New guy to the forum but always appreciate. . . . .

anyone with more knowledge on things than me. As far as pools go that would be pretty much anyone.

We had our pool installed in the NW Houston area in January of 2010.

It is a 15K gallon pool with a 2K gallon spa with a spillway. The spa has a blower and we have a 400K Hayward Pool Heater H Series M# H400FDN.

It is a chlorinated pool with an automatic chlorinator (Rainbow LifeGuard Model 320) which uses 3" pucks.

There is also an Eclipse2 Ozonator.

We have a waterfall on a separate pump.

We also have a Hayward Cartridge filter with three cartridges.

I also have an ePool floating which helps me with the chemicals. I also use Leslie's to verify the water every so often.

My question deals with a problem we had at the start of the season this year. We do not cover the pool in the winter, as a matter of fact if the winter is mild we will bring the heater on sometimes just to swim. This year I have a problem with a very dark green algae, not everywhere, but in a couple of corners. I have treated with "Green to Clean" and Chlrorine but these areas seem to be very stubborn.

In reading some of the other topics I feel I need to get my own test kit but don't know if we need them all or just a couple. Also, I think I need to go away from the pucks and go to liquid bleach if I read the other posts correctly.

There was an issue where they wanted me to add a lot of conditioner and Phos Free. My pool company said to put a water hose in the deep end and let the surface water overflow for about 12 hours.

Do you mind helping me out? I am wanting this pool to last for a long time and don't want to damage it by my ignorance.

Thanks,

Deacon

#1 - Get a cheap OTO / phenol red test kit locally, and report the results.
#2 - Turn off the ozonator, unless you need to lower alkalinity later.
#3 - Add 4 gallons of plain 6% bleach tonight.
#4 - Take the ePool out, and store it if you want to validate it later. (Probably, you should keep the probes wet.) Most likely it's completely unreliable and should be tossed. Electronic sensing for pH and chlorine is full of problems, and will mislead you.
#5 - Do not put in the pool store goop.
#6 - Order a Taylor K2006 or K2006C, using Amazon links below. (If the seller is not Amato Ind, wait a day. Some other sellers ship K2005's)
#7 - Repeat 4 gallon dose if evening chlorine level (OTO after 1 minute) is less than 3 ppm. If the OTO is dark yellow, put in 2 gallons. If it is orange, skip the dose.
#8 - No more Green to Clean (ammonia), algaecides, or other pool store goop.
#9 - Keep your pH between 7.0 and 8.0, but do not adjust anything else till you've posted Taylor testkit results.

Okay, get 2006c kit and don't trust the ePool. Get the OTO locally like from a Leslie's? Also, should I stop using the pucks? When should I use the Ozonator, when alkilinity is high or at some specified interval?

check: OTO fm Leslies
check: stop pucks (you may have very high CYA - can you get Leslies to test?)
check: stop ozonator (they are pretty useless, but some may aerate enough to strip alkalinity, which you *might* need to do later.)

Since you've clearly invested so much in your pool (sounds really enticing--I'll bring the beer--Brooklyn Lager :) ) the test kit is CHEAP insurance. You may want to get a Taylor/Leslies salt drop testing kit as well.

It's likely that Leslies OTO kit is the Taylor OTO kit re-badged. That's what it looks like on the website. If the bottles say "Taylor" and the yellow side goes to 5 chlorine 10 bromine, then it's the Taylor, IMHO the best simple OTO kit you can get.

Since you are running a SWCG, your CYA is supposed to be fairly high, in the 60-90ppm range--check your owner's manual for what they call for. Additionally, when it's all cleaned up, you'll want to run a fairly low Total Alkalinity--60-80ppm--see Ben's comment on that and the ozonator--He knows about them, but I don't.

Never use any algaecide but Polyquat (you can find out about Polyquat on PoolSolutions.com--our sister site).

Carl