Accepting the challenge

[Watermom]

Your most critical issue is low pH. You need to get it above 7.0 ASAP. Readings below 7.0 are acidic and can damage a pool! Keep adding boxes of Borax two at a time. Wait a couple hours, retest, redose.

Keep slamming it with bleach. You really need to know what the CYA is so you'll know if you are taking your chlorine high enough. Buy some distilled water and dilute a water sample (half pool water and half distilled water) and then test and multiply your result by 2. See if you can get a CYA reading that way.

If there is stuff that can be scooped out of the pool, do that. The less organic stuff in there the better and the faster you can get it cleared up. Run the pump 24/7 and clean the filter as needed.

[lstinthot]

Test results this morning:

CYA - 160 using 3 parts clean water 1 part pool water mixed in separate container results were 40ppm. Looks like the rain water has lowered the CYA a good bit from a month ago.
Ph - 7.0 to 7.2

Adding another box of borax and should be able to start adding bleach. Looks like about 11 gallons to get up to the 30 ppm range.

What kind of drop in Cl levels should I expect?


Thanks,

[aylad]

The drop in Cl levels will be pretty big at first while the worst of the mess is cleared up, but you should start seeing the drop decrease as the pool clears. With a CYA that high, I can't really tell you how far it will drop, but the more consistent you are about keeping it at or above shock level, the faster the mess will be cleared up.

[lstinthot]

Ph was high today. over 8.0. What is the general tendency for pool water Ph for a liner pool? Will we have to add acid to bring in back down regularly as we are maintaining high Cl levels?

This is day 2 of pump running. The first picture of section was taken about a month ago, however pump was not running during this time while they found the leak or reason it would not stay running. All that was done for the first month was direct rain water from the roof to start diluting out the CYA. You can see the gutter system in the picture.

Pool is starting to show progress, this picture was taken this morning and my wife said she was able to make out the bottom of the shallow end this evening.

FC last night was 32
FC this morning was 25
Added bleach to bring back up.

5.17.12 pool pic.JPG

[Watermom]

You can't test pH accurately when the chlorine is that high. You often will get a falsely high pH reading. Wait until the chlorine drops below 15ppm before trusting your pH reading.

[lstinthot]

I took the water into work and it read 7.9 with the equipment there. They do not use drop wise testing, is it possible to affect meter equipment?

[lstinthot]

Turning pool over to happier home owner. They were going online today to order their own test kit using the link provide on this web site. I will be a coach for them. Started showing them how easy it is to test water and talked about not putting any more stabilized shock or chlorine in the pool. The pool is making progress, still cannot see the bottom of the deepend. It has been at shock levels (25 to 35 ppm) for about a week. Vacuumed alot of sand out of the deep end today. Had home owner install a valve between pump and filter so we could slow the water down a bit. Filter is rated at 20 gpm per the side of the filter. Pump is 1 1/2 Hp pentair pump.

Will keep posted as pool clears with pictures. Just in case others want to see a really bad pool with high CYA cleared and what we had to go through.

[chem geek]

Since the CYA is still high, I would do a partial drain/refill and also try to remove as much physical debris as possible from the pool. Both steps will reduce the amount of junk that chlorine and the filter need to clear out.

[lstinthot]

We have been doing drain and refill for the last month by a 1 or 2 at a time. Using rain water and well water to replace water that has been removed. Decided we will maintain a high CYA pool until the levels drop due to splashing once the kids start swimming and keep lowering level before a storm. We have been vacuuming blindly each day. Can not see the bottom of deepend. Just vacuum until skimmer basket does not collect stuff anymore.

We did slow down the pump flow rate with a valve on its discharge. Will vacuum up today's sand mess and see how the lower flow rate does.