Green pool now blue after shock, what now?

[kluczenk]

Thanks so much again Janet. So based on your response it sounds like there is no way to chemically alter the pool to reduce the stabilizer and keep my required FC levels at a reasonable amount. My only solution would be to drain and refill part of the pool? Is that accurate? What about rainwater and evaporation over time, will that slowly reduce the stabilizer levels?

I'll stop with the calcium-based chlorine treatment and switch over to plain bleach. The water here is hard and if that was used to fill the pool originally there is probably quite a bit of hardness.

What about the alkalinity being so high? Is that a major problem and what can I do to resolve it?

Hopefully I can keep learning a nugget or two of info from each post till I'm self sufficient. As knowledge is power I'll start with getting accurate readings of the chemicals.

[aylad]

There are only two ways to drop the stabilizer level--one is to turn it into a green, swampy mess and let the bacteria consume it (I'm guessing you don't want to go that route! ) and the other is to drain and refill water. The only other thing you can do is to up your minimum chlorine to compensate for the CYA being so high. If your CYA is truly at 100, then it just means that when you shock, you go to 25 ppm and that you never let your chlorine come down below 8 at any time. However, usually when CYA measures at 100, then it's usually over, sometimes by 2 or 3 times. In that case, there's not really a way to measure how high your chlorine has to be, so you're going to end up fighting the algae all summer. Over time, splashout and refill will help lower it, but very, very slowly. Evaporation doesn't help--as the water evaporates, it just concentrates the CYA in the water and dilutes it again when you add new water.

Your alkalinity is high, and can create scaling conditions when your calcium is high, as well. The process to ratchet the alk down without completely throwing off your pH is outlined in the "alkalinity and calcium" forum. It's titled "how to lower your alkalinity" and is stickied at the top of the forum.

Take some time and read through the forums, especially the stickied ones written by the mods and Pooldoc, the owner of this site. There's a whole lot of information around here, and at first it can seem overwhelming, but caring for your pool is so much easier and less expensive than people think it is--WHEN you understand the effects on your pool of the things that you put in it.

Janet

[kluczenk]

Sounds good, I'll start reading around a bit more on the stickied items. One other question as I think I at least have a direction for the time being. Now that the water is a bluish color but still seems cloudy what can I do to get things back to a clear/blue rather than a milky/blue? I'll continue running the filter and keep the chlorine high by adding plain bleach. I have some water softener/mineral additive, should I add that?

[aylad]

No additives, just good filtration and adequate chlorine levels. It takes longer than a day to develop the kind of algae bloom that you had (and I'm not convinced you've completely killed it yet--cloudy water is often THE early announcement of an algae problem) and it's going to take longer than a day to clear it up. Bump the chlorine up to 25 ppm and hold it there as I described in the other post, and keep the filter clean and running. Oh--there IS one more additive that we do recommend very often--POPP (pool owner patience and persistence). That one is usually the key to everything!!

Janet

[kluczenk]

Many thanks. I'll go get some store-bought bleach to keep the chlorine level high and throw in a little POPP for good measure! On a related note I've purchased the Taylor self-test kit. I'm hoping with a little TLC from Poolforum I won't feel like moving out of this house because of my costly pool. I'll keep you posted on progress.

[aylad]

Buying your own test kit will make taking control of your pool SO much easier!!!

Let us know how it's going....

Janet

[kluczenk]

Test kit came and I did my first set of tests! Unfortunately the pool is getting green/cloudy again. I don't want to add any more shock and increase the stabilizer any further but have no idea how much bleach to be adding. I posted in the water treatment/balancing section of the site with the following data:

FC=0
pH=7.6
TA=200
CH=325
CYA=70
Water Balance=.575

I've added a bit of bleach since last week but clearly not enough. How much do I need to be adding to my 33,000 gallon pool to keep it high enough for the stabilizer? You can reply here or my post in the other section.