Opening swampy pool, high PH

[aylad]

I would wait on the alk--get the pool cleared up first, and then the rest of your numbers can be adjusted later. If you try to adjust the alk now, it's just going to move again every time you add dichlor. It's not going to hurt the pool for the TA to stay where it is, so just worry about that later.

Janet

[River Gronkowitz]

So just to double check... for now, I should just continue to keep my chlorine level around 10 and keep a check on the PH, (which has been holding steady at 7.5 the past few days) until it gets cleared up. Anything else I should be doing for the time being?
Thanks again everyone!

[Watermom]

Run the pump 24/7 while you are working to clear the pool and watch the filter pressure. When you get an 8-10psi rise over clean filter pressure, it is time to backwash. Also, as you said, maintain the chlorine level and pH levels that you mentioned above. How does the water look? Once you get to the point where the water looks clear, and you can go from sundown one day to within two hours of sunrise the next morning without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine and your CC reading is no greater than 0.5, then I'd hold the chlorine high for one additional day for added insurance and then you can let your chlorine drift back down and maintain it per the Best Guess Chlorine Chart below. How much dichlor have you used thus far? At some point, you'll want to test your CYA again to see where you are with that. A CYA level of 40-50 is good for most pools. Since this a large volume pool, for convenience sake, I'd use the dichlor for maintenance doses of chlorine even after it is cleared up until your CYA is up. Then, you'll need to switch to either bleach or liquid pool store chlorine so your CYA won't get too high.

[River Gronkowitz]

Got the filter running 24/7. Have had to backwash once daily since I started, but checked it this afternoon and the pressure gauge isn't working at all. Gonna pick one up at the pool store tomorrow morning and get that squared away.

As far as the water goes, first thing in the morning, it's a light blue color, can even see the bottom in the shallow end enough to faintly see the design of the liner. Can't see the bottom at all in the deep end, but I am starting to see a lot farther down the sides than I was when I started. It's still fairly cloudy though. Also, as soon as I start brushing the bottom, it clouds up and even greens back up a little. At first when I would brush it, thick 'clouds' of really dark green would come up to the top, now the 'clouds' are a dusty white looking color. After a couple of hours, the stuff settles back down and looks like gritty, dark yellow/greenish sand on the steps. Dead algae or pollen maybe?

I've added somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 lbs of dichlor so far. I last tested the CYA a couple of days ago, but my test kit only measures levels of 30 and above, and I could still make out the black dot at the bottom a little at the 30 mark.
I think once I get everything cleared up and my CYA level where it should be, I think I'd like to use the bleach to maintain my levels.

[aylad]

Using bleach to maintain your chlorine level is what most of us do--it's easy, relatively cheap, and doesn't add anything to your pool that you don't want it to.

Keep your filter running--the chlorine killed the algae, but it's the filter that will remove the dead algae that's causing the cloudiness. Hang in there!!

Janet

[River Gronkowitz]

Thanks Janet!

Just an update on my numbers this morning:

FC 2
CC 2
pH 7.2
TA 50
CYA right between 30 and 40

I also went ahead and added 3lbs of dichlor to bring the FC back up after checking.

[aylad]

You might want to go ahead and stock up on some bleach to finish the job--you're soon going to be at the 40-50 ppm of CYA that we recommend, and at that poing you'll need to switch to something other than the dichlor. As Watermom posted earlier in this thread, each gallon of bleach should add about 2.2 ppm of chlorine to your pool, so keep that in mind when trying to figure out how much you'll need to buy....

Janet