in search of guidance.

long story short I have yucky green pool water(due to my neglect and ignorance) you could not see deeper than 6 inches.


now Ill explain my setup.
pool is 30 foot round
17,600 gallons
unsure what you call the pump type i have but it is cylindrical and has a large Tube style filter like you see in spa's photos of outer shell are at the bottom
chlorine system is a aqua tech with mineral pack for low chlorine pools

Now what i did wrong.

Money got extremely tight and I could not afford the $20 per 10 days for chlorine. the pool store was charging me. water got cloudy and green. I decided to not risk damage to pump so I unplugged the filter so the water sat stagnant for about 6 weeks.

now that I had a little money I decided walmart would be cheaper than a pool store so I bought cheap chlorine tablets not sure brand they were white and had about 1/4 an inch of blue on one side and came with a bag with 2 holes that you put chlorine tablets in and place in the skimmer. also a box of cheap shock from walmart. All I can remember was it was an orange box and said you could swim 15 min after use. and some bottle of algicide that was rated the strongest at 20% ( i now know not to buy this again.) I poured it in it was a bright blue colored liquid and my pool instantly turned milky white and formed a sheet of some white goo on the top of the pool.

I checked with a strip and all readings where not registering.

I tossed in 3 pounds of blast and raked all leaves from top of the pool i did not vacuum bottom as the leaves jam the hose and there are gumballs (i forget the real name the are a round spiky ball that fall off a big tree in backyard) that get stuck in the hose.

I found this forum and saw a light at the end of the tunnel. did lots of reading and leaned i was being ripped off at the pool store.

I went and bought 7 182 oz bottles of generic walmart unscented bleach 6% pored all 7 in front of the jet (i hope it was not overkill i was anxious) I did not have anything other than a strip test. The next day there was some change i could see down maybe 12 inches into the water i was getting excited.

3 days later and much more reading on these forums I go after it again and find no change in water but chlorine could still be smelled in the pool. I removed the chlorine tablets from bag and placed directly in skimmer. I noticed all the blue was gone and could see some of tablets had dissolved.

I turned off the pump and removed the filter which was covered in green sludge. after washing it I instantly noticed my rate of water movent greatly increased from a nice flow to spalshing on top of the pool .After letting pump run overnight i could see a huge improvement in the deep green becoming much paler in color. I still can not see the bottom but if i go up to the second floor of the house I can see dark spots at the bottom of the pool where leaves are accumilating. I again went and washed the filter which was again covered in green particles. I went and bought a test kit from leslys as its my day off and i needed something now.

they did not have the taylor k-2006 he could order it for 80 dollars they did have a 2005 for over 100. I decided to buy a cheap DEluxe poolcare DPD test kit that tests free& total chlorine or bromine, ph, acid demand and total alkalinity. (pictures will be posted at the end of this.)
now i decide to test before i buy another chemical at all

FC only registers to 5ppm and it was bright red so I am assuming it was over that
I tried to test for TC again bright red so greater than 5ppm

CC i could not get as i cant get an accurate reading
PH test registered the lowest at 6.8 so (i see a problem here outake has been blowing upwards causing a bubling on pool for over 24 hours)
Acid demand test i was not smart enough to understand instructions I will post a picture of it maybe someone can dumb them down for me.

total alkalinity I did not do this test yet I will if someone here needs.

30 minutes ago
time for walmart run bought 5 more 182oz jugs of bleach none are added
I was not sure how much 20 mule borax to add so i added half a box as i understand to much causes cloudy water
I washed filter out again and again found it covered in green slime as it was daylight i wahsed it more thouroughly and found what looks like bird seed im guessing plant debry in the filter. I washed untill water was coming out clear. Is there a way to backwash this like a sand filter ?
Current water temperature 64 degrees

here I am posting pictures in hope someone can explain how to do the acid demand test(i am assuming this it my CYA levels.

Also any guidance anyone can give me please do I never want to return to a pool store again after seeing how much they ripped me off. I really want to get the water clear before i close it for the winter.




in last 3 days no new bleach has been added the 3 chlorine pucks are still in skimmer though. I am waiting to add more until i can figure out how to get proper readings and praying to get some good advice here. Also i will buy the taylor k-2006 that everyone recommends before i open the pool next year

Once you stopped with the pool store you went on the right track.

It sounds like you have a cartridge filter, and that it's clogging quickly from all the stuff in the pool, so you have to keep cleaning it. That's normal. You cannot backwash a cartridge filter. Sorry.

Are you vacuuming the pool as well? If not, you need to.

