Dealing with scale problem

Hi all, I've just opened my 25,000 in ground pool. The first thing I did was shock it and add some algaecide to clear it up. Testing my water this morning (with a test strip) I found that my PH was normal but my TA and Hardness were both very high. Previously when my TA was high, my PH was also. This is a first for me. I'm new to this forum, but I've learned by searching around that;
A: testing with a strip is not the best way to manage pool chemistry.
B: My problem is not unusual.
C: TA takes a while to lower.

I read the link in "Pool Solutions" by Ben Powell about lowering TA. He says to use small doses of acid and to aerate the pool. My questions are, what is a "small dose" for a 25,000 gallon pool? How often do I add the dosage? How often do I test?
Thanks all

We cannot recommend you take that step unless we know something about your pool situation.
Is it a hard-sided or vinyl lined pool?
What is your chlorine level?
What is your pH reading?
Your T/A reading?
Your CH Reading?
and your Stabilizer/CYA reading?

If you have a vinyl pool and your T/A is, say 180, you are fine. Vinyl pools only become problematic when T/A approaches 200 and CH is over 400, at which point it gets cloudy. But a concrete/tile or plaster pool you need to keep TA below 120-125 and CH between 200 and 400.

Sorry, Took a while to reply. (Darn job gets in the way) I forgot the details. My pool is vinyl lined. Keep in mind that I've been testing with test strips, so my numbers won't be accurate. My chlorine levels are nil. PH is at 7.2. TA is over 240. I'm guessing CH is hardness? That's at 400. My CYA reading is in the normal color range, but I forget the numbers.

1. Read http://pool9.net/alk-step/. That will explain how to fix the problem. Read http://pool9.net/ma/, which will tell you how to safely handle muriatic acid.

2. Order a K2006 http://pool9.net/testkit/; you'll need it to manage the process as you get close to the end.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the links. The one thing missing though (unless I missed it) is how much acid to add and how often. When I had a problem with high PH and TA a few years ago, the local pool dealer told me to add 1/2 gallon of acid twice a day and keep the pump running 24/7. I've started the process using that advice. With the PH being normal I've added a submersible pump and aimed the return jets upward to aerate the water.

I'm not sure how many gallons you have, but 1/2 gallon is a lot for most pools.

I don't care what your dealer told you; do NOT dose by "X amount on Y interval"! Test your pH, and hold it to 6.8 - 7.0 by adding acid AS NEEDED!

Low pH (<6.0) will damage ALL types of pools.

My pool is 25,000 gallons. Since I started aerating, my PH has stayed around 6.8 as I've added acid. I've been adding 1/2 gallon at a time twice a day for 2 days for two gallons total. This morning my PH is at 6.8 and my TA is still around 240. With the TA so high I'm hesitant to shock the pool or add any algaecide. The algae in the pool is clinging to the vinyl so tightly that no amount of scrubbing or my pool cleaner is removing it. I live in Wisconsin where the cold weather has not really relaxed it's grip. Could the cold temps be part of my issue?

The pH may be quite lower than 6.8 if 6.8 is the lowest on the comparator. Does your test kit have a base demand test? We seldom recommend using Acid / Base demand tests but in this case I'd like you to be sure it's safe for the pool.

What Dave said. NOW!

STOP ADDING ACID!

If you don't have immediate access to a acid demand kit, go to Walmart and buy out their borax (up to 20 boxes). Turn your pump on high speed, and leave it on. Add 2 boxes of borax every hour -- slowly, to the skimmer -- till you have a pH ABOVE 6.8. It doesn't have to be much above, but enough so you can tell a difference.

THIS IS URGENT! YOU MAY BE DESTROYING YOUR LINER AS I TYPE!

Given the way you are dosing, and testing, your actual pH may be 5.0 or even 3.0. If it is, it won't take long to do PERMANENT damage to your liner. And unlike liners bleached by high chlorine, the damage done by low pH is MORE than just cosmetic.

HURRY!

Finally got a testing kit to use instead of the strips. My PH tested at 7.2 today using the kit. Yesterday, a test strip read 6.8. Considering I am aggressively aerating the pool, that makes sense to me. BUT, My TA tested at 80 using the kit. The strip showed 240 yesterday. My hardness tested at 210. The strip yesterday; 400. WOW! That kind of difference makes me understand why so many of you in this forum dislike the strips. How can they be that far off? Needless to say, I'm never, ever, going to test with anything but a kit again.

