Newbie with a swamp

I have an inground 20' x 40' pool, sand filter, in-line clorinator and a Nature 2 cartridge. Pool was clear until early May the started turning green. I added tablets to the clorinator and used 3 1# packages of "shock". Overnight the pool took a turn for the worse. I am now dealing with a murky green swamp. I have strted adding household bleach through the skimmer with the clorinator off and the Nature 2 removed. Am I heading in the right direction and how long do I wait before trying something else? CYA and clorine levels are near 0. PH is 7.2 and TA is about 70. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

You need to get some chlorine in your pool right away as well as CYA. You can accomplish this by using dichlor. If you have access to a Sams Club, buy their 24lb pack of 1# bags of 100% dichlor shock. Each bag will add about 7 ppm of chlorine, and about 6 ppm of stabilizer, per 10K gallons of water. Otherwise, order dichlor from Amazon:

Kem-Tek Dichlor 22 lbs

We do NOT recommend buying dichlor locally, otherwise, at least until you are an EXPERT reader of chemical labels. The chlorinating pool chemicals sold at Walmart, Kmart, Costco, and most other local stores are diluted blends, sometimes with copper and other products with bad side-effects.

Keep the filter running 24/7.

Your targets are 30-50 ppm CYA and 10 ppm free chlorine during the cleaning process. Buy some plain 6% household bleach, about 10 gallons per 10,000 gallons in your pool. You can switch to other products, later. But bleach will work, in almost any sort of pool mess, without complicating side-effects. Use the bleach after the dichlor has raised your CYA levels to the target. DO NOT pour the bleach in the skimmer as long as you have pucks in the inline chlorinator. Instead, pour it slowly in front of a return while the pump is running.

How are you testing your water?

It's much easier to answer your questions, when we know something about your pool. We often 'waste' the first few posts back and forth collecting information. So, please complete our new Pool Chart form -- it takes about 30 seconds, but will save much more than that.

Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

Your town is not close to anything, so I'm guessing you need to stock up to finish the job, BEFORE you start.

Trying to clean up a 20x40 swamp with 6% bleach is going to take a LOT of jugs of bleach. Can you get your hands on a 100lb drum of calcium hypochlorite? That might be the easiest solution.

But:

• DO complete the chart;
• DO get a K-2006 *and* an OTO test kit (see test kit info page in my sig)
• DO list what you have on hand, and what form of chlorine is most available to you

Thanks AnnaK and PoolDoc. Yes I am located in the middle of nowhere. I do have some of the standard store bought chemicals on hand like stabilizer, PH up, PH down, calcium chloride, floculant, Trichlor tablets and 1# bags of Dichlor “shock”. I wish I would have found this forum several hundred dollars ago. Looks like the bleach may be my only option right now. I will be ordering the K-2006 test kit soon. Right now I am using a basic OTO drop test kit and HTH strips. When I get the CYA levels up should I add 30 gallons of bleach at once or a period of time?

Had to look - you've got a vinyl pool, so you probably want to limit beach additions to 25 ppm equivalents at one time. Given a PF of 4, each gallon of bleach (abt 1/2 lb of chlorine gas equivalent) will add about 2 ppm, so you're talking 12 - 13 gallon doses at one time.

Do you have access to a Sams Club? Can you wait till AFTER you have the K2006 to start the process? I can give you a much better recipe, if you have the K2006, and run a bucket test BEFORE you start.

I am ordering the K2006 today. Have had over 6" of rain in the past 36 hours and more expected today but I want to get started as soon as possible. Not sure what you mean by a bucket test. Also, no access to Sams Club....