START UP: Keeping CL up

I am in day two of "start up".. Been dumping the bleach in.. Have had CL up to near 20ppm,.. but can't seem to leep it there. I understand it's going to go up and down.. but is 18ppm down to 3ppm overnight reasonable?

While the ppm was down this morning.. I checked the PH.. it's about 7.8. I can't check stabalizer.. I ran out of R-0013. I would guess its not too high.. I have never had high stabalizer counts.. and usually each sprng its low. I do a lot of back washing, etc

The water color has turned from a med/dark green to chalky white after 24 hrs.

should I be overly concerned about the drastic up and down CL readings? It seems in years past it wasn't this hard to keep the reading high while starting up.

At that high of a FC level your pH measurements are likely off. The pH test loses some accuracy at FC >10 ppm.

How does your test for CC come out? With an FC drop of 3 ppm over night and milky water you likely still have algae not yet all killed. It sounds like you may have no stabilizer at all—unless you added some and didn't say in your post—which means the chlorine you're adding is being quickly consumed by the sun. In the absence of knowing the CYA level why did you select 20 ppm FC as your shock level?

My approach would be to keep the filter running 24/7, to brush the pool daily, to monitor FC level several times a day and add enough chlorine to maintain shock level appropriate to the amount of CYA in the water. This could mean adding bleach or LC several times during the day.

If you have a Leslie's nearby, call and see if they have either the R-0013 or a "Blue Devil" CYA test kit.

thanks for the information.

I checked the PH while the CL was down (3ppm).. so it should be accurate. I am sure there is still algae.. Just was surprised about such a huge drop in ppm overnight.

Not knowing stabalizer level.. I picked 15 - 20ppm as the "shock" level,.. thinking too high would be better than too low.

by the way.. just checked:

FC 6ppm
CC 1.5ppm
TC 7.5ppm

CC 1.5ppm means you've still got a ways to go. Having the water turn from yucky green to whitish means you're killing algae and have dead algae in there that needs filtered out. Continue shocking. You're doing the right things. As you know, the more times a day you test and re-dose with bleach to take it back up to shock level, the faster you're gonna get this under control. Run your pump 24/7 while you are fighting this, but keep a close eye on your filter pressure. If it increases by 8-10 psi over your clean filter pressure, backwash. Keep us posted!

Yes, at 3 ppm FC the pH reading was accurate.

1.5 ppm CC tells us that you have live organics (algae or bacteria). Keep chlorinating. You may not need to go to 20 ppm FC; 15 ppm might be a good level but you do need to keep it there as consistently as possible. It may take a few days of chlorinating until your FC holds over night. Certainly you should continue to filter and backwash/rinse as indicated by your pump pressure, and brush as often as you have time.

Do you use skimmer socks? They are useful in trapping dead algae before they reach the filter and reduce the need for backwashing somewhat.

Is yours a vinyl pool or concrete? You might consider putting your pool's specs in your signature block via the UserCP.

OK.. adding bleach.. and more bleach. and doing the other things.

I have read that if you have no (or very little) stabalizer... the bleach will go away too quickly and its almost impossible to keep it at shock level. Then I also read: don't worry about the stabalizer right now.

I am not sure (since I can't test right now) how much, if any .. stabalizer I have. I would guess none.

If you were me... would you add any now?.. or just keep feeding the pool bleach? So far I have used about 15 (or more) gallons in 24 hours.

Don't add stabilizer right now. Just keep hitting it with bleach. Better to get the pool clear first.

In your original post you said you guessed your stabilizer is low because you normally start the season with low CYA. Let's therefore say it's under 30 ppm, assuming you haven't used trichlor pucks or added any stabilizer compound.

Any chlorine you put in the water will be subject to degradation by UV light in the absence of stabilizer. It still works to kill algae but you'll need more chlorine because much of it is being consumed by sunlight before it can do its job.

