Are we doing it right?

[TTorreyson]

I am new to this forum and the BBB method and I tend to get lost reading all the threads, it is my new wiki.

I currently have a broken leg and am relying on my wife to manage the pool in it's entirety since I cannot go down the stairs and navigate to the pumps and filters with any sort of ease., so forgive me in advance if you ask for a test or have a question, I have to rely on my spouse to gather the information on my behalf.

1. We have algae, visibility is about 2 feet.

2. We test morning and evening with a cheap test while we wait for the Taylor Kit in Ben's signature block to arrive - BTW it is no longer Prime eligible from Amazon, so the best they can say is the 24th through the 31st.

3. We are using the dilution methods to obtain the FC level and are using our CYA level from a texts done by the pool store a little over a week ago.

4. We raised our
- FC to 20 yesterday at noon- by adding 5 x 96oz 6% bleach yesterday morning and added 1 in the evening - just to make sure. Is it normal to not see a change? I know shocking is a process and not a one time event - Just confirming.
FC held over night
- CYA was 60
- Ph was 7.8
- Alkalinity was 170 added a quart of Muriatic acid this morning

5. Back-washed once when PSI was at 30.

6. We sweep 2x daily and run the filter 24/7. Note the filter was running at 19, normally 20 so we added about a cup of DE to improve the efficiency and raise it back to 20psi.

Is there anything else we need to be doing or testing for? By reading through all the threads everything says, to kill the algae first by raising the the CL levels, then worry about the other stuff.

Travis

[aylad]

So far it looks like you're doing everything right, just need to add a dose of POPP (pool owner patience and persistence! ) Don't worry about alk at this point, just keep those chlorine levels up, and keep in mind that the more consistently you can hold a shock level, the faster it will clear. Also keep in mind that it didn't get this way overnight, and the solution will work--but it's not overnight either. so...hang in there, keep the chlorine up, and keep us posted on how it's going!

[TTorreyson]

Well, it has been 5 days and what a journey - The sand filter was dropping pressure off and on, and we kept adding a little bit of DE to stabilize, but it just kept happening. Finally, I just decided to call a pool service company since I myself could not get down there to check the pumps. The technician discovered that the o-ring on my filter pump was bad as well as the flapper on the Pentair pool main drain. He replaced both items on Thursday and everything went back to normal operating PSI - 20. As a side note, if you run your fingers around your o-ring and you get black on your fingers, go ahead and spend the $4.00 to replace it as well as save time and headaches.

We were/are pretty confident that all the algae was/is dead but with the irregular pressure nothing was being filtered out and we had out of town guests coming and staying with us for the Memorial day weekend. It is Austin, TX so 93 degrees and a dirty pool are not a good thing. So Thursday afternoon we added borax and let the filter run for 4 hours to raise our Ph to 8.2 Then we set to the filter to recirculate and added 8lb's of Floc and let it run for 6 hours and turned it off. The next afternoon the floc had done it's job, the pool had a white powder on the bottom and the water was clear. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to vacuum to waste all the powder but the pool looks awesome now. I can send before and after pictures if you like.

Additioanlly, We got our Taylor test kit on Friday, so it took about 7 days from order to delivery. If you are newto the BBB method like me, the kit can be intimidating when you first open it but I think we did it right. Here are our current levels:
FC: 5.4
CC: 0.4
Ph: 7.8
Alk 110
CYA: 100

Should I raise my Chlorine up a bit to the 7.0 to 8.0 mark because the CYA is so high? I also assume I should turn my in-line chlorinator off, because I my 3" puck's that are adding more CYA? The pucks are Trichloro-s-triazinetrione 99% and Other ingredients 1%.

I hope to not visit the pool store the rest of the summer if I can help it at all!

Thanks again for all of your help and advice!

Travis

[Watermom]

Should I raise my Chlorine up a bit to the 7.0 to 8.0 mark because the CYA is so high? I also assume I should turn my in-line chlorinator off, because I my 3" puck's that are adding more CYA? The pucks are Trichloro-s-triazinetrione 99% and Other ingredients 1%.

If you get a CYA reading of 100, it means it actually could be much higher than 100 since the test cannot differentiate past that level. Dilute a pool water sample with one part pool water and one part distilled water. Then, run the CYA test with this and multiply the result by 2 and see what you get. If you still get a reading of 100, then do 2 parts distilled to 1 pool water and then multiply by 3. This way we can get a better idea of what the CYA reading really is.

At any rate, keep the chlorine between 8-15 ALL the time. If you let it drop any lower, you risk an algae bloom. You are also right that you cannot use any more trichlor pucks nor dichlor shock powder to chlorinate with as they both will cause your CYA to continue to rise.

[PoolDoc]

As a side note, if you run your fingers around your o-ring and you get black on your fingers, go ahead and spend the $4.00 to replace it as well as save time and headaches.

That is CORRECT, and it applies to most black rubber parts. Also: don't swear off pool stores completely. They DO have things you may need, like pool parts.

You can continue to use trichlor for now -- it doesn't matter much whether your CYA goes up to 120 ppm, compared to 100. But, while you do, you probably also want to check on liquid chlorine availability and also calcium hypochlorite. You'll need a source of unstabilized chlorine, but with a pool your size, using 6% bleach means lugging a bunch of bottles.

And yes, you probably want to use 5 ppm as the absolute low, and try to stay between 5 - 10 ppm.

[aylad]

And...just a hint....when you're testing for chlorine, use the 10 mL sample size rather than the 25 mL. Each drop you add equates to 0.5 ppm, which is close enough for what you're doing, and will make your reagents last a LOT longer!

[TTorreyson]

Thank you all for the tips and this forum in general. One last question for this go round.

Our CYA seems to have gone a bit to around 80. Our pool is now crystal clear and has been that way for a couple days now but the FC keeps dropping overnight. Example, last night we added bleach (3 x 182oz jugs) which when we tested it raised it to 31 and went to bed, this morning we got up and it was 20. We only ran the filter for an hour or so to circulate the bleach, then turned it off.

Any idea? Or do we just need to keep adding bleach until the 1ppm loss in maintained over night for a couple of days? Could there be something else that is consuming the FC?

Travis

[Watermom]

You haven't added any Polyquat algaecide in the past day or so have you? If not, and you are still using that much chlorine overnight, then you need to continue to shock your pool until you don't lose more than 1ppm of chlorine overnight and you don't have more than 0.5ppm of CC.

Have you checked your CC?

[TTorreyson]

During the day today we dropped from 35 down to 20 - So assuming a 3 to 5ppm drop due to sun, we are dropping 10ppm every 12 hours. We have not added any polyquat at all and our CC was 1.0.

I think our best course of action is to continue to add Ch until it stabilizes. I just hope it is soon so we can swim and stop pouring gallons of bleach in a crystal clear pool.

[PoolDoc]

I am new to this forum and the BBB method and I tend to get lost reading all the threads

Me too, and it's my forum! I'm looking for ways to improve that. Meanwhile . . .

Losing chlorine during the day does not indicate a problem; losing it overnight does. But, you don't have to keep the chlorine so high, to break down the 'goo'. If you does to 15 ppm at night, you'll lose less the next day during the sunlight.

And . . . if you get the pH up (7.6 - 7.8) and the CC is not above 1.5 ppm, you might want to try swimming. Be cautions, because sometimes the CC's that form are skin irritants, so limit your exposure the first time or two.