What kit?

Taylor or Lamotte titration kits (drops) are OK. Some of the others -- not so much.

What you have to understand is that pool industry chemical sales DEPEND -- to the tune of $100,000,000's annually -- on inaccurate testing. And I mean that literally, not figuratively. If every pool owner had, and used, a K2006 appropriately, it would cost the pool chemical industry more than $500,000,000 each year. And again, I mean that literally; that is not an exaggerated number.

I'm not saying that everyone who contributes to bad testing is doing so maliciously, though some are. What I am saying is that accurate and valid water testing would seriously hurt EVERY pool chemical company and EVERY swimming pool dealer in the country. That kind of cuts down on their incentive to provide accurate testing, wouldn't you think?

When you add the fact that pool owners want, and ask for, easier testing methods, and the fact that they will spend money on 'cooler' test methods, like the expensive AND inaccurate electronic test strip readers, it's easy to see how the current situation developed.

NOBODY would prefer the K2006 to test strips IF the test strips were adequate. For a new pool owner, the K2006 is confusing and intimidating.

But, as Albert Einstein is reported to have said, we "try to make things as easy as possible . . . but no easier!".

The K2006 is not as easy as 90% of pool owners would like, but it IS as "easy as possible", given the need for relatively accurate testing.

I bought a HTH 6 test kit at Walmart. They did not have a K2006. I should have mentioned earlier that I have issues with my local pool stores. Both of them have always steered me to the highest price solutions to any problems I've had. For example, I used their acid reducer for the first few years of pool ownership, until one year, they were out of it. As I left the store, one of their techs caught me and told me to go to my local Ace to get a gallon of muriatic acid. I was so upset by this deception that now I only will go to them as a last resort. Anyway, I've used HTH products in the past with no problems, so I have faith this is also a good product. I'm guessing someone makes it for HTH.

I tested again this morning with the same results; PH at 7.2, TA of 80, hardness of 210. Bad news is my CA is almost 0. I added the recommended amount of stabilizer and will test that again tomorrow. My pool water is crystal clear, very cold, and has some very stubborn green and black algae clinging to the vinyl.

The HTH 6-way is made by Taylor, and is good enough for now. The TA, CH and CYA tests are the same as the K2006, though there's less reagent.

HTH is *NOT* a trustworthy brand.

15 years ago, it was more trustworthy than any of the BioLab brands (BioGuard, HydroTech, Pool Time, Aqua Chem, Omni, etc.) but it was not profitable enough, and Olin spun it off as an independent, Arch Chemical. Several years ago, Arch hired a former Sr VP from BioLab to be the Arch CEO, and Arch / HTH has gradually become JUST as deceptive and predatory as Biolab.

Fundamentally, there are NO pool chemical brands that are genuinely worthy of trust, but BioLab set the mark in using skilled marketing and high tech methods to sell baking soda ('sodium hydrogen carbonate' => alkalinity increaser) for $2 - 3 per pound MORE than the grocery store price.

What's worse, both BioLab and Arch/HTH sell chemicals you should never, or almost never, put in your pools.

That doesn't mean that everything made, or sold, by BioLab or Arch is a bad product or a bad deal: we often recommend the HTH 6-way, made by Taylor, since it's available locally, and the K2006 is not.

By CA do you mean chlorine or CYA? I think you meant the latter. If you meant chlorine is 0, get some in there! Don't retest your CYA for about a week to give it time to dissolve or else you may be wasting the reagents.

(By the way, the Taylor K2006 is not available locally anyplace that we have heard of. Has to be ordered online. )

Hi, Yes I did mean CYA. Wish I would have read this before I tested CYA again this morning. OOPs. Anyway, Now that I seem to have my chlorine, PH, TA, and hardness in line, I need to attack my algae problem. My problem is severe. All, and I mean all of the liner is covered with green, black and a yellowish green algae. It does not come off unless vigorously scrubbed. I've been running my pool cleaner as much as possible with barely any headway made. In the past if I've had issues, I've used fairly inexpensive algae guards, mostly HTH, with good results. Now after reading things on the forum along with comments on this thread, I don't want to go headlong into buying anything. Any suggestions?
BTW, thanks so much for the input thus far.

