Helping neighbor with pool

[Watermom]

Good! Borax, borax, borax. Dose with Borax, wait 2 or 3 hours, retest, redose. Repeat. That pH needs to be brought up above 7.0 ASAP!!! It is acidic if it is lower than 7.0 and can damage the pool! That is the most critical issue with this pool.

You are a good neighbor to help them with their pool!

[jilted]

Well you guys helped me start learning last year (thanks!) and mine was much easier to get balanced so I am doing this as a nice neighbor but also because I like learning new things and this one is more of a challenge than mine was.

-stephen

[jilted]

Good morning!

Is this possible? The water is still clear but is starting to have a slight green tint to it. FC is high, was slightly orange this morning so I added 2 more jugs of bleach. Tonight will mark a week since we started attacking the pool. I can't lose it now! :-)

After adding 3 boxes of Borax last night and testing this morning, I THINK it MAYBE just MAYBE is slightly starting to get closer to the 6.8 pH level (the lowest window on the test kit). Added 2 more boxes of Borax after testing this morning. I will go run the Taylor tests in a few hours.

[jilted]

Water is still trying to turn green! FAST!

Ran the Taylor tests

FC is 18 right now
CC is 0
ph is still low
base demand:
15 drops to get to ph of 7
20 drops to get to ph of 7.2
15 drops to get to ph of 7.6
ALK: ~40ppm, last week it was unreadable
CYA is VERY HIGH actually AYLAD you were RIGHT! I didn't run the CYA test last week I just went with what they said that they have never added any stabilizer product. And also because they had just "shocked" it the day before and they had 0 FC. (I guess I may have learned a little lesson here! people may unintentionally lie, tests don't lie)

Did I read correctly in another thread, if CYA is high then FC need to be extremely high?

I am assuming this is a big issue since there is no chemical to reduce CYA.

Thanks,
-stephen

[Watermom]

What CYA reading did you get? If you got 100, then it could actually be much higher than 100 since the test can't differentiate levels past that. The chart you are referring to is the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below.

Is this pool on well water or city water?

[PoolDoc]

OK. Watermom asked me to take a look. Please do the following:

1. Add borax 3 boxes at time (slowly, in the skimmer, pump running).
2. You know your CYA is high, and you know you've got slime, so look at the Best Guess chart: you need 25ppm of chlorine! For a 36,000 gallon pool, that's 16 gallons. BUT, we've got to get that pH up first, so add ONLY 12 gallons for now.
3. Get a gallon of distilled water (must say "distilled", not spring, not Ozonated, not natural: "distilled"!) at Walmart in the water section.
4. Begin testing pH with 1/2 pool water and 1/2 distilled water. (With distilled water, the pH will still be about the same) High chlorine can create bogus phenol red results.
5. AND, retest the CYA, with 1/2 pool water and 1/2 distilled. In this case, multiple the result X2.
6. Let us know if the green color is CLOUDY green (algae) or CLEAR green (alkalinity or sometimes iron).
7. As SOON as you have a valid pH greater than 7.2, add 2 MORE boxes of borax, and then enough chlorine to get to 25 ppm.

Good luck!

[jilted]

Thanks. Yes on the CYA test the dot was gone well before the 100 mark. Since they are still not home from work I went ahead and added 9 gallons of bleach that I went and picked up. So until I can get those results do you suggest dilution at all? It needs vacuuming so they can waste vac some water and we can add some fresh if you think that will help.

So far the water is clear green but you can see a little build up on the surface.

Challenge accepted!