Just chlorinating is NOT working.

[justlane4]

I have been dealing with green cloudy water for weeks now. In the past four days alone I have dumped twelve gallons of 6% bleach and five pounds of Trichlor "shock" with absolutely no effect. I'm getting pretty discouraged. I do not have the good test kit yet I am waiting on it so I don't know the levels. All I know is I have spent hundreds of dollars on bleach in the past month with absolutely no results. Please help!!!

[PoolDoc]

It's pretty common to waste a LOT of chemicals fighting algae. The bottom line is -- if you don't put enough in to kill it, you probably wasted everything you put in. Algae and slime doesn't actually eat chlorine, but it uses it up. Essentially, in any given 24 - 48 hr period, either the algae loses, or you lose all the chemicals you added!

Your pool has a PF of 9, and bleach is about $3/gal, so assuming you've purchased and used $150/3 or 50 gallons of bleach, you have added 50 x 0.5 (lbs Cl2 per gallon) x 9 = 225 ppm of bleach. If you'd added even 1/3 of that within a single 48 hour period, your algae would be gone.

One possible alternative explanation: you've been buying stale or low % bleach. Discount 6% bleach, that's been stored in a warehouse for a year may be 1% bleach + salt. And, some discount stores are selling low % bleach. That's one reason we often recommend Walmart store brand bleach: it's fresh, it's 6%, and it's plain, with none of the pool-un-friendly goop Clorox has been adding to their branded bleach.

Another alternative explanation: you have zero CYA, have added bleach in the MORNING, have fairly clear water in spite of the algae, and have had sunny days. In clear water, on a sunny day, with no CYA, you can lose 95% of what you put in -- no matter how much you put in! That's why we tell people to dose for bleach in the EVENING.

Post your ACTUAL current test results from an OTO & phenol red testkit. If you've added 12 gallons of 6% bleach, and it's not all gone, your chlorine level will be above what the kit will show, but tell me what color it is (dark yellow, orange-yellow, orange, brown).

[justlane4]

I tested this morning and I am getting a dark orange color when i do. All of the bleach I have been using is Wal mart 6%. That was the past two days. No difference. I put 5 lbs of trichlor in last night. No difference. But the chlorine levels are high and i do only add in the evening. Waiting on a good kit to be delivered but the cheap test strips are saying that CYA is 0, but I know how inaccurate those are. So when you say keep levels at 15ppm does that mean AT or above or does it matter?

[justlane4]

Sorry ph is 7.8

[True Blue]

Your water is truly green, not blue cloudy?

I've had similar issues this year, but my green went away with consistent high chlorine levels. My cloudiness did not and I had to go another route for that.

[PoolDoc]

I tested this morning and I am getting a dark orange color when i do.

If you truly have no CYA, and it was sunny today, your chlorine would have been all gone by the end of the day. If it was not, you almost certainly have very high CYA levels. If you can get an HTH 6-way from a local Walmart, do so. It has the Taylor CYA test. If not, check your chlorine in the AM. It it's unchanged, and you haven't added additional chlorine . . . then your stabilizer is VERY high.

I'm reluctant to tell you what to do, when I don't know what your levels are. Your pH reading may be accurate IF the CYA is high, but if the CYA=0, then the pH reading is bogus. Chlorine that high messes up phenol red, unless LOTS of stabilizer is present.

[justlane4]

Ok the test kit finally came. I added another 5lb of trichlor 48% last night (thats two nights in a row) and took a measurement this morning. All the while my pool is still green and cloudy, by cloudy I mean you can see about a foot down until everything disappears. My readings were:
FC 35
CC 0
pH 7.2
Alk 170
Hardness 180
CYA 60

Please help this is very frustrating.

========================================

So if my CYA is 60 then i need to get my chlorine level to 75ppm???

[PoolDoc]

I would start with a single dose of 20 ppm, not 75 ppm. That's about 5 gallons of PLAIN 6% household bleach. You cannot keep using that trichlor + goop blend. True trichlor is 90% or more available chlorine. What every your CYA was BEFORE you added the trichlor, it's a lot more now.

Use bleach, and keep working up your chlorine level till it dies.

One HUGE caution: metals can turn a pool green. Slimey walls on a vinyl pool = algae. No slime? It might be something else. If you have orange iron dust on the bottom of the pool, it can make your water look green.

Check your filter: dead algae is tan; live algae is green; iron is orange or orange brown. If you have iron, instead of algae, you do NOT need huge chlorine doses.

[justlane4]

Ok so I'm pretty sure it's the metal. I have very bad rust stains in my house from our water due to a high iron content. When i do backwash my filter it is green at first but turns a brown color. When i vacuum my pool i get a light green color when i hit the light spots but when i go over the heavy spots its very dark almost brown. The sides are not slimy at all, but the bottom can fell a little but more gritty than slimy. When i cleaned it today it looked as if the water was brown coming out of my out flow. I've heard that metal does not get trapped in a filter. What can i us to get rid of it???

Do the CuLator metal removers work or should I use one of the liquid metal removers?

[PoolDoc]

Liquid metal removers don't remove metals; they just keep the metal in a water-soluble form . . . for awhile. The ones made with HEDP are much better than the others, some of which are not at all chlorine compatible.

CuLater DOES remove DISSOLVED metals -- but not stains -- onto the plastic beads. Because of the way they work, they are very slow. You have to use them with HEDP, since the CuLator can only grab dissolved metals.

A metal removal strategy requires getting the metal off your pool surfaces and into the water, and then out of the water and onto your filter or the ground (floccing) or into the CuLator.

Precipitated metals ARE removed by your filter. The brown/orange residue is iron oxide (rust) or similar compounds.

Given that your pool is already cloudy and messy, probably what you need to do is chlorinate, filter, & vacuum till your pool water is clear and clean. Then, you can go back and remove the metals from your walls.

However, I'm puzzled by the fact that your pool is green; usually with that much chlorine, iron will turn orange. Please do all these things:

1. Send pictures to poolforum@gmail.com
2. Vacuum your pool THOROUGHLY. Clean your filter. Then, do it again.
3. Get a K-2006. You're gonna need it to clean this up.
4. Read the polyquat page . . . then get some, and start using it. It will help with the filtration AND with any algae AND let you run lower chlorine levels, while you are dealing with metals.

Testkit links:

HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon

The HTH kit is a good stop-gap, but it doesn't include the DPD-FAS test, which you WILL need.