Opening swampy pool, high PH

[River Gronkowitz]

Just bought a house and according to the previous owner, this would be the first time in over two years the pool will be cleaned. It's an 18 x 36ft inground pool with a vinyl liner and sand filter. I've tested the PH and it's 8.2 or possibly higher. If I understand correctly, the PH should be brought up to 7.5 before adding any chlorine to begin killing the algae, but in my situation, should I lower it before I begin?
Also, the alkalinity is 60 and everything else (chlorine, cya, etc.) is pretty much 0.
Thanks,
River

[PoolDoc]

First thing is to physically remove everything you can from the bottom. You need something like this, which looks to be a Chinese knock off of a Nycon (pro-grade) leaf rake. (I'm looking for the Nycon website, but coming up dry -- I'll add it later)

Second, you need to get your pool circulating and filtering.

Third, you need to test it with a real test kit -- a locally bought OTO/phenol red kit is better than 'guess-strips'.

Once you've got all those things done, you can look at clean up. If the pH is above 8.2, it's not doing your liner much good. But, whatever damage is going to be done, probably has already occurred. However, once the pump is on, you probably should use muriatic acid (Home Depot, etc) to lower your pH to a reasonable value (<7.8). Check out this sticky, to learn how to use MA safely:http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?13111

That's probably enough for now -- let us know how things go, and what you find, and we can add next steps.

It's gonna take awhile -- getting in a hurry will not speed things up, and can lead to a huge and expen$ive mess.

[PoolDoc]

Here's the real deal, which is what I use locally: 19" Nycon leaf rake

But, I still can't find the actual name of the company, or their website. I thought it WAS "Nycon", but I haven't found it.

[ FOUND IT: http://www.nyconproducts.com ]

[River Gronkowitz]

Thanks for the help!
I picked up a leaf rake yesterday and got the junk off of the bottom, which was definitely a chore, lol.
Got the pump and filter up and running, and everything looks good there so far.

I also got a FAS-DPD kit and tested everything.

With the new kit, my readings are:
Chlorine - Free and total are both 0
PH - 7.8
TA - 70
Calcium Hardness - 20
CYA - 0

[Watermom]

What is your volume?

[River Gronkowitz]

I'm estimating about 26700

[Watermom]

You can either use bleach or dichlor. With such a large volume pool, it might be easier to use dichlor so you won't have to fool with so many empty bleach bottles. Dichlor will add chlorine and CYA at the same time. It will also drop your pH, so you'll need to watch it closely and add Borax. You do NOT want pH to drop below 7.0.

With no CYA, a shock level for your pool for now would be around 10ppm of chlorine. It will take approximately 4 lbs. of dichlor which you can add slowly to the skimmer while the pump is running. Make sure there is nothing else in your skimmer when you add it. When you buy dichlor, make sure it is only sodium dichloro-isocyanurate and not a mixture with other things such as copper, alum, etc. Sam's Club sells PoolBrand dichlor which doesn't have a bunch of other junk in it. Keep your pump running 24/7 and watch your filter pressure.

Test a couple times per day and each time add enough dichlor (or bleach) to get back to a chlorine level of around 10ppm. By the way, in your pool, each gallon (4 quarts) of plain unscented 6% household bleach will add about 2.2ppm of chlorine.
(For every 10ppm of chlorine that dichlor adds, it also adds 9ppm of CYA. So, you'll have to stop using it after awhile and swich to an unstabilized form of chlorine. But, for now, it would be a good choice for shocking since you have a large volume pool.)

[River Gronkowitz]

Thanks for the advice!

Got the dichlor yesterday evening and added 4 lbs. Brushed the sides and the bottom as much as I could, and within a few hours, the chlorine level was reading around 10. The water turned a sea green looking color.

Checked it this morning and the FC and CC were both around 3. The water is still the sea green color, but I can sorta see the bottom in the shallow end, enough to make out shadows of some of the trash I missed with the leaf rake. The top of the water was foamy, but I'm almost positive it's because the skimmer got full last night and air bubbles were coming out of the returns, and I haven't added anything besides the recommended amount of dichlor.

One other thing I noticed, the PH level stayed at 7.8, but the total alkalinity dropped to 50. Should I add anything to bring that back up now, or should I wait?

[PoolDoc]

The dichlor will drop the pH AFTER the free chlorine is used up. I wouldn't worry too much about the alkalinity. However, the pH will tend to drop too. Use borax, a box at a time, to keep the pH above 7.0. Add the borax SLOWLY to the skimmer, with the pump running. Here's what you're looking for:

[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