You can use your OTO kit to measure much higher than 5ppm for chlorine. You need to buy steam distilled water (at the supermarket) and, if you dilute pool water with distilled water at a 1 to 1 ratio, then when it say Chlorine is 5, you really have 10. Search PoolForum for the Shotglass Method.

If you can get FC and TC, you don't need get CC. TC=FC + CC so just subtract to FC from TC and you'll have CC (deal level is 0).

You'll probably need more borax to raise pH.

Hi bdurham,

First of all, let me welcome you to the forum!! When I modded your post in, it contained a link that I deleted in the interest of getting your post to the forum quickly. Any post containing a link must be modded in by Ben, and I haven't seen him around lately so don't know how long it would be if we waited for him to approve it. So--if you want to make a new post and just include the link, I can ask Ben to look at it and have it added to this thread, but in the meantime let me try to address some of your questions....

First off, congratulations for taking control of your own pool water and doing your homework--I know that it looks like you have a huge mess on your hands right now, but with some bleach and patience, it will be cleared up soon. First off, toss the strips-- they are largely inaccurate, but when cleaning up a mess, they are absolutely useless. You did well to buy a drop-based kit, even if it's a basic one. I highly encourage you to get the Taylor K-2006 (NOT the 2005) as soon as you can. Check the "off topic" forum for a link to buy it from Amazon for around $60, and if you use that link the forum gets a donation from the proceeds of the sale. One thing you can do to force your test kit to read higher levels of chlorine than it's designed for is outlined here http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=10073. Don't worry about the acid demand test--it's not really going to be of use to you unless you have a SWCG. Acid demand is NOT the same thing as CYA. The CYA test uses a small tube with a black dot at the bottom that you pour a mixture of pool water and reagent into until the dot disappears. If your current test kit cannot measure it, then take a pool water sample to the pool store and ask them to test for it--just don't buy any of the stuff they'll try to sell you--just tell them you already have it at home.

The first priority for you is going to be getting your pH up above 7.0. Most pH testers only measure as low as 6.8, so yours may be well below that, and pH lower than 7.0 is too acidic for your liner and can cause damage to your pool. Once that 1/2 box of Borax has had a couple of hours to dissolve, test for pH again and add 1/2 box at a time, allowing for dissolve/testing time between doses, until you get the pH to 7.0-7.6 range.

Your second priority is getting the green cleared up. In order to do this, (I'm going to assume that you have 0 CYA since it's swampy green) you need to raise your chlorine level to 15 ppm and keep it there by testing/adding more chlorine (BLEACH) to get back to the 15 ppm level as often as you possibly can, but at least 2-3 times daily. The more consistent you are about maintaining the 15 ppm, the faster the pool will clear. In a pool your size, 4 1/2 gallons of 6% bleach will take your water from 0 ppm to 15 ppm. Thereafter, each quart of 6% bleach will raise your chlorine by 1 ppm, so you can use that as a guide to figure out how much more you need to add.

It will be helpful if you can skim out all the leaves/debris you can get to, so the chlorine can focus on the green instead of the stuff you can easily remove. You'll need to keep the pump/filter running 24 hours/day and frequently clean the cartridge (cartridge type filter--the cartridge must be removed and hosed off, unfortunately, it can't be backwashed like a sand filter). As the algae is killed off by the chlorine, your filter will remove it from the water but you're going to have to check it frequently to make sure the cartridge doesn't completely get clogged up and overheat your pump. Brushing the pool daily during this process will help, as well.

This process can take up to several days, depending on how consistent you are about maintaining the chlorine level, but it will clear up the swamp, and much cheaper than the pool store. Don't be tempted to throw in anything else than Borax or bleach--no agaecides, clarifiers, etc. Just bleach.

Feel free to continue to post to this thread with further questions or just to let us know how it's going!

Janet

Edit: I see Carl beat me to the punch, guess I'm tying slow today! :)

Thank you the link was just to a the images of my pool and the equipment and test kit i had incase what i had worded was not descriptive enough. I will look for the distilled water you recommend so that i may get an accurate chlorine reading. All i can say for sure is the chlorine smell is very strong. as for the leaves they are being removed from the top hourly and the bottom I am attempting to get as i can find them but with out the ability to see them it is proving difficult. As far as vacuming that i can not do untill i can see the bottom due to gumballs clogging my hose every few moments. with a pool that size roughly how long should i wait before adding more of the borax.

added another half box of borax an hour later it is now between 7.2 and 7.5 on color chart :)

Good job. Now you can get on with clearing up the water. The chlorine smell means that the bleach you're adding is doing its job--when it attacks something in the water, it forms byproducts, one of which is chloramine, that you are smelling. So....that chlorine smell means you need......more bleach!!!

