Looks like green food coloring in my pool

[sbillingsley]

No m'am I dont fill it from a well.

[Watermom]

Glad to hear you don't fill from a well. Go ahead and shock your pool. With a CYA of 60, you'll need to shock the pool up to about 20ppm and try and hold it there. Test 2 or 3 times per day and each time, add enough bleach to get the chlorine level back up to 20. Since you basically have no chlorine in the pool at this time, (unless you have added some since those numbers were posted), go ahead and add 5.5 gallons of plain 6% household bleach. That should take you up to around 20ppm. (For reference to help you figure out how much to add each time you test, each quart will add about 1ppm of chlorine to your pool.) Run the pump 24/7 while you are trying to clear the pool. Continue with the sustained high cl reading until the water clears and you can go from sundown one day til within 2 hours of sunup the next day without losing more than 1ppm of cl. At that point, I'd sustain the high cl for one more day for added insurance and then you can let it drift down but always keep it between 5-10ppm. Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below for my info about that. I would suggest only using bleach for your source of chlorine. You don't want to use any more trichlor tabs or any dichlor powdered shock because both of them contain stabilizer (CYA0 and your level is already high.

Like drband said above, you really need to get a good kit. Especially since you are going to have to run chlorine levels between 5-10 and other kits won't measure readings that high. The one we recommend is the Taylor K-2006 or 2006C (same kit, larger bottle of some reagents). If you buy it through the Amazon link in my signature, the Pool Forum makes a little money on the sale which helps us keep this form online. Only buy if the seller is Amato Industries, however. Some other sellers are substituting the K-2005 which you do NOT want. If Amato isn't listed, wait a day or two and try again. They seem to restock pretty quickly when they sell out.


Until you get one, go to Walmart and pick up a cheap OTO/Phenol Red kit (yellow and red drops) and use that to test the water yourself. If you have a choice between one that reads chlorine to 3 or 5, choose 5. Also get a jug of distilled water. You can force the kit to read higher by using a dilution method explained here: Testing Without a Good Kit

Run your pump 24/7 while you are trying to clear the water.

One last thing if you will. To make it easier for us to help, if people will create a signature line with their pool specs, it keeps us from having to reread through posts to find out basic information. You can create a signature by clicking on 'settings' in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage. In your sig, please put type of pool, volume, type of filter, size of pump, whether or not you have a SWCG or any water features and the fact that you do or do not have a K-2006. Thanks!

[drband]

Looks like Watermom gave you a good plan. Work it just like she said and you'll have clear water soon.
Good luck.

[sbillingsley]

I will order a kit today. I went straight down and added the bleach. Rereading this post I have a couple questions. Do you mean that after I have this cleaned up I should keep my chlorine levels 5-10ppm always? I thought that was too high a number for swimming? Any educated guess on how long this will take? I really, really appreciate all your help. Thank you.

[Watermom]

Good decision to order the kit. You won't be sorry.

Yes, after you clean this up, you'll need to keep your chlorine between 5-10ppm. Chlorine levels are based on CYA levels. Did you look at the Best Guess Chlorine chart? It is no more irritating to swim with cl of 10ppm and CYA of 60 than it is to swim in 3ppm cl and no CYA. If you don't keep the cl between 5-10, you're gonna have algae over and over.

And, you're welcome! We're glad to be able to help!