Need help getting my pool right for birthday party this saturday

Hello all, I joined a few months back and read alot of helpful info to get my pool up and going. Just wanted to stop in and say hello

I have a small 15ft wide intex pool with cartridge filter.I have a 5 way test kit by HTH. I have been able to keep my pool water nice and clean by using the hth 5 in1 or 6 in 1 bags I forget that part. Keeping chlorine tabs in my skimmer. Well I got sick and couldnt do any maintenance to the pool for a week. There was some algae at the bottom of one side of the pool. Also my water was a about 4 inches below normal. So I added more water, waited checked my Ph balance added baking soda. waited a couple hours then used a little shock to get he levels right. Next day the whole pool was green. So I put in some HTH algaecide. It started to clear up after a day. So I shocked it to help the process of killing the algae. Now I have a cloudy pool which I assume is dead algae. How can I get the pool clear by this saturday july 12th? Im having a birthday party for my kids and need help please.

Also, I think what caused the algae to get worse was when I added the water. Our county get water from a local lake. People have been complaining about the water because it smells and tastes funny. Yet they tell us it meets all safety standards and is safe to drink. They said it was due to whatever this is: geosmin and mib. Mib is an abbreviation for something. From what I read its either a compund or toxin from algae blooms in our water. There were so many complaints they installed something to add carbon or something to the water to neutralize these toxins or whatever. Anyways, the water still taste and smells bad. I just wonder if thats why the algae got bad really fast when it was very little the day before.
Thanks in advance for your help. Praying I dont have to drain the pool because of this.

(Note from moderator: Two posts waiting in the queue were combined.)

go to the store and buy some 8.25% Chlorox Concentrated liquid bleach. At Sams club it was about $12 for a box of three. Get about 4 boxes or 12 bottles. Then get 60% Algecide. one bottle will do but get two. It should say in the contents, "poly.........".

DON'T put it in yet! Brush the sides (at least twice) and the entire bottom. Backflush your filter until the glass is clean and then twice as long.
When it is dark, NOT BEFORE, put in the algecide, twice what is on the label. Wait 45 minutes. put in enough bleach to raise the level to 20ppm FREE chlorine.
In the morning you WILL have dead alge in the bottom of the pool but it will be brown. Sweep the pool to waste and add water as you are sweeping.
Brush again. Wait until dark again, repeat algicide and bleach but half as much. May need to brush again on Friday. A lot of work BUT....this works. Don't let anyone in the pool while you are doing this as the chlorine level will be too high.

Good Luck.

mrkim is giving you advice that is not what you'd usually get on this site.

Sadly, I can't give you a solution that I think will work in time for the weekend besides drain and refill.

If you do refill, please consider startting up with the Super Simple Recipie (http://pool9.net/ssr/).

The best tips I can give a new pool owner:
1) Order a Taylor K-2006 test kit. Not available in stores. Buy it through this page: http://pool9.net/tk/ and Pool Forum gets some coin to keep the lights on.
2) Read all you can here especially the stickied threads in the testing and chlorinating forums also read the guides at poolsolutions.com. Pay special attention to the Best Guess Chlorine Chart page as it describes the basis for the safe, efficient, and effective method of pool care taught here.

Note: as a trial user you'll have to log out to see the other parts of the forum so copy the URLs, log out, then paste 'em in your browser.

Good luck and welcome!
Let us know how it's going.

thanks for the reply. i took a water sample to the pool store knowing i was gonna get charged out the butt but its my last resort. their results were
free chlorine 6.2ppm
total chlorine 8.2ppm
combined chlorine 2.0ppm
ph 7.8
hardness 20ppm
alkalinity 177ppm
cyanuric acid 54ppm
copper 0
iron 0
nitrate 7ppm
phosphate 100 ppb
total dissolved solids 830 ppm

they recommended i use 1 lb of ph minus
wait an hour add 10 lbs of calcium
wait an hour and add 2 pounds of shock calcium hypochlorite . I've been using dichlor.

also they have my pool posted as 4,500 gallons i thought my 15 ft intex was 5500 gallons.
im pretty sure i went through this once last year and they sold.me the same stuff and it worked and i was able to keep other clean the rest of the year with dichlor, tablets and baking soda. they said it would be safe to swim in tomorrow. boy i hope so

You need to be able to test your own water. Order a Taylor K2006 or 2006C (better buy). Not available locally but you can get it through this link:> http://pool9.net/tk/

In the meantime, go to Walmart and see if they have the HTH 6-Way drops-based kit (no test strips!) and get that. If they don't, get an OTO/Phenol Red kit (yellow and red drops) instead. Use it to test and then post your numbers. Also while you are at WallyWorld, get several jugs of their generic 8.25% bleach and a gallon of distilled water. Test your numbers and see where they are today. You may need this chart to help you with the off the scale colors:> http://pool9.net/oto-chart/

Your chlorine levels are based on your CYA level. Having a CC reading of 2.0 is not good. Assuming that you do have around 50ppm for CYA, you need to shock your pool up to about 15ppm. More about the CYA/Chlorine connection here:> http://pool9.net/cl-cya/

I'd just use bleach instead of cal-hypo. In your pool, (I think more like 5000 gallons), each quart of 8.25% bleach will add about 4ppm or chlorine and each cup will add about 1ppm. You can use that as a reference for figuring out how much bleach to add.

How does your water look?

