Fighting the Mean Green

[paigemetoo]

I think I have made some mistakes and need help.
My pool started to give me trouble last season. I followed every direction my local pool store gave me. hundreds of dollars later my problem was not fixed. The pool store abandoned me with a shrug of there shoulders and admitted to not knowing how to help me. I basically just gave up and covered my pool. I did not winterize it.
I found you a couple weeks ago and have started to shock my pool up to 15 ppm with 52% Calcium Hypochlorite. It is cloudy and a teal blue color now and i can see the bottom faintly in the shallow end...35 pounds of shock later.
I think I am messing up. I have no Cyanuric Acid at all. Is this what I should be doing? Should I be using the Calcium Hypochlorite or bleach? Should I add stabilizer?
Some other info:
ph is 8
alk is 100 ppm
cal hardness is 310 ppm
My pool is an in ground 22,000 gal, liner pool.
Thank you for any info you can give me...you are my last hope!!

[Watermom]

Well, the good news is that you found us and we can help you get this cleared up.

A couple of questions:
-- Do you have a good test kit? If not, you need one and the one we recommend is the Taylor K-2006 or the 2006C which you can order from Amazon from the link in my signature line. Well worth the money.
-- What kind of filter do you have?

I would suggest not using the cal-hypo. Your calcium hardness reading is already pretty high and vinyl pools do not need calcium. When the level gets too high it can cause cloudy water problems. For the time being, I'm going to suggest that you use something other than bleach --- dichlor shock powder -- for three reasons. One, it will be convenient to shock with and with a large volume pool that is green, it is going to take a lot of bleach bottles. Two, it will add stabilizer (cya) to your pool which you need. Three, it will help to lower your pH. You will not want to use it all summer, however, or else your cya level will get too high. Use it for awhile and monitor your pH and your cya level. I'd aim for around 35-40ppm of cya and then switch over to using bleach.

Test your pool a minimum of twice a day and 3 or more times per day is even better and each time, shock it back up to about 12 or so. The key to killing algae is to sustain the high cl reading without letting it yo-yo up and down. Also, run your pump 24/7 right now while you are working to clear this mess.

Read through many of the posts on the forum and also on our sister site, poolsolutions.com where there is lots of good info that you will benefit from. Keep us posted of your progress and come back with further questions. Stay out of the pool store!!!!!! (except to maybe buy some dichlor)

Welcome to the forum!

[aylad]

Watermom's given you excellent advice, I just wanted to add that our local WalMart sells dichlor, too, at about 1/2 the price that the pool store sells it for, so you don't even need to go to the pool store for that!

Janet

[paigemetoo]

I did buy the taylor kit as you suggested and that is what I used for the test results I posted.
My filter is a Hayward S244T sand filter. Last night I add DE, like a post I read on here suggested, to help catch some of the smaller particles.
I think another problem is I seem to have a lot of leaf matter on the bottom and am having a hard time getting it out because I cant see the bottom. I vacuumed to waste today and the pump basket clogged an I got frustrated and stopped after an hour. It is so cloudy I cant see what I am doing or I would use the skimmer to get the leaf matter out. Ok...now that I vented I think I can back on track
I will be going to wal mart as Janet (Thanks for not making me go back to the pool store!) suggested to get the right stuff.

Thank you so much for helping me!!
Paige

[madwil]

any solid matter (leaves, etc) that you can remove manually will help the overall process- but shocking will work to clear over time, regardless!
Recommend a leaf net, instead of vacuum, to try to catch stuff form bottom, if not to frustrating!

[paigemetoo]

Is it ok to add the dichlor through the skimmer/filter? I am afraid because the water temp is cold the stuff will not dissolve if I throw it in the water and I can not see the bottom to see if any accumulates. (I'm in PA and we have outside temps between 50 and 75 right now)
When should I test again for stabilizer? I have only needed to put 2 pounds of dichlor in today and I was wondering how much it takes to raise the stabilizer.
When do I add the Polyquat?

Thank you for you time and patience!
Paige