2 gallons of 6% household bleach every other evening, till we know more. Use 1/2 box of borax, added slowly to the skimmer with pump running, to RAISE pH. Use about 1 quart of muriatic acid (Lowes, Home Depot, hardware store) -- gloves, glasses, watch the fumes -- added to the POOL with the pump RUNNING, to LOWER pH.
#4 - Report free & total chlorine, and CYA levels once you get the kit.

More info, once you report.

Reasonable guesstimate of monthly ALGAE-FREE pool chemical costs once you get on your routine: $35

Ben

Thanks for the basic starter info....So far i ordered the kit and it gives me a June 9th - 14th window......I've added the 2 gallons of bleach every other night.....pool is no longer green ph with a basic tester shows 7.6 ish same kit was out of chlorine drops...pool water looks cloudy maybe milky is better. Found out that mother in law has added large bag of baking soda and some algecide to the pool because that's what she remembers seeing my father in law doing. Have been vacuuming and having to bump/ backwash filter as a loss of pressure...what a pain in the a@#. looks like it'll get hot here for a few days but then back to 70's (NYC) so I guess I have some time before kids start breaking my chops.....Thanks for help Internet is great for DIYers

No big bags of anything at one time! Always small additions. No more algaecide. Algaecides are pretty good preventatives, but don't help a lot when algae is present. When we do recommend the use of algaecide, the only one we suggest is 60% Polyquat. No other types. Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the welcome. Still waiting for the testing kit. Water is still super cloudy.Found the bottle of "algicide" mom in law threw in pool. its called hth algae guard 3x concentrate. I wish she would listen and not ad anything. Main ingredient in this bottle is alkyl (60%C14,30%C16,5%C12,5%C18)dimethyl benzyl ammonium chlorides.....15%
Alkyl (68%C12,32%C14)dimethyl ethylbenzyl ammonium chlorides.......15% and the rest inert
The filter itself has been bogging down...keep taking it apart and redoing the DE. Filter says add $lbs of DE when you prime it but that seems to bog it down. Today i cleaned it out and added 2 lbs and its running so much stronger. Is this OK? the gaskets and the filtering fingers seem to be fine... no tears or dried out rubber. So I hope that works better. I can't wait for this kit to show up so I can post some #'s for you guys/gals to help me with

Mothers-in-Law are put on this Earth to keep us humble!

Do NOT put that stuff in your pool. You were fine and it all created problems. Pool care isn't magic, and there's really no guess-work about how to do it. It also doesn't have to be hard.

From your original post I'm guess you chlorinated with di-chlor powder or tri-chlor tablets. Mid-summer it goes green. Why? The powder and tabs add stabilizer far beyond what you need until the "standard" level of chlorine isn't high enough to kill algae--or sanitize your pool. Then the pool store plays "GOTCHA!" and takes multiple injections of $$$$. It's not hard to see what's happening. You need to figure out the B-B-B method and you will have a cleaner pool and spend a lot less time cleaning it up.

Over at Ben's other site, Poolsolutions.com, is this nice intro to the B-B-B method. It's really pretty simple:

http://poolsolutions.com/gd/the-BBB-...pool-care.html

Carl

OK after a long wait for the test kit to come we finally have some #'s

Ph 7.4
CYA less than 30 (water was @ very top of tester and it was just out of sight)
TA 140ppm
FC .6ppm
CC 7.8
CH 100ppm

After reading an awesome post from Waste......I cleaned out the DE filter completely by soaking the fingers in cleaner for a few hours then in an muriatic acid bath for a few more. I could not believe the difference in flow. And BTW the mother in law struck again. After getting my Brother in law to add bleach( I asked him to do 2 gal and he did 1) she threw in a bag of shock. calcium hypo...? That was just about 24 hours before I got my water sample. Please just tell me what I need to do to get this pool water clear and get my mother in law from making faces at me....she loves giving the pool guy $$ Much Thanks in advance

I'd like you to try the chlorine tests again. I sorta doubt that you have a CC reading of 7.8 and then repost.

Your MIL actually didn't do anything wrong, by pure dumb luck. You hardness level is low enough that Cal-Hypo "shock" won't raise the CH level enough to matter, and it DOES add chlorine to the water.

Saw a joke on a political forum the other day describing someone's mind as being like a spare bedroom: Always made up and rarely, if ever, used. But she's smarter than you. Just ask her. She'll tell you.

Carl.

OK I retested the water and this time the FC came out to 7.2 and the CC came out to .4 the rest remained constant. since the filter was completly cleaned out the pool looks bright and blue. still cloudy (can't see the bottom) but feel encouraged by progress. and look forward to more progress.