Your chlorine cannot "be inline" if you are fighting algae. (I'm not sure what level that means.) The way to kill algae is to shock your pool (based on your CYA level) and hold it at that high level until it is dead. Brush the pool frequently when the chlorine is high and run your pump 24/7, cleaning your filter as needed. Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below. It shows the correlation between CYA levels and needed chlorine levels.

Hi Watermom. I'm assuming that stabilizer levels in the chart and CYA are the same thing? My test kit gives me a chlorine level over 5 ppm. My CYA is probably still low as I only added stabilizer on Saturday. Does that mean my "free chlorine" is low and therefore my chlorine is ineffective?

stabilizer = "conditioner" (mostly in Calif) = cyanuric acid = isocyanuric acid = CYA = "CA" (some kit instructions => C.A., cyanuric acid) = etc.

Why have just one name for a chemical, when you can have a half dozen? ;)

Did you look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature above to understand the CYA (stabilizer) and chlorine connection?

Your kit only has the capacity to measure to a chlorine reading of 5ppm which means you can't really tell what your chlorine is when it reads 5ppm. This is one of the main reasons we want people to order the K2006 as it can measure chlorine levels way higher than that.

Assuming that your CYA is still low since it was just recently added, you need to get your chlorine level up to around 10-12 and try and hold it there in order to kill the algae. Since your kit won't read higher than 5, you kind of just have to judge based on the color. Take a look at the first post in the following thread. If you click on the link in that first post, it will give you a color matching to try and decipher what various OTO colors mean in terms of chlorine levels. (Your kit uses an OTO chlorine test.) Aim to keep yours in the very dark yellow/orange level.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...sults-by-color

Hi again, Yes, I did look over the chlorine chart, and it makes sense. I'm not sure I understand the difference between the two "shock" columns. Looks like I need to get out to buy some more shock. Did I read in another forum that some people use regular unscented chlorine bleach instead of paying for shock? I'm assuming you need to use more due to the smaller amt of active ingredients.
One question I have is about CYA levels is the relationship between CYA levels, total chlorine levels and free chlorine levels. When CYA levels are closer to "normal" is there less of a spread between total and free chlorine levels?
Also, how long does stabilizer levels take to rise after addition to the pool?

P.S. one more name for stabilizer - clarifier.

Stabilizer is NOT the same thing as a clarifier. Clarifiers cause smaller particles to clump together so they can be filtered out more easily, however, we seldom suggest using them. Stabilizer, or CYA, is kind of like sunscreen for your chlorine. Without enough in the water, your chlorine is quickly lost to the sun.

Regarding the two shock columns, you typically only need to shock as high as the first column unless you have a really resistant algae like maybe mustard algae. However, if you keep your chlorine at the proper levels, you never have to shock. Some pool stores will tell you that you need to shock weekly. That is not true. The only time you ever need to shock is if your chlorine levels drop too low or if you have a lot of organic debris in the pool. I seldom shock. I test my water almost daily and always maintain proper chemistry. When you do need to shock, you can just use bleach. We like to say that the word "shock" is a verb and not a pool product. You would just add a larger than normal dose of bleach to get to the shock level that you need based on the Best Guess chart. Make sense?

FC + CC = TC. Always. Regardless of what your CYA levels are, the equation is always constant. Ideally, you want your CC to be zero which means that your free chlorine and your total chlorine would be the same.

We may have already told you this but not sure. But, in your 25K gallon pool, each 121 oz. jug of 8.25% bleach will add about 3ppm of chlorine to your pool. Use that as a reference to help you figure out doses of bleach that you need to add to your pool.

Hope this is all helping you better understand taking care of your pool chemistry. :)

Where have you seen stabilizer called "clarifier" -- if someone in a pool store is calling it that, I'm pretty sure they are just confused.

The relationship between CYA and chlorine is more a constant fraction, rather than a constant PPM. That is, under ideal circumstances, if your chlorine ppm is 5% of your CYA ppm, everything's good. On the other end, sometimes killing mustard algae takes a chlorine ppm that's 25% or more of your CYA level. The relationships are not all mathematically linear, so that's not perfectly true. For example, a chlorine level of zero is not going to help, even if your CYA is zero.

But, it's approximately true.

