help, do I need to drain my pool??

[alexstjo]

Hi,

I have a pebble tech 10K gallon pool. Located in southern california.

I took a water sample into a local pool supply and here are the results:

FAC: 3
TAC: 3
CYA: 100 they say that is high
TA: 120
PH: 7.4
TDS: 2250
PHO: 300

1) do I need to drain the pool and start over? This water is about 10 years old.
2) I us phosfree, used it on friday and now i see my pho level is high? should I be concerned?

I have green algea just added some poly.

thanks

[aylad]

Hi,

First off, the polyquat that you added is a great algae preventative, but is way less effective at killing algae than plain old chlorine. With a CYA of 100, you should be keeping your chlorine between 8-15 ppm at all times, and to shock it, you need to take it up to 25 ppm. Taking the chlorine up and maintaining it at shock level until the algae is gone is the key to getting rid of it. Then if you want to use the polyquat after the bloom is taken care of, as a preventative, you can do that--but your chlorine is still going to need to be maintained at least 8 ppm (AND you need to stop using any stabilized chlorine products--trichlor pucks, dichlor powdered shock, etc.). So...whether or not to drain the pool is a decision that only you can make--you can drain and replace some of the water to bring the CYA down, or you can just maintain higher chlorine levels and keep the CYA level that you have. (See the link in my sig to the "best guess chlorine chart" for more info). Personally, I run a high CYA pool on purpose, and just keep my chlorine levels higher to compensate.

I would stop using the phosphree altogether if I were you, unless you live next door to a field of some sort that has mega amounts of fertilizer being applied. Phosphate removers are generally unnecessary, and are just an added expense. Instead, use that money for bleach!!

[alexstjo]

OK. The biggest issue I have is that my chlorine levels are very low even after adding cholrine. It will not stay high for long. Also I have "trichlor" pucks in the pool. Why should I take them out?

I have trees all along the pool and they dump their leaves into the pool, so that is why I was told us to phosfree. Does that make sense?

help

[Watermom]

How much bleach at a time are you putting in the pool and how often? Trichlor is stabilized which means it has CYA in it. Yours is already high so you don't want to add more. Also, don't use any dichlor shock powder as it is also stabilized. The higher your CYA is, the higher your chlorine levels must be as described in the best guess chlorine chart that Jan referred you to. I'm with Jan in regards to the phosfree. I have lots of trees in my yard and have never used it. As long as you maintain proper water chemistry, you won't have problems.

Read through a lot of posts here on the forum and also at our sister site www.poolsolutions.com. You'll learn a lot about how easy pool maintenance can be.

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[alexstjo]

Thank you for your help thus far. How long do I need to keep the levels high?

[Watermom]

You need to keep the chlorine at shock level(per the Best Guess Chlorine chart) until you can go from sundown one evening until within two hours of sunrise the next day without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine overnight and you also have a CC (combined chlorine) reading no higher than 0.5ppm.

You really need to be able to do your own testing and not have to rely on a pool store. We recommend the Taylor K-2006 or the 2006C which is the same kit but with larger bottles of some of the reagents. You can order it through the Amazon link in my signature below but only order if the seller listed is Amato Industries. Some other sellers are substituting the K-2005 which you do not want.

[alexstjo]

I purchased the kit!

Thank you for your help!

[Watermom]

You're welcome! You'll love the kit. Let us know if you have more questions. The forum slows down a lot this time of year, but we're still around and will continue to be around if people need us.

[BigDave]

Congratulations on your purchase of the K-2006, I love mine.
Taylor has videos on thier website at http://www.taylortechnologies.com/pr...tNumber=K-2006 that show how each test is performed.
With your new kit, this forum, the Best Guess Chart, and some patientce, your pool will be sparkling and the envy of your neighbors.
Good Luck!

[alexstjo]

I got the pool running great now but have another question. Does Algae grow in cold water? My water is 55-65 now and wonder if I should still keep the FC levels up.

thanks