Fighting Algae for months

[rkrgk]

Hi,
First let me say what I have. I will attach a picture of my pool as well. We bought the house recently and so did not have a lot of info on the pool and pool equipments.
Pool size - Not sure but i think its about 15000 Gallons.
Pump - 2 HP AO Smith Superflow (has anther 1.5 HP pump for waterfall feature)
Filter - Hayward DE 60SQFT
Cleaning system - In floor cleaning system- caretaker 99 popup cleaning

Issue - Have a never ending fight with Algae for about 3 months now. Spent lots and lot of dollars on chemicals.

Recently I changed 3 of the filter grids and cleaned the rest.
Also replaced the gears of the caretaker cleaning system.
I dont have any other manual/auto cleaner to vacuum
In the past few months I have tried several things,
For Chlorine - uses walmart great value bleach 6% , And uses tabs in the floater bought from Costco. Also tried the pooltime shock (Sodium dichloro-s-triazenitrone), and liquid chlorinator.
Added stabilizer 3 months ago.
For Water testing- I only have the pooltime test strips bought from homedepot.
When I put chlorine to about 3ppm+, the pool gets blue for about a day and goes back to green the next day.
Water is very cloudy and has brown/green debris on the edges and bottom. My pop-up cleaning heads does not pop up also, but I can see water coming out through them. The pressure reading in my filter stays at around 35ps +. I guess (reading from some of the posts here) that it may be that the backpressure from my cleaning system is creating all that pressure). The reading at the polaris caretaker valve is about 4psi. Probably I should get a manual vacuum cleaner since popup system is not working? Dont know what would be the best strategy.
I also tried pooltime 20% algicide (dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride 20%). Seems to have no effect.

Appreciate any advice! Thanks..

[Watermom]

We're really going to have to have a good set of current water testing results taken with a drops-based kit to be able to help. The kit we recommend is the Taylor K-2006 or 2006C which you can get through the test kit link in my signature. It is only available online so you need something to use in the meantime. See if your Walmart has an HTH 6-Way kit (not test strips) that you can get. If not, at the very least, pick up a cheap OTO/Phenol Red (yellow and red drops) kit to use.

Post your readings and tell us what kit you got. Also, please fill in your pools information into our pool chart as that makes it much easier for people here to help.

Pool Chart Entry Form

[rkrgk]

Thanks!
I ordered HTH 6way test kit just awhile ago. I will pick it up at the walmart in a few minutes and will test and fill up the pool chart form.

[sabres07]

The only advice I can share with you is this forum will absolutely fix your problem, BUT ONLY if you follow their advice to the letter! If you deviate, you will increase the time you spend correcting your pool water chemistry.

I was a new user of this forum earlier this spring. After following the advice given here, my pool is crystal clear and has been all summer. Oh yea.....and get the good test kit right away....the Taylor 2006c kit. You will need it.

[rkrgk]

Thanks Sabres07! I was reading some of the information posted at this forum and it is really informative and 'eye-opening'. And like you said, I will follow what will be suggested, I can see that a lot of people benefit with this forum. And yes, planning to get the Taylor 2006C, too bad can not buy in a local store, so will wait for amazon to ship. I just wanted to start on it faster, so got the HTH kit for now.

Watermom,

I got the HTH test kit and here are the results. I posted the Pool chart Entry form as well.
Test Results
------------------
Chlorine - <0.5ppm
Alkalinity - 50ppm
pH - >8.2
Hardness - 400ppm
CYA - <30ppm

[rkrgk]

With the test strips, I get pH to be 7.2, that's the reason I had not adjusted so far. I know we can't rely on the test strips but seems quite a big difference.
So, can I go ahead and put bleach or should I lower the pH first?
Looks like pool is getting worse and worse. I got 1 gallon of muriatic acid and six 1.5 gallons of 6% bleach from Walmart. And BTW' the tabs that I use are 94.5% trichlor. Should I get some stabilizer and add before I add bleach?
Thanks again for your time.

[Watermom]

Go ahead and add 2 of those big jugs of bleach. Each of those should add about 5.7ppm of chlorine. Since your CYA is below 30, let's have you use around 12pm as your shock level. Test your chlorine as many times per day as you can, and each time, add enough bleach to take your chlorine back up to around 12. You want to continue to keep the chlorine at shock level until you can go from sundown one evening to within two hours of sunrise the next day without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine, you have a CC reading no greater than 0.5 (your K2006 kit will be able to measure this) and the water is clear. Then, keep it high for one additional day. For reference, each quart of 6% bleach will add 1ppm of chlorine in this size pool.

Until you get the good kit and are having to use the HTH kit, your limited to measuring chlorine levels to 5. But, you can force your kit to read higher by using a dilution method explained here: Testing Without a Good Kit


Go ahead and use some muriatic acid to lower your pH. Please read the link in my signature about using it safely. Please note that your pH test results will be inaccurate when your chlorine levels are high so do pH testing when the chlorine is below 5.

Run your pump 24/7 while you are trying to clear this and clean the filter as needed. Live algae clogs DE filters fast!

I would not worry about adding any stabilizer until you get the pool cleared up. By the way, look at the ingredient label on the trichlor. Any mention of copper?

Hope this helps.

[rkrgk]

I usually pour bleach walking around the pool, hope thats the right way to do it? Or putting it slowly through the skimmer is better?
The trichlor that I mentioned (tabs from costco) does not mention any copper in the label.

My pool looks like this now.

[Watermom]

Most people either pour it in front of a return jet or slowly into the skimmer. I use the skimmer. Another advantage of putting it in the skimmer is that it will kill anything growing in the filter, too.

Actually, since this is not a vinyl pool, you don't have to be so careful of not taking the chlorine too high. So, you can hammer it with bleach.

[rkrgk]

Ok, so I added 3 x 1.42 Gallons of 6% bleach and did a chlorine test after 1 hr. The results show somewhere in between 3 and 5ppm. I did the dilution method that you mentioned and got the results to be 5ppm. So I would think its about 4.5ppm currently. Its 104 Degrees hot here in Phoenix, so may be all the chlorine that I put might be evaporating faster than I can pour!
I brushed the pool a bit. Didnt backwash the filter yet, Did backwash and added DE just two days ago.
The pool has bit of powdery particles floating on top, Dont know if its due to me brushing the pool and some DE is floating or if its the bleach reacting with Algae. And the fact that my pop up cleaning system is not really popping up and cleaning makes me worry.. Should I be buying a vacuum cleaner? Other than that how will I remove the debris? And how can I make sure my drain is working? I can not see much of water movement at the deep end of the pool. Could it be that my drain is somehow clogged?

Here is the picture of partcles floating on the top