Finally -- your pool doesn't care how the chlorine gets there: chlorine gas, bleach (sodium hypochlorite), dichlor (sodium dichloro-isocyanuriate) all work. But if you use store bleach, get the PLAIN store brand 8% bleach, and not the 'flavored' bleach that Clorox has been marketing.

Hi, I have some clarifier that mentions longer chlorine life as a benefit. I wrongly assumed the similar benefit made it the same as stabilizer. I didn't use it anyway, so no harm. My CYA still is low a week after adding stabilizer. I added 4 more lbs today, which, according to the chart is supposed to raise it about 10ppm. I guess only time will tell. I tested PH and chlorine this morning. PH was 7.2 and chlorine was 5 ppm. I'm going to give the stabilizer a couple of days to work before adding any more chlorine. We're supposed to stay cool and cloudy over the next few days, so I think waiting will be ok although I will test daily. When my CYA looks better, I'll deal with the algae problem.

If you stop adding chlorine, your algae will take over even more than it already is! You don't want that. You need to be adding chlorine daily up to shock levels! Don't stop and let the algae get even worse!

I'm so glad I read your posts about adding chlorine this morning. I was at 5 ppm this morning and added enough "shock" to bring it up to the shock level in Watermom's chart. (If my math was right I added 8 PPM with 2 gallons of 12% chlorine) The forecast was for mostly cloudy and cool so I thought I would not lose too much over the course of the day. As often happens, it was a gorgeous sunny day and most or all of what I added is gone. Using the color chart I'm somewhere between 6 and 9 ppm as of now. I added more immediately. The good news is I can see some progress with the algae.
I should probably have mentioned that last year, we had a terrible problem with scale after "topping off" our water level in spring with hard water. Our iron filter had clogged and I had to bypass it. I thought I could deal with the consequences in the pool in time, but suddenly found myself working 90 or so hrs a week. To make a long story short, we spent most of the summer working to soften and remove it. Some of that scale is still on the liner and is giving the algae a great place to root itself.
Lastly, I wish I had found this forum before I bought a large supply of shock. Our local Ace hardware always gives a good price on larger amounts in spring so I have always loaded up. It's a good price for "shock", but still more expensive than regular bleach.
Thanks so much for the help. You can bet I'll be referring back to the forum often.

Two years ago, We had a "gusher" of a leak in a return line and lost a lot of water quickly. To make a long story short, we bypassed our iron filter (which was failing at the time also) and water softener to refill the pool more quickly. I was not very vigilant at testing the water because I was spending more time digging down to and repairing the line. We have very hard water and the result of all this is our vinyl liner is about 70% covered in white scale. We tried a powder (I don't remember the name of it) that the pool dealer recommended to soften it. It barely touched it with the main benefit being my hardness decreased quickly. Of course the scale gives algae a great foothold and I'm fighting that right now also. Through my last thread I've managed to greatly improve my pool chemistry, but how do I deal with that much scale?

My test readings this morning using an HTH 6 way kit gave me these three readings.
Chlorine (using the color chart) 9 ppm
TA 110
PH 7.2
When I tested for hardness, the sample turned yellow after I put in the 5 drops of indicator and swirled it. I have no idea what that means. Last week it tested at 210. Is my water suddenly too soft? Is the kit defective?

Considering that we have algae clinging to the scale I added 2 gallons of 12.5% chlorine to raise the chlorine level. What should I do from here?
Thanks

+ Watch the Taylor videos, or at least the 2 calcium ones, and then retest:

http://pool9.net/tk-guide/
http://pool9.net/tk-interfere/

+ Order a K2006 -- you're gonna need it! http://pool9.net/tk/

+ Use bleach to keep your chlorine in the DARK yellow OTO range, till ALL traces of algae are gone.

Hi. Thanks for the links and advice. Thanks to this forum and the advice I've gotten, It seems I am on the right path. Keeping the chlorine in the dark yellow to orange area has been helpful. Brushing 1 - 2 times a day along with running our Dolphin has loosened some of the scale and along with it taken out algae with it. Here is my problem, While I fully intend to get a K2006 kit, some recent issues with other household problems have stretched our budget farther than we'd like. It's an expense that will have to wait. In the meantime, My HTH kit, while maybe not the most desirable, is still better than dip strips and will need to do for now. This takes me back to my question on the yellow color test result. Nothing in the HTH instruction guide deals with that result. Has anyone had this experience with the HTH kit? One thought that comes to mind is the high chlorine level. Could that mess with the test result?

