bbb convert

[85gtr]

hi everyone ,great site! the pool at our home has been a swamp for two years now,until I found this site.we have a 20x40 nground,vinyl liner,hayward sand filter.i have been shocking at orange with an oto kit for three days now,from 12 am to 8 am it falls back to dark yellow....it has cleared up a huge amount.i have brushed daily and vacummed 2 x .i now have very cloudy water so i cant c the bottom. i went to the dreaded pool store today and here are my results:fc 5.56,tc 6.22,cc.66,alk 129,ph 6.8,cya 14,copper 0,iron 0 which is unbelievable bcause we filled from 1 of the wells on our property.tds 1000....yikes.i did buy 5lbs of ph reducer being they did test my water electronically. i have added algaecide 2 weeks ago ,approx 120 oz. aquachem,and another 32 oz of aquabrite brand per the pool store.32 oz of floc.they tried to sell a ton of other stuff and i just walked per my BS filter.thats when i found this site and started bbb.i have since purchased an oto kit and only used bleach,a ton (65 gallons)seriously!i also have a sock with cya hanging by the skimmer.any and all help is greatly appreciated!almost forgot i added 8lbs of borax and 12 lbs of baking soda last week.i just checke water (7 pm est) and resding is at 5ppm (yellow).

[aylad]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!!

You can take the pH reducer back--your pH needs to be in the 7.0 - 7.8 range, so it does NOT need to be reduced. Don't worry about TDS--that's mostly just a scare tactic to get you to buy something to reduce it. Ignore it. I would stay away from any algaecide that they try to sell you, unless it's polyquat 60--and even then you really don't need it unless you have a metals problem, are closing the pool for winter, or have some other reason that you have to keep chlorine low. Any other algaecide will just foam up your pool and create more problems. Honestly, chlorine in proper levels is the only algaecide you need for regular use. Your alk is fine, you have CYA being added now, so it looks like you just need to let your filter do the work. As you're filtering, do you see your pressure rising? Don't backwash it until you see an 8-10 psi rise--but if your pressure isn't rising at all, you need to let us know that, too.

What size pump and filter do you have? Do yourself a HUGE favor and get your own drop-based test kit....we very highly recommend the K-2006 kit that can be found online at the link in my sig. Other than metals, it will test most everything you could need, and will keep you away from the pool store scare tactics!!

Looks like you're doing a great job so far, just stay the course and add a big dose of POPP--pool owner patience and persistence!!

[85gtr]

thanks aylad for the quick response.

my filter is a 300lb. hayward sand ,i will check the pump in a few and reply about that later .i changed the sand this weekend ,100 lb very coarse,almost like pea gravel and 200lb fine, pool specific.that was another 80 bucks ,dang i should have went into the pool bizz....lol.i have read here about adding a couple cups of de to help the sand filter out,is this a good idea?iwill get a better test kit maybe next week.ive spent alot and just cant do it right now.also should i keep on shocking at orange until it doesnt drop at nite?

I can see the second step now but the water is milkyblue,but at least its not green!!

[PoolDoc]

Please try to punctuate your posts, with periods (.) and spaces ( ) after your periods. Capitals would be nice, too. We're buried in new traffic and are reading similar posts for hours. Trying to make out what someone's typed in a hurry on a phone or an iGizmo is a PITE (pain in the eye).

(You'll also get more answers that way. People with tired eyes, who've had a long day tend to react with, "Hmm. Somebody else can answer that one!).

[aylad]

You really didn't need to change the sand, unless you've been through a Baq conversion or added something that gunked it up. The other three mods on this site have over 10 years on their sand apiece, and is still working fine. I've got 3 years on mine, but would be approaching 10 years had I not decided to try zeo.

You can use a cup of DE to help the sand filter. First you need to test and make sure the filter's not passing stuff through--take a couple of cupfuls of DE and add it through the skimmer, then watch the returns to make sure it doesn't blow back into the pool. If not, add enough DE to raise your pressure by 1 psi (that pressure change comes slowly, sometimes up to 30 minutes or so), and it will coat the sand, helping to pick up smaller particles.

You want to continue to hold your pool at shock level until you're no longer losing any chlorine overnight, but that's going to be hard to tell when you don't have the appropriate test for it, which is the best feature of the test kit I described above. It's good that there's no green left--make sure you brush the pool really well and don't have ANY green before you start letting the chlorine come down.

[PBLsQuad450]

The Taylor K2006 will be the best investment you make in your pool. trust me. It will not only save you a few grand over the next 2 or 3 years, it will be that one thing that finally liberates you and gives you the information you need to understand and manage your pool. That plus reading everything you can here and at pool solutions.

I have 30 years on 2 filters. I have never added or changed sand. The first filter, after 20 years was fine, it was replaced because the pool was moved/rebuilt in the wake major home (re) construction, including dramatic changes to the footprint.

Ben, I post on an iGizmo all the time. I make a few catastrophic auto-correct errors but using punctuation is a decision not a technology limitation. No snarky intended, I have writing issues, I teach graduate students as part of my job and the informal tendencies are shocking. The mantra I try to instill is, "never negatively predispose your reader," which is exactly the lesson you just posted! Thanks! I'd love to use your reply in class!

[PoolDoc]

Feel free, but my favorite version of that was Sheridan's "easy writing's vile hard reading".

I'd recalled that as being a quote of Johnson by Boswell, but when I tried to confirm it, I got pointed to Sheridan's "Clio's Protest", a poem that at first glance seems to have little to offer besides that quote. I know I never read that poem: I think I would have remembered such felicities as

"Shall he whose soul perspires with feeling,
Be interrupted by the spelling?
Or when enraptur'd, stop to hammer
Those raptures into dirty grammar?"

Of course, now I wonder, did Sheridan's peers say 'felling' for "feeling", or was it 'speeling' for "spelling"?

[aylad]

Umm Ben, I think you've had enough for the night.....

[PoolDoc]

Ahh-h. Are you sure? I know lots and lots about literature!

Wanna 'compare and contrast' TS Eliot's Wasteland and his Four Quartets??

In 4 words: Wasteland sux; Quartets rox!

In 77 words: TS Eliot's Wasteland exhibits the puerile intellectual braggadocio of a young man with far more knowledge than wisdom, in a text which two generations of ill-educated English teachers have exhibited with the voyeuristic glee of a barely post pubertal boy; the Quartets reveal the epistemological modesty of a mature thinker who has rejected the earlier nihilism of a foolish young man, but who struggles sincerely to reckon the actual cost of honest and meaningful speech.

I can do more, can I, can I? Please? (This is fun, and I'm kinda tired of pools, right now!)

[Watermom]

I can do more, can I, can I? Please? (This is fun, and I'm kinda tired of pools, right now!)

I think you might be getting a little 'slap-happy!'