Am I on the right track?

This is a long post! Hopefully I get all pertinent, necessary info to you on the first try.

We live in Phoenix, AZ and have a 7 year old Pebble Tech pool. The pool is 11,940 gallons, has a new 1 hp Dynapro pump, a sand filter, and a Hayward Pool Vac Ultra. We've owned this home for 3 years.

The pool seemed fairly stable the first year or two, but we have no previous pool experience. We were taking advice from (ug) the pool store employees. We used Trichlor pucks and dichlor shock up until last week. I may be the most ignorant pool owner ever because I didn't realize our pool was GREEN. The water was usually clear and it was only cloudy for a day or two until we'd shock and/or add PhosFree. Last year we had a little algae ring at the water line, but I thought we had it under control.

Needless to say, after a winter of not paying close attention plus not having good information, the pool looked pretty crappy. It was slightly cloudy and had a greenish tint to it. I realized how bad it was when I saw the neighbor's pool.

I did a lot of reading here and started to follow the recommendations to the best of my understanding. The pool now looks a little less green, but still somewhat cloudy and definitely not as pretty as the neighbor's pool.

Here's the rundown on what has been done over the last 3 days:

5/20 test with Taylor k 2004-b kit
FC 1.5 ppm
TC 1.5
pH 7.8
TA 200
CH 550
CYA >100 (maybe around 250)
Water greenish, cloudy, but can see drain easily.

5/22
Drain and refill 50% of water TWICE

5/23
FC 0.5 ppm
TC not tested
pH 7.4
TA 200
CH 250
CYA 60
water looks a little clearer, but not much, brushed walls and steps, filter running 24/7,
added 1.5 gal. 10% chlorine

5/24
7:30 a.m.
FC 6.0 ppm
TC
pH 8.0+
TA 225
CYA 60
water a little cloudier, still greenish
added 1.3 gal. 10% Cl, added 48 oz. 28% MA (didn't test after adding chem.)

6:30 p.m.
FC 10 ppm
Added 1.5 gal. 10% Cl

7:30 p.m.
FC 10 ppm
added 1.5 gal. 10% Cl

8:30 p.m.
FC 10 ppm
added 1.5 gal. 10% Cl

9:30 p.m.
FC 10-12 ppm (hard to tell- using dilution method- fas-dpd test on order)
added 2 gal. 10% Cl (now we are at 9.5 gal. since starting on 5/23)

10:30 p.m.
FC 8 ppm
Ran out of Cl plus needed to go to bed!
Added a few caps of PhosFree for the hell of it since we already had it. Didn't think it could hurt.

5/25
6:30 a.m.
FC 6.0 ppm
added 2 gal. 10% Cl

7:30 a.m.
FC 8.0
pH 8+ (maybe a lot higher- dilution doesn't do much)
added 2 gal. 10% chlorine, added 2.5 qt. 28% MA

8:30 a.m.
FC 6.0 ppm
TC 4.0 (is that possible? I swear it got lighter when I added reagent #003)
pH 8+ (maybe about 15??? I tried diluting, but not sure how accurate)
added 3 qt. 28% MA, no Cl added because sun is shining on pool now

9:30 a.m.
FC 4.0 ppm
pH 8+ (maybe 10.2 based on dilution)
added 2 qt. 28% MA, no Cl added- will wait until evening so I don't waste it.

I've now added around 14 gallons of 10% Cl. in 60 hours. The water in the pool does look less green today, is cloudy, but I can see the drains. The water smells a little bleach-y to me, but maybe I am just losing my mind after dumping so much Cl in there! I'm also using a skimmer sock and brushing the pool daily.

My question is: am I on the right track? What about the pH? I know it will be higher with high levels of Cl., but I am afraid it's way too high now! Please advise. I really appreciate this forum and hope you all can help me the way you've helped others to get a handle on pool chemistry without the foolishness peddled by the pool store. I will never ask THEM for advice again!

