My neighbor and I share in the responsibility for our respective pools when one of us is gone on vacation or away from the house for a few days or a few weeks. I have an in-gound liner pool and she has an in-ground gunite pool. Each of our pools is about 25,000 gallons and are both fed from a well (south Georgia).

My neighbor does not use the BBB method nor has a test kit. She relies on chlorine pucks placed in her skimmer basket and gets the water tested through the local pool store. I have tried to convince her otherwise but she is reluctant to change her method. However recently, she has mentioned that her pool is very cloudy and not near as pretty as mine.

When she and her husband left on vacation last week, she asked me to take care of her pool and add the pucks to the skimmer when needed plus removal of any debris in the pool. I said no problem and asked if she would mind me trying to solve her cloudy pool water problem. She said, "great, do whatever it takes". So to that end, I have taken the samples and the test results are as follows:

pH - 7.4
FC - greater than 20.0
TA - 40 ...... although, instead of turning from green to red .... it went from green to blue
Calcium Hardness - 220
CYA > 100 ...... and I mean much greater

Also, there is a considerable amount of "dust" on the bottom of the pool which I believe to be algae and I think it to be the green type but it does look a bit pale yellow at times. My algaecide is "Leslie's Algae Preventor" which has the active ingredient polyloxyethlyene ethlyene and another chemical which has a very long name. I'm a little hesitant to use it since my neighbor told me that gunite pools use a different type of algaecide than line pools.

I know enough that we need to reduce the high CYA by draining at least half the pool. And, I also know that once the algae is killed we will need to sweep it out of the pool. But as to the actual step by step procedure, I though you all were the best ones to ask. So, any help would be appreciated by me as well as by my neighbor.

Jim K.
Leesburg, GA