If it were my pool I would take a sample to the pool store and have them test for CYA. I would buy a small bucket of stabilizer and add one half the amount needed to get to the CYA level I like to maintain. Use the Pool Calculator at http://www.poolcalculator.com/ to figure out how much you need. I would also get some R-0013 or, as I said earlier, a CYA test so I can keep tracking those numbers. Leslie's sells a product called Blue Devil, a CYA testing kit.

You can clear up your pool without stabilizer but it'll take more bleach and more time without stabilizer in the water.

ETA: I had tried to post this earlier but the forum was down. Watermom's approach and mine differ slightly; choose whichever feels right to you. In any case, make an effort to get a refill for your CYA test. I bought a pint from www.amantoind.com which will last me a couple of seasons. Unless you have a pool store nearby and trust their testing you cannot get by without knowing your CYA level.

Chuck, while you are doing this, go on-line and order yourself an FAS-DPD test kit. Poconos left a reference to a really inexpensive one somewhere, but you can go to TaylorTechnology.com and buy their K-2006 or K-2006C kit. Or you can go to Leslie's on-line and buy their FAS-DPD Service Test Kit. You'll have it before you finish fighting algae and be able to test your FC, CC, and CYA without a pool store's help.

Meanwhile, while AnnaK is right that you need stabilizer, right now you need to kill your algae first and you are probably adding chlorine 3x/day to do it. Once it's dead, you can go about getting everything right. Since you should be backwashing every day, you'll wash most of the CYA right out.

However, it's not going to louse you up if you decide to go AnnaK's way and add stabilizer now. But do it by hanging it in a sock or stocking, so you get it distributed best.

That dang stabilizer!

Because you're doing a lot of backwash/rinse cycles when you're cleaning up a green swamp, and have to add water to make up for what you lose with the backwash/rinse, you dilute what stabilizer you may have added. That's what prompts the recommendation to deal with the algae first and worry about stabilizer later.

Another issue is the slow rate of dissolution. Some stabilizer, especially the granular stuff, can take a long time to dissolve. When it's put directly into the skimmer basket—which a lot of people do on the pool store's advice—it will get sucked into the filter and sit there for a few days before it dissolves. Well . . . if you're backwashing frequently, it gets washed away.

Hence the suggestion to put it inside an old sock and place that in the skimmer basket, or suspend it in front of a return in the water. The stabilizer I have is flakes and dissolves within just a few hours, or can be pre-dissolved and then poured into the skimmer.

The important part though is the dilution of CYA as a result of backwash/rinse/refill. So, it's probably best to just not add it until the shock process is finished.

An inexpensive Taylor K-2006 is here:

http://www.amatoind.com/taylor-k2006-test-p-555.html

I found good prices on Taylor kits on ebay if you want to save a few bucks.

thanks folks,.. for all the comments and good advice. I have a pretty nice test kit.. it's a TFTestkits TF-100.. I just ran out of R-0013. I continued to add bleach and keep the Chlorine level up through yesterday. Received my R-0013 a day or two ago.. and my CYA was pretty much nonexistant.. thats the reason for the "battle of the bleach"..

anyway: been bleaching, brushing and backwashing,.. pretty much all week.

As far as stabalizer.. I had a few chlorine pucks left over.. and tossed them in the skimmer basket, early in the week.. just because. Wednesday I bought 4 pounds of stabalizer crystals.. put about 2 pounds in a sock,.. stuck down in and old "duckie" floating thing I used to use for the pucks.. and left it in the pool.

today:
FC: 10ppm (and coming down)
CC: 0
PH: 7.8
CYA: still only a trace reading.

I may have to re-think the stabalizer in the sock,.. in the duckie. It might slow the disolving process.. since it's just floating around.

Probably better to hang it in the sock in front of a return jet. I think it will dissolve faster with the constant stream of water going at it than having it just floating around the pool.

Or to put the sock in the skimmer, but make sure your pump has alternate places to get flow so that the skimmer doesn't get clogged (my skimmer has an alternate port going into the pool, plus I also have floor drains).