Tabitha

Hi Tabitha, and welcome to the forum!! You're definitely on the right track to getting your pool clear! It's obvious you've done your homework and once you get your pool cleared up, it'll amaze you how easy it is to maintain!!

With a CYA of 60, you aren't at "shock" level with the chlorine til you get to 20 ppm. To clear up the green, you need to get it up to 20 and HOLD IT THERE as consistently as you can. You're doing a good job of checking and adding--just make sure you're getting it up high enough. IN a pool your size, each 2 cups of 10% chlorine will raise your Cl by 1 ppm. Maintain that shock level until the pool clears and until there is no decrease in CL overnight--test before you go to bed and once again in the morning before the sun hits the pool. When there is no CL demand overnight, then you can let the CL drift back down, but never less than 5 ppm. With a CYA of 60, you're going to have to maintain it between 5 and 10 ppm to keep it algae free. Keep the filter running, backwash as needed, just like you're already doing.

I don't really understand why your pH is rising like that--chlorine has a pH of somewhere around 13 but usually the noticeable rise in the pool is fairly temporary. You can still add acid if you want to keep it in the low 8 range, but remember that pH shows falsely high when the chlorine level is above 10 or so. I wouldn't worry too much about that right now, it's fairly easy to fix after you get the pool clear, and it will also help with your TA too.

Hang in there!!

Janet

Update: Cl was holding steady at 5 ppm for 6 hours, so I decided to start adding more. The pH came down to 7.4 , by the way, I'm not going to worry about that for now.

I've added another 6 gallons of 10% Cl and every time I add it, it either doesn't go up or actually goes DOWN a little! I am amazed at how much Cl this thing is eating. I sure hope it slows down soon. It is hard to trust in this process and not just break down and go to the pool store for chemical warfare (just kidding). I've never added algaecide, and not ready to give up yet!

I have to go buy some more chlorine...

Oh, now I am really confused. The FC reading is now ZERO!!! What's going on? It was holding steady until I started adding more. I even diluted the sample to see if it was getting bleached out and it still said zero. I happened to have a crummy old test strip so I used it to cross check and it is reading 20+ ppm chlorine. The water does not look better. It might look a little worse now than earlier today. Any suggestions?

Well, I figured it out. My Cl is around 60 ppm! I had to dilute the pool water a lot to get the test to read. Guess it was bleaching out the reagents. Thank god I reached the breaking point. Now I hope for the best...

Run your pump/filter to get all the dead stuff out--a Cl of 60 ppm oughta do the trick! Remember that the bleach kills the algae and should turn the water blue/cloudy, but the filter gets the dead stuff out. If you'll test for Cl at night after the sun is off the pool, and test it again in the morning before the sun hits it, when there's 1 ppm or less cl loss, then you can let your Cl drift back down into normal ranges.

Janet

This morning the water definitely looks better. It is not yet crystal clear, but much improved over where we started. My FC is about 40 ppm now. I will check again at noon.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I was getting nervous there for a while!

Hallelujah! After 5 days and 23 gallons of 10% Cl, I've reached the other side of the river Styx :). Chlorine held at 20-25 for >8 hours even during the day, so I put some polyquat 60 in to help prevent regrowth and maybe clear the water just a little more. The water was pretty clear, but still just a little dull. Plan to put solar blanket on tomorrow morning and maybe will be swimming for the holiday. Yippeee! Thank you for your help.

Great!! Continue to filter 24/7 to try and filter out any leftover stuff that may be keeping that water from sparkling! I wouldn't put the solar cover on until your chlorine level comes down a bit as the fumes may damage it. Enjoy your weekend in the pool!!

Hi again, I just received my FAS-DPD test kit. My FC is 15.5 ppm and the CC is 0.5 ppm. FC on the DPD only test this morning was around 20 ppm. Water looks good. Should I go back and shock it some more? I haven't added any Cl in about 30 hours.