Algae everywhere

Friend's inherited pool: ~16K IG totally faded and wrinkled vinyl. Neglected by former owners. Closing 9/23, Tuesday. Too broke fixing house problems to consider new liner and water in near future.

6 days ago: 0 FC, <7 pH, CYA 0 (although almost empty bucket of Tri-Chlor sitting by chlorinator. Hmmm....) TA 160, CH 370+ (MY test kit, so stopped adding drops...) They have a K2006C on order. Suction-side leak causing air bubbles in pump basket. After adjustments, bubbles return after a couple hours. O-ring to be replaced Friday, 9/19. If it doesn't fix issue, will ask owners to have closing company check for other issues. Still okay skimmer suction.

Actions: Cleaned out chlorinator. Scrubbed green slime from INSIDE jets, INSIDE skimmer, and every liner to "gasket" connection. Removed algae filled ladders. Back washed twice. Added 10C dichlor, 34 gallons of 12.5% chlorine to skimmer (hoping to kill algae in return lines as there was lots of algae inside of jets and can't clean lines), 4 boxes borax. DE to filter. Running shock water through slide, jets, and stair jets while high FC.

Now: CYA MAYBE 30... Can't run overnight test. FC to around 20+ at night (can't test early morn, hubby on night shift - sleeping hubby, noisy, protective dog), but by 5 pm, FC holding at 4ish.... Less than 0.5 CC now, down from as high as 5. PH 7.5 and aerating. Only have a few more days before closing.

Plan: get pH to 7.8, FC to 20 by Monday night. Any other ideas to improve things by then? I MAY be able to do overnight test over the weekend while hubby is off, but not sure that will mean anything at this point.

If the liner is faded and wrinkled but still sound (or at least patchable), then you don't need to worry about liner fade from chlorine and can hammer the FC up to 30 or 35, no problem. All that will happen is the liner may fade some more. I'd get pH down to 7.2-7.4 because chlorine is more effective when pH is lower.

Plumbing leaks can be tougher. Are the pipes PVC, hoses or flexible PVC (TigerFlex)? Pool builders regularly use internal barbed fittings in TigerFlex and they ALWAYS leak--proper Schedule 40 glued-on fittings, same as used on regular PVC, are what work. Any other internal fittings should be checked for leaks too, as well as quick connects and any screwed on fittings. Car mechanics have classically looked for leaks in tires with a mixture of liquid detergent and water. Won't hurt plumbing lines.

Thanks, Carl. Silly me, I was trying to get pH higher for closing. Easy fix. I set it aerating last night and I can't get over there to stop it until hubby wakes up.

I will bump the FC up higher. The liner can't get too much worse. In a bunch of places you can even see where the former owners dumped in bags of "shock" and let it sit. When I first saw them, I thought some of your white-sand/snow had come to Illinois!

Incoming piping is all PVC. Detergent it is if the o-ring doesn't take care of it. I closed the skimmer valve a tad and it was still holding 2 hours later.

Lowered ph to 7.4. Had hoped for lower but used their AcidMagic instead of my MA. Several nights now have added 4G 12.5% and late afternoon readings consistently 3.5-6.5 FC, <0.5 CC if not 0. Finally thought I could do an overnight test tonight. 7pm FC 4.5, CC 0. Added 4G. At 8pm, readings weird. FC, after reaching 12.5 FC, solution turned grey, not clear. Kept adding drops to 45 and just got darker grey. Got new sample, and quit at 15, and then did CC. Turned light grey at 2, turned very light grey, but not clear, at 16. Quit. What's up with the grey color? I wanted to do the overnight test but don't know how to interpret the grey color. Any ideas?

I think I may have solved the issue of grey results. I was at 4.5FC. I added 4G of 12.5% to get to 35-40. However, the regional packager of 12.5% is a few towns away. So what if effective CL was much higher than 12.5? Maybe it took me to >50ppm FC? The 2006 is accurate to only 50, right? Maybe that's what happened....???? Just a thought. If so, good thing her liner is already shot!

You can test the LC with your K-2006. All you need is an eyedropper with a 1ml line marked on it--I'd get a glass one. They are still made and sold.

1) Test your tap water's FC
2) Add 10 liters of water to a 5 gallon bucket. I use an empty 2 liter Coke or Pepsi soda bottle and fill it 5 times.
3) Using your brandy-new eyedropper, add 1 ml of LC to the 10 liters.
4) Stir.
5) Measure your FC, and subtract the FC of the tap water.
6) The final FC is the concentration of the LC.

The dealer I like (the same one BigDave uses) sells LC that usually tests at 14% this way, though it's sold as 12.5%