New Pool Owner bought a test kit

[Watermom]

Janet has pretty much covered the bases with you and given you the same advise the rest of us would have given. So, just wanted to say hello and welcome to the forum!

[DougM]

Would it be a bad call if I did close it improperly on purpose to let the CYA break down? Would the chlorine demand just be to clean up the algae bloom or are there other risks to consider? If this will lower the CYA how would one close improperly - just put the cover on without adding bleach?

Regarding the metals the last owner did a bunch to clear that up, but I haven't looked at that and I don't have the results around from my test but the last time the previous owner had it tested Copper, Iron, Manganese were all listed as "0" or "no" - since then I've added probably 4-5 inches back to the pool as well as drained some with some of the heavy rains we had here in July/August. Seeing as the house has an iron filter I'm guessing I added some iron to my pool.....

In looking at the tests from the previous owner....it's Interesting that CYA went from 35 to 65 to 88 from May 14th to June 14th (tested every 2 weeks)...also a note on this paper about phosphates being high....

[aylad]

Don't worry about the phosphates--that's a new, improved way for the pool store to separate you from your money. Ignore them. The CYA went up like that because of the use of trichlor pucks--they'll raise CYA in a hurry if you don't keep an eye on it, which is why they tend to get people into trouble.

If you have an iron filter before the pool, odds are you're removing most of it before it gets into the pool. However, once it gets into the pool, you can either add metal sequestrant, which keeps it into solution (but does not ever remove it from the pool), or you can run the water past a high chlorine source and intentionally precipitate the iron (copper, manganese, whatever) out onto a filter. Your call--I don't have much experience with metals but there are folks in the metals forum (specifically pooldoc and mbar) that do.

As far as letting the algae break down the CYA--I don't recomend that route, but again, it's your pool. The problem with that method is that the bacteria break the CYA down into ammonia and other byproducts. So when you open the pool, you're going to have to maintain your shock level for a long time to both clear up the algae bloom AND break down all the ammonia, and it can take LOTS and LOTS of chlorine to do so. I think you'd be better off just to chlorinate with bleach throughout the winter and just drain off as much water as you can as it rains or snows in your area, allowing the rain/snow to do your refill for you. The CYA will come down that way, and by the spring should be very manageable. You just may have to consider a different method of chlorination than trichlor for next summer!


Janet