Here's a rough color chart for high ranges with OTO: http://pool9.net/oto-chart/

As far as I know, I'm the only one who has advocated using OTO this way; certainly I've never seen a pool kit with color block for the high range.

I'll help where I can, but you have to understand: no matter what your budget is, your pool will NOT forgive you. And it will cost far, far more to clean up, than to avoid problems.

I'm sure you really want to swim. But you might consider replacing the cover on your pool -- leaving 1/8 exposed, to 'breathe' the gases that form when chlorine breaks down goo. Covering the pool with hurt the algae and GREATLY reduce the chlorine need to eradicate it. That's the only way I know to deal with your situation AND cut expenditures significantly.

You would be able to swim in the late evening, without increasing costs much IF you avoid lotion on the swimmers (chlorine demand) and pee (BIG chlorine demand). You could continue aeration that way, too. Just keep it covered when the sun is shining.

Best wishes.

I'd rather leave covering the pool as an absolute last resort. To keep my cover on means having the brass bolts raised. Too great a risk of someone stubbing a toe. I am making progress. Maybe not as fast as I'd like, but as I keep at it and follow your advice on chlorine, oh, etc, the algae is slowly going away. My biggest concern is the scale. I think my current course of action is helping, but getting the strange reading from the hardness test concerns me. I'm still curious what a yellow color result when the hardness indicator is used means with the HTH kit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beaverplt

Maybe not as fast as I'd like, but as I keep at it and follow your advice on chlorine, oh, etc, the algae is slowly going away.

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Then, you're losing.

You are wasting chlorine, wasting time, wasting effort, and wasting money.

Kill it quickly, as Watermom told you several days ago:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Watermom

If you stop adding chlorine, your algae will take over even more than it already is! You don't want that. You need to be adding chlorine daily up to shock levels! Don't stop and let the algae get even worse!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by beaverplt

My biggest concern is the scale.

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Maybe, but you can't deal with the scale, till the algae is gone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beaverplt

I'd rather leave covering the pool as an absolute last resort. To keep my cover on means having the brass bolts raised. Too great a risk of someone stubbing a toe.

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You raised the issue of the cost of dealing with the algae. If cost is not that much of an issue, leave the cover off. If it is, cover it.

I wasn't suggesting that you swim with the cover one. I was suggesting that you forgo swimming till you've solved your algae problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beaverplt

I'm still curious what a yellow color result when the hardness indicator is used means with the HTH kit.

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The HTH 6-way has a different hardness test then the K2006. Here are the instructions: http://pool9.net/hth-6way/

Losing? How? Since Watermom told me several days ago to keep adding chlorine, I have kept my chlorine level in the orange color range of the OTO chart that she sent me. I'm checking it twice a day. The lowest it's gotten is dark yellow. That has been over a week now. During that time my PH has stayed at 7.2 and my TA near 110 until tonight when they were 7.5 and 150. Is it possible that the algae is dead, but so intertwined with the scale that removing it requires a lot of brushing? The algae is no longer green, rather kind of an ochre/light brown color.
My HTH kit came with the same instructions you linked, so I have been following the correct procedure. The good news is when I tried it again tonight, it worked and I was able to get a hardness reading of 310. I wonder if the kit has a "floor" it won't give results below.
Another little bit of good news is I saved a good piece of change when a lawn tractor repair I needed to do cost me almost nothing other than my labor and some good luck. I immediately ordered a K2006. I'll have it Thursday. I'll keep testing with the HTH until then, but I'll share my new test results Thursday night.

OK. I hadn't understood that. I thought you were saying there was still green algae.

Brown algae is dead. And yes, when the calcium 'sand' is present, the algae will remain brown inside those nodules till it's bleached out by sun and/or chlorine.

There probably IS some live algae inside some of the bits, but if everything you can see is brown, then you can move own. So do this:

1. Use muriatic acid to lower your pH to just below 7.0. That is, add acid till you reach 7.0, and the add a bit more. Read http://pool9.net/muriatic/

2. Dose with chlorine nightly, to maintain chlorine levels above 5 in the AM.

3. Brush the scale after adding chlorine, if you can. Don't brush hard, just enough to knock loose what's already coming loose.