The sweet gum balls are a real pain--not much good for anything except brother/sister gumball fights :rolleyes: (we had one in the yard where I grew up and my brother and I used to pelt each other with them). My Walmart sells a "leaf rake", which is basically a deep net with what looks like a squeegee on the rim that you can use like a shovel to scoop junk off the bottom. If you have access to something like that, maybe it would help with the gum balls. You can leave them in the pool until you can see them better if necessary, but it will be a waste of chlorine--the more organic stuff you can remove, the more of your bleach will be available to work on the algae.

So--up your chlorine level, keep it up, and you should start seeing results pretty quick!

Janet

I have been toying with angles to place the jet to try and stir up the bottom so that i can skim the leaves off the top. I found an angle that caused alot to gather in the center of the pool unfortunately the weight of the wet leaves caused my pole to bend and break. I still have about a 8-10 reach. As of right now i have removed the ladder so there is no resistance in the pool and angled it directly away from my skimmer so the water is flowing in a nice circular motion. Does anyone recommend a specific angle or direction in regards to the skimmer that i should angle it. This is a round pool 30 ft.

It is going to be difficult for your jet to stir up things on the bottom. My pool is also round and when I angle the jet a bit downwards and away from the skimmer, it also sends debris to the center of the pool.

Wonder if your pool store has an above ground pool vac called "Polaris 65." I have one and it does a good job of picking up leaves, twigs and debris. Not so good at getting dirt and dust, but when I have a lot of leaves in my pool, it does the trick. It is a pressure side cleaner and has a unit that randomly moves around the top of the pool and has a hose underneath it with a mesh bag attached to it that swooshes across the floor of the pool and a stream of water shooting out of the bottom hose forces leaves into the bag. Just a thought.

Janet and Carl have given you good advice. Frequent doses of bleach will kill the algae. The key to killing algae is to sustain the high reading and not let it yo-yo up and down. As many times a day as you can, test and add more bleach. The more often you do this, the faster you will clear this pool. When you have a swamp on your hands, there is no such thing as doing it too many times a day. Good luck, keep us posted and welcome to the forum.

well Quick update. I have yet to find any water that claims to be steam distilled so I have not been able to get an accurate reading on chlorine levels. I have been adding about 4-5 gallons of bleach per day and cleaning the filter atleast 3x the pool has moved from a slimy green to a weird shade of blue maybe a turquoise i Can now see dark objects on the bottom but not the bottom itself. I am not exactly sure what this blue color is as its not a color i have ever seen in a pool before. I am in high hopes that it still a manageable algae bloom.

I have broken the extension on my telescopic pole when i was bringing leaves out of the center bottom of the pool. I now only have about a 12-13 foot reach. would it be safe to get in the pool to clear out the leaves in the bottom. It would not take more than 10-15 minutes max (besides the water is extremely cold) I would shower directly after Im just not sure if it would be safe ? can anyone please advise.

Steam distilled water is just distilled water that you can get pretty much anywhere. If your water is getting less green and more blue, then you are killing algae. Keep up the bleach and also post some numbers when you test. Run the filter as much as you can. It is what will get the dead algae out of the pool. As far as getting in the pool, it is fine to do so. People swim in lakes and ponds all the time and they have algae in them. I would take a shower as soon as you get out and I hope you don't freeze! Brrr!

I got home from work today and I can see the bottom of my pool :) i am so happy now I just need to wait untill i feel it is truly clean and let the chlorine levels drop some so it is safe to put the winter cover on it. How low should the chlorine level be before i do the closure. and should i add any chemicals to it before i close it. I am trying to avoid asking the pool store at all costs.

You need to maintain that shock level (15 ppm) until the water is clear, your CC is zero, and most importantly, you're not losing any chlorine when you test at sundown and again before the sun hits the pool. If you let the chlorine drop before you're at that point, then you have just wasted your bleach and efforts and not killed all the algae. AFTER those conditions are met, then you can go ahead and put the cover on it--most people shock theirs (which is what you have done) before closing anyway.

Since I never close my pool, I'll let the others advise you there, but take a look through the Fall preparation forum, especially this sticky http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=5720 for some guidance in closing it.

Janet

Incidentally, when you open again in the spring, I would highly encourage you to consider leaving out the mineral pack and just using bleach--the mineral pack adds copper, which is what stains hair and fingernails (and pool liners) if the level gets high enough...........

Yes, please look in the fall prep thread. What I've put there is directly applicable since I'm near you in NJ and in a similar climate. It also works, as I generally open to a clear pool.