Pool help, cloudy mess, no experience.

[Watermom]

Jan's advice is right on. If you follow it, you're going to have a clear pool in no time. I second her suggestion to buy that good test kit called a Taylor K-2006. You will be glad you did.

Welcome to the forum!

[daddyjmo]

I'm back with updates.... first I want to thank Janet and watermom for your help. I really appreciate it. I'm still working away at the pool but I have hit a few snags along the way.

I wanted to be able to post new sample readings for you guys but my local pool store (leslies) has decided to stop providing me with "free" water testing. Apparently the test they use only measures free chlorine up to 10ppm. They told me that since my reading was always seemingly at or above this level that it was pointless for them to keep testing. They did however offer to sell me some chlorine destabilizer (no worries, I didn't buy). They really didn't understand why I was purposely trying to keep my chlorine levels so high. I asked if they could just test the rest of the variables for me (pH, TA, CYA, etc) and they refused that too. Their reasoning there was that the high chlorine would distort the other readings and make them all inaccurate and useless.

Any ideas there? I had never heard anywhere before about the other tests being wrong with high chlorine levels... Is this just more pool store fairy tails?

So I officially have no way of knowing what my levels really are. I have some strips, which I know are useless but I'm basically making sure I put enough chlorine in to keep the FC color as dark red/purple as possible. I've looked a few other places for the cheapo test kits but haven't had any luck. I have ordered the Taylor K-2006 kit several days ago but it might be Monday or Tuesday before it comes :-(

I'm pretty sure that I've gotten all of the leaves and gunk up from the bottom of the pool using a combo of pole/net and the Polaris. It is still just as cloudy but my head tells me that the color may be improving (it looks less greenish/blueish/whitish/brownish and more whitish/blueish... But maybe that's just my hope blinding me from the truth).

New chemical question for you. I live in Florida, which I've just learned is important because it's one of the few places left that allows the purchase of liquid chlorine... I don't understand the chemistry and the math though... Is it usually cheaper to buy that as compared to bleach? The bleach I buy is 6% chlorine and the store sells 10%. if total volume cost less for the pool store liquid chlorine then I should be buying that instead of bleach correct? What about the powder? They say it's better cause it's 50-60% chlorine... But I've read that the powder applies only to 1,000ppm vs the liquid which applies to 10,000ppm... That's where I'm lost with the math and chemistry. What should I be buying? I understand it's called the BBB method, but perhaps that was coined in a state where you can't buy liquid chlorine? I just need some help understanding.

Thank you again!!

[aylad]

Man, I HATE it when I have almost the whole response typed out, then hit the wrong button and it all goes away!!!

Okay, here goes again...shorter version this time...

First, don't buy any "destabilizer", don't know what that is, but I do know that you don't need it. Second, high chlorine levels can cause falsely high pH results, but your beginning pH was fine, so we know it's okay unless you've added a bunch of acid. The other numbers were okay too, and shouldn't change much as a result of what you're doing, so let's concentrate on clearing up the pool and then you can tweak the other numbers later.

If Leslie's or WalMart has one of the cheapie drop-based kits that tests chlorine (even up to only 3 or 5 ppm), I can tell you how to dilute your sample so that you have a ballpark idea of your chlorine level until your good test kit comes in. Alternately, you can continue to use the test strips and just keep it as purple as you can--neither way is exact, but they'll both work until you get a good kit. Just a suggestion....it might help if you take a picture of the pool every day in the same sunlight, i.e. the same time of day, and look at them side by side. That will help you see that you really are making progress, even if it's slow!

About the liquid chlorine/bleach question.....

Basically, liquid chlorine is the same as bleach, just in a stronger concentration. It's the same chemical, but the bleach is typically either 5.25 or 6%, vs. the 10% in liquid chlorine form. However, we know that the higher concentrations are not as stable and tend to lose strength faster than lower concentrations. So the liquid may have been 10% or more when it got to the store, but if the store doesn't have a quick turnaround or stores it in a warm place, then it actually may be degraded by a good bit. So...whether it's better to buy liquid chlorine or not depends on the actual concentration and whether or not you have the ability to store and handle larger quantities of the chlorine. I'll do a search around the forum and see if I can link you to the post where CarlD, another mod, talks about measuring the actual strength from a sample. If it truly is 10%, though, and you can handle the quantity, then it's much cheaper usually to buy liquid chlorine over bleach. (I can't, unfortunately Louisiana isn't one of the states that can handle it). Regarding the powdered stuff, I would stay away from powder in your shoes. The reason is this: powdered chlorine is either dichlor (which breaks down into chlorine, water, and stabilizer--your stabilizer is already high enough and your pH is low enough that you don't need to use this) or calcium hypochlorite( which breaks down into chlorine and calcium) . Your calcium levels are already fairly high, and you would add more and possibly create milky water conditions if you used cal hypo for this job. This is why I need to know what kind of pool you have--vinyl liner, plaster, gunite, etc. so that I can better advise you when it's okay to use anything but bleach. So...you need to stick with either liquid chlorine or bleach for now (they break down into chlorine and salt water, no unneeded chemicals to worry about).

Hope this helps.....and stick with it, it will be worth it in the end!!

Janet

Edit: Here's the link to the post from Carl about testing strength of liquid chlorine.. I think restricted users can follow the link but if not, let me know and I'll copy/paste it for you.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...+concentration

[daddyjmo]

Hi again. That actually happened last time to me... Got about halfway through and bam, it was all gone!!!

I'm not 100% sure but I believe it's either plaster or concrete... Not vinyl. Afraid that's the best I can do. I hope it helps.

[Watermom]

Before clicking submit, especially if you have typed a lengthy post, do "control A" to highlight all the typed text and then "control C" to copy. That way, just in case the software does log you out, you won't lose your post. We have all had that happen to us at various times as well.

[aylad]

Before clicking submit, especially if you have typed a lengthy post, do "control A" to highlight all the typed text and then "control C" to copy. That way, just in case the software does log you out, you won't lose your post. We have all had that happen to us at various times as well.

Wish I could blame it on the software, but this time it was a random key that I hit as I was concluding the post. That's what happens when my fingers are moving faster than my brain---I HATE it when that happens!!

I'm happy to see that the software hasn't timed out on me since we went to this new server. Hoping that's not just coincidence...



Janet

[Watermom]

Hasn't timed out on me either, and no more parse errors!