4. Complete the pool chart: http://pool9.net/pf-chart/ so we can see what sort of pool you have.

5. Increase aeration by adjusting the return eyeballs to 'riffle' the surface.

OK. I hadn't understood that. I thought you were saying there was still green algae. My fault, I should have mentioned the color earlier

Brown algae is dead. And yes, when the calcium 'sand' is present, the algae will remain brown inside those nodules till it's bleached out by sun and/or chlorine.

There probably IS some live algae inside some of the bits, but if everything you can see is brown, then you can move own. So do this:

1. Use muriatic acid to lower your pH to just below 7.0. That is, add acid till you reach 7.0, and the add a bit more. Read http://pool9.net/muriatic/
I added a half gallon just now. I'll check PH before bedtime to see if more is needed.

2. Dose with chlorine nightly, to maintain chlorine levels above 5 in the AM. I'm at dark yellow or about 13 ppm on the oto chart right now. I was in the orange range this morning and most of the day was cloudy. It seems I lost more chlorine today than I have over the past 3 days. Is that due to the higher PH?

3. Brush the scale after adding chlorine, if you can. Don't brush hard, just enough to knock loose what's already coming loose. Easy enough, between my wife and I we've been brushing twice daily plus running our cleaner almost all day.

4. Complete the pool chart: http://pool9.net/pf-chart/ so we can see what sort of pool you have. Stupid of me, should have done that when I joined.

5. Increase aeration by adjusting the return eyeballs to 'riffle' the surface. My eyeballs that are in my steps are a good 6-8 inches below the surface. I aimed them as high as I can. I can see minor riffling when I do. My other return riffles the surface nicely when turned slightly up Question; doesn't aeration increase PH? Am I negating some of the effects of adding muriatic acid?

One more thing. I had almost forgotten that we are going out of town this weekend to celebrate our son's birthday. That means two days without attention. I don't want to lose ground. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.

Aeration strips carbon dioxide, which raises pH. But aeration LOWERS 'carbonics' => carbon dioxide + carbonic acid + bicarbonate + carbonates.

Essentially, alkalinity is that fraction of the 'carbonics' that is present as bicarbonates or carbonates. You can't easily remove those. BUT if you lower the pH, you shift some of the bicarbonates and carbonates into the form of carbonic acid + carbon dioxide.

In your case, reducing the alkalinity enable your pool water to begin dissolving the scale. But that, in turn, replenishes the alkalinity, and increases the calcium.

Since you're leaving for a few days, I'd re-orient the eyeballs to reduce aeration, let the pH drift up to a stable plateau, raise the chlorine level -- and then restart the process once you return.

Brushing 2x per day probably doesn't hurt anything, but it probably doesn't help that much, either. Once a day, or even once every 2 days is probably enough. It's unlikely the dissolution process is moving fast enough to warrant a 2x per day brushing.

Losing chlorine could be a result of dissolving some of the algae capsules, and exposing oxidizable algae to the chlorine.

I'll look at your chart data, and update your pool sig. info.

Just checked -- there is no chart entry for "beaverplt", nor any entry associated with this thread (24064)

I received my new kit today. Here are the numbers I got
FC 7.6
CC .8
TA 150
CH 250
CYA 42

Weekend prep is done. I'll add chlorine tomorrow to raise levels to last through the weekend. I may not make any progress on the scale, but I don't want to give any algae a chance to come back.

Use this chart to enter your test results; go ahead and retest today and complete the chart. I entered the results above.

http://pool9.net/pf-hist-form/

You can see the results here:

http://pool9.net/pf-hist-chart/

Also, if you haven't yet done so, please complete the pool chart data, here:http://pool9.net/pf-chart/


Enter the thread number (24064) as needed:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/24064-Dealing-with-scale-problem

I merged your threads -- they are separate problems, and we've been wasting time giving you the same advice in two threads.

Thanks for merging the threads I had been hopping back and forth to re-read both.

Back from my weekend away. I had not been home since I read your last post. I tested the water and entered the results on the form you linked. I was pleased to see the pool is very clear. I also cleaned the filter bag on my Dolphin as I usually do before running it and was very pleased to see handfuls of scale from the last cycle. I seem to be making progress. I believe the correct next step is to lower PH to 7.0 again, reorient the eyeballs to riffle the surface again. I'll continue with your program for the next week or so and continue posting results on the chart.

Thanks!