(Until you registration is completed, you won't be able to see the rest of the forum while you are logged in. So, copy that link and then paste it into a browser window after you log out.)

thanks for the reply. I have the walmart 6 way test kit. i only know how to check chlorine/bromine and ph. Im still trying to learn all this.
ive been busy all week and havent had time to learn this stuff like i need to. if i only hadnt added that water and just left it a few inches low. thats what started it all id be okay for the party and then i could have went through all of this after the party. oh well, whats done is done. now im having to get everything ready for the party and fight this pool at the same time.
when i get a few minutes im gonna read those links you sent me. in the meantime im gonna figure out how to use my 6 way test kit and get those number posted. the numbers i posted earlier from the pool store are what todays levels were about 3 hours ago.
thanks so much for you time

Did you add what they recommended or not?

Don't worry about the CH test. Your pool is soft-sided and doesn't need calcium. Calcium is only a problem in your pool if it is high, so don't even bother testing it anymore unless you use cal-hypo. Your total alk is a little high but not an issue. Don't worry about that this weekend either.

Just do chlorine, pH and CYA. The CYA test is the most subjective. I'm going to give you a link that shows how to use the K2006 kit but the CYA testing in this demo video works the same way as in your kit. So, go ahead and watch it and then test your CYA. (Have the sun behind your back when you do it. You want to not be able to see the black dot in the test at all. At that point is when you record the reading.) http://pool9.net/K2006-vid/

After you do the chlorine, pH and CYA, post your numbers. (We don't really trust pool store testing.)

i only added the 1 pound of ph minus.
i keep thinking my test kit is a 6 way and its not. it has 6 chemicals but is a 5 kokido 5 way test kit. it test chlorine/bromine/ ph/ acid demand and total alkalinity.

i tested chlorine/bromine, ph and total alkalinity
heres what it says to do and results i got.
fill chlorine bromine cell, add 5 drops OTO-50, match color and ecord as ppm
Results: chlorine 5ppm bromine 10 ppm

ph
fill ph cell to mark, add 5 drops of ph-red, invert and mix, match color and record as ppm
results, ph 7.5 ppm

total alkalinity
fill tube to 25mL add 2 drops of alk-10, add 5 drops of alk-20 water should turn green, then add alk-30 dropwise after each drop count and swirl to mix, until color changes to red. multiply drops of alk-30 by 10 and record as ppm
it took 17 drops of alk-30 x 10 would be 170 ppm total alkalinity. so i guess my kit doesnt do cya?
or is tha the acid test?

No, the acid test is not the same as the CYA test. You'll have to get a different kit to do that.

You can ignore the bromine column. You have a chlorine pool, not a bromine pool.

A pH at 7.5 is great.

On the chlorine, a reading of 5ppm on an OTO kit means 5 or higher. Use this chart to determine if your color matches 5 or how high.
http://pool9.net/oto-chart/

Then, report back on the chlorine reading. How does the water look?

according to that picture id say it looks like a 9ppm maybe 13 ppm. water is still cloudy. i suppose from.dead algae. i was using that little cheap vacuum with the bag to scrub and vacuum the liner. the bag came off and i can't see it.

If you see this post before you go to bed, test again, and add enough bleach to get it back up to dark yellow. Then let your pump run tonight. Check it again early in the morning.

. . . membership updated.

thanks for the upgrade.
watermom. thanks for all your help. i did get the message last night I checked the chlorine levels and it was still high (dark yellow) from the 2 bags of sodium hypochorlite i threw in one during the day and one when it got dark last night. i added some some bleach, this morning its still cloudy. then i checked levels again still dark yellow. i figured well noone wants to swim in a cloudy pool so I threw in a quart of bleach this morning its 1 o'clock still no change. after seeing it this morning i figured we would just **** it down.
i had already rented a big blow up slide, i went and bought a slip and slide so they could have some fin in the water.
my moms neighbor has an inground pool and he is pretty skille at treating his pool and he said he has been battling cloudy water everytime he adds fresh water from the hose pipe. many people on facebook in my county have the same complaints. i know the county is battling an algae bloom in our lake where our water comes from. they obviously werent prepared for something like this. they claimed they installed some kind of filter that adds powdered carbon to the water to rid it of the stuff thats causing this.. well its not working.
this pool is going to be taken down in the winter. my friend has a 24 ft pool thats similar to an intex except he added a sand pump. its only 1 year old and he said I could have it for free because his wife wants a better abover ground with metal sides. so in the mean time im gonna get to work this week and learn how you guys do it and get the proper test kit.
thanks again for all your help

You are welcome. Hope you have a fun party despite the pool not getting cleared up in time.

thanks, we had a great time. despite the pool being cloudy all the kids got in and had a great time. one of the parents was good at reading the chemical levels. he tested it and everything was in a safe level.
the blow up slide and the slip n slide and trampoline kept the kids busy. good food and us guys ended up playing cornhole (beanbag game) up until after 11 pm.

Amazing how when you come to the pool store with an algae problem and you have a vinyl pool, they INEVITABLY "recommend" (ie sell you) calcium--and then recommend using Cal-Hypo to chlorinate. Calcium is USELESS in a vinyl pool! And the Cal-hypo adds even MORE calcium that you don't need.

Now Cal-Hypo, used appropriately, is a fine product, and a good way to shock a pool that isn't already high in calcium. But it's irritating to us that pool stores CONSTANTLY push calcium to customers with algae problems when it cannot help at all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarlD

And the Cal-hypo adds even MORE calcium that you don't need.

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Usually, but not always. I've got a couple of threads going, where I've mentioned that cal hypo can be used to REDUCE calcium levels. But it involves that whole 'tweaked pH', upstream of the skimmer dosing thing that I've danced around for years -- because it can be dangerous if chemicals get mixed up.

If you just dump it in the pool, per the label, yes, it usually raises calcium levels. (I suspect, but haven't tested, that it will LOWER calcium levels somewhat if you cloud the heck out of the pool, then push the pH up a bit and filter or vacuum the cloud out.)