My Green Pool Saga - Help!

[Pamsel]

Hi Sherra,

Well, I just checked my levels again. Chlorine now reading a strong 5 ppm (which, btw, is the highest my test kit goes and I had a heck of a time finding any kit that tested all the levels. Do I need to get another kit that will test chlorine to higher levels? Alk & PH do not appear to have dropped down at all yet. Do I just keep repeating the applications every couple of hours, after I test?

BTW, I appreciate all your help more than you can know ~ also Marie and Janet! This pool has been a nightmare every spring for 5 years! I truly don't know what I'm doing, so just follow the directions of the pool supply store, where each person gives me a different answer and nothing works until I've fought it for weeks and weeks and spent hundreds of dollars! I believe I have finally found people who truly know what to do and who can help me learn how to take control of my pool myself.

[mbar]

We all understand! It takes a while for all the chemistry to make sense - especially when you listen to pool stores. Look through the swimming pool tips on the pool solutions web site:
http://www.poolsolutions.com/tips/10things.html
It will help explain pool chemistry better for you. Getting the test kit from this site also makes taking care of your own pool easier. You will find that once you get your water balanced, it will be very quick to check your levels and keep a clean pool. When you get the chemistry straight in your mind, you will understand how to balance your pool. Feel free to ask any questions - all you really need to keep in stock is bleach, borax, baking soda, muriatic acid, and stabilizer (for the beginning of the year) and a sequestering agent if you have any metals in your water.

[Pamsel]

Marie, I was told by the pool people that I have to use the oxygen based shock product because I have a vinyl liner. A friend of ours who has had a pool for years told me he only uses muriatic acid and liquid chlorine and never buys from a pool store, but he does not have a liner. Can I safely use muriatic acid and liquid chlorine all summer long to maintain a clear pool?
Do I not need to use the "oxygen shock", algaecide and the pucks at all?

[aylad]

The pool people are in this to make money....we're not. You don't need the oxygen shock at all. If you maintain proper chlroine levels, you won't need the algaecide, either, but some of the forum members dose with it (ONLY if it's 60% Polyquat--no other kind) when closing their pols. And no, you don't have to use the pucks at all, either. In fact, when your stabilizer levels get to the point where you're holding chlorine in the pool, the pucks are actually detrimental. With a vinyl-lined pool, you can safely and efficiently maintain a crystal clear pool using bleach, muriatic acid, Borax, and baking soda. My pool is vinyl in-ground, open year-round, and that's the recipe I use, with a little boost from the trichlor pucks.

Janet

[Pamsel]

Thank you Janet. I have learned more here in two days than I've learned the past 4 years from pool "experts". I have a new container of both the pucks and the oxidizer. I'll be happy to return them and recover some of my money. Many thanks again.

HELP again!!

I tested the water first thing this morning. My chlorine level is high now - 10ppm, showing almost brownish-yellow and I smell chlorine when I walk up to the pool. I will maintain this level now until the algae is killed? So far, the water has not changed appearance at all. Also, my PH has not come down at all and my TA has gone from 310 to 380. I've put in 48ozs of muriatic acid in four doses so far, but am getting no results. Could someone please tell me if perhaps I read the PH Calcs chart wrong? I put in 14,500 gal for pool size and click calculate. The muriatic acid line reads 11.6, which I took to mean I should put in 11.6 ozs.
I've been putting in 12 ozs at a time. Am I doing something wrong?

I discovered that I have a container of PH Reducer (Sodium Bisulfate) in the garage, left from the previous owners. This means it is 5 years old. Would it do any good to use that, since the muratic acid doesn't seem to be doing the trick? Or would that be going in reverse?

Thanks again!

[waterbear]

HI PAMSEL!
mbar (Marie) PM'd me and asked me to look at this thread. Perhaps I can explain a few things.
First, your high pH.....
Your ALK is very high, this is what is making it so difficult to change your pH. Total Alklinity is just a name for the buffer system in the water that keeps the pH from bouncing up and down. If it is too high then the pH doesn't want to move and it can take a LOT of acid and airating to get it in line...Once it is you won't have the problem with pH control. You can use up the dry acid (sodium bisulfate) but it is not as effective as muriatic acid. Once it is gone it is more economical to stick to muriatic acid. High pH also makes your chlorine less effective. I am going to spare you all the chemistry but that is another reason to get your ALK and pH in range. Your chlorine will work better.

