Opened pool and problems...

[PoolDoc]

The behavior of your pool is consistent with what happens when bacteria 'eat' your stabilizer over the winter, and leave ammonia and urea behind as their 'poop'. It will be hard to tell for sure, till your K2006 arrives, but for now, if you ACT as if that's the problem, it won't hurt.

When you go to the pool store . . . do NOT buy all the stuff they will tell you to get. Do NOT worry about alkalinity, total hardness, or especially, TDS. Don't even worry about 'fixing' your stabilizer (CYA) level yet.

1) Stop the dichlor for now. Make sure your pump is running 24/7
2) Stop all OTHER additions of chemicals, especially algicides, clarifiers, 'boosters', enzymes . . . and everything else a poolstore might want to sell you.
3) Get a Walmart (Lowes, etc.) cheap yellow & red drops kit -- orthotolidine, turns yellow when chlorine is present -- and test your pool.
4) Buy 20 gallons of 6% plain household bleach
(wear dark glasses and a trench coat, if you want to avoid being recognized by the cashier ;-).
5) Buy 6 boxes of 20 mule team borax.
6) Test your pool with the yellow / red kit. If the pH is below 7.6, add 2 boxes of borax SLOWLY to a skimmer with the pump running and the skimmer basket in place. (If below 7.2, add 4 boxes)
7) Add 10 gallons of bleach after 6pm this evening. Test after 15 minutes
8) Test your pool around 8 pm, and again tomorrow AM
9) Report results.

If algae have 'eaten' your stabilizer, it could take a LOT of gallons of bleach to convert the ammonia to nitrogen gas. BTW, a gallon of bleach and a pound of dichlor add about the same amount of chlorine to your pool. 10 gal of bleach will add about 20 ppm of chlorine. 3 gallons / lbs is only about 6 ppm -- NOT enough.

Do not get impatient -- it will take awhile. Getting impatient and adding more 'goop' will actually SLOW things down, not speed them up. The mistake (letting the pool go green) has already been made; do not make another by trying to clear things up really quickly.

As we say here, you'll need a lot of P.O.P. to get this fixed, and if you won't use POP, you end up using lots more time and $$$.

Ben

P.O.P. = "Pool Owner Patience"

[chumpy36]

Ok, that all sounds reasonable... but if the problem is no stabilizer then shouldn't I add some? Or is it the fact we don't know for sure and adding at this point might be a bad idea?

I do have a taylor deluxe testing kit that has CL, PH, TA etc tests so I can test as you suggest... but a question... why do I want to raise the PH? Right now it's at 7.2 which I thought was where you wanted it?

I'm testing water today and I will do as you suggest above and will report back

thanks for the help

J

[CarlD]

No, don't worry about CYA (stabilizer) just yet. You have to kill the algae and metabolize the ammonia, and stabilizer just slows it down.
The Borax will also add borates to your water which helps inhibit algae growth, too.

You WILL need stabilizer, but that's to keep the sun's UV from breaking down the chlorine too quickly, and for a few other issues. For now? Not yet. You cannot go wrong following Ben's advice.

Carl

[chumpy36]

ok, got the water tested...

FAC 3.0
TAC 4.0
Calcium Hardness 190
CYA 25 (they say too low)
TA 200
PH 7.4
copper 0
iron 0
TDS 850
Phosphates 1000


One question about the Borax. It only came in one size box. It's fairly large. Is this the size box suggested above?

I'll do what is suggested and report back tomorrow.

Thanks!

J

[PoolDoc]

20 Mule Team Borax, 4# 12 oz -- that's the only size I've ever seen.

Add chlorine this PM, test, and test again in the AM.

No rush, but you will be needing at least a gallon of muriatic acid. (Lowes, Home Depot, etc.) Pick it up when it's convenient. I'd recommend you get a heavy garbage bag, and put the acid inside THAT when you carry it in your car.

[chumpy36]

I tested 15 minutes after application of the bleach and The chlorine reading was well off the scale of my test kit that ends at 5ppm.

At 10pm tonight, it had gone down to about 6ppm (a guess - maybe 7) based on the color.

Should I pour more bleach in? I have 10 more gallons. I've used 10

Thanks

Jason

[PoolDoc]

Just wait till tomorrow.

Ben

[cyclingbro]

I am not an expert, but liquid chlorine may help. After I started heating the pool I had chlorine loss and a cloudy algae build up. The liquid chlorine cleared it in minutes and returned it to normal levels. I used 2 gallons in a 25k pool. I did not start off as bad as your pool was though. Good luck.

C

[aylad]

I am not an expert, but liquid chlorine may help. After I started heating the pool I had chlorine loss and a cloudy algae build up. The liquid chlorine cleared it in minutes and returned it to normal levels. I used 2 gallons in a 25k pool. I did not start off as bad as your pool was though. Good luck.

C

just to clarify, this poster is using liquid chlorine........aka bleach. Both are sodium hypochlorite--the bleach is 6% strength, and the other is 12%. The 12% version is not available in all states.

Janet