With very high ALK you will be putting in acid and nothing seems to happen. just put more in later in the day and test your pH again... You are going to find a point when the pH starts to come down...you have finally overcome the buffer in the water. At this point your pH will come down as you add acid. Calculators and dosage charts really work best when your parameters are within normal ranges. When something is as out of whack as your ALK readings they are not going to really give you correct dosage info.

ONE IMPORTANT THING. If your chlorine levels are high it will interfere with the pH test. Once again I will spare you the chemistry but you will test at 8.2 even though the pH is much lower than that!. I would not test pH right after adding chlorine or any time you have much over 10 ppm chlorine in the water! Ditto for trying to lower the ALK. Deal with one thing at a time until you get everything in line.

As far as the huge chlorine demand that your pool was showing and the algae problem, That is a bit complicated but I will try and explain it. You have been using trichlor pucks which put stabilizer in the water then you closed your pool and when you opened you had no stabilizer. Where did the stabilizer go? Bacteria ate it while the pool was closed and excreted ammonia and urea compounds. These will eat up chlorine fast until they are finally 'burned off'. It can take a LOT of chlorine to do this as you have seen.
You said that you are finally holding chlorine and can smell it. If you can smell it you need more! The smell is combined chlorine (CC)....this means that the chorine is staring to burn off the ammonia compounds in your water. Keep hitting the pool with chlorine, BRUSH, BRUSH, BRUSH, and vacumn as much out of the pool that you can. Keep cleaning your filter....As you kill the algae and get the stuff out of the water you will find your chlorine levels are holding and the strong smell goes away. Once the pool is clear let the chlorine levels drop to normal ranges and start working on your ALK and pH.

You have gotten very good advice so far from the other posters, and as you can see, it is starting to work. You have also gotten some very bad advice from the pool stores.

ONE red flag when up when you said '3 month algacide' What brand? All the ones I have seen are copper based and copper can make the water green ( but not cloudy), especially if you are shocking the pool a lot. The good news is the same sequstering agent that will help you get rid of the iron will also do the same for the copper. If you know your fill water is yellow with iron then you must keep a sequestering agent in your pool all the time. Follow the directions on the bottle to a letter for the initial treatment and for maintenance. Be sure to add a bit evey time you add new fill water also.

One last thing, to extend the range of your chlorine test you can dilute the pool water with distilled water, mix them, and then test (a shot glass makes a good measure). Here's how:
1 part pool water, 1 part distilled water, multiply the reading by 2....you can now read up to 10 ppm Total Chlorine.

1 part pool water, 1 part distilled water, multiply the reading by 2....you can now read up to 10 ppm Total Chlorine.

1 part pool water, 2 parts distilled water, multiply the reading by 3....you can now read up to 15 ppm Total Chlorine.


1 part pool water, 3 parts distilled water, multiply the reading by 4....you can now read up to 20 ppm Total Chlorine.

1 part pool water, 4 parts distilled water, multiply the reading by 5....you can now read up to 25 ppm Total Chlorine.

The test kit you have will not read FC accurately, As soon as you can try to find a kit that uses FAS-DPD to test for FC and CC. Most of us on the forum use the kit that Ben sells on the sister website www.poolsolutions.com
There are also good kits from Taylor Technologies and LaMotte that use this test for FC and CC but Ben's kit is definitely the best 'bang for your buck'. The kit you have right now is fine to get you started but if you really want to take control of your pool and save some money invest in a good kit. You have already found that the pool stores near you just use strips. Strips are fine for a quick check just to make sure everything is within range but are usless for adjusting anything. For example, how can you ajust your pH when you only know it is somewhere betwwen 7.2 and 7.8, which is the scale on most of the test strips I have seen!

From what I saw in your last few posts you are making real progress. Just keep at it and you WILL be swimming soon!

Hope this has been helpful and didn't confuse you!

[waste]

Greetings all, and welcome to the forum Pamsel, sorry I've missed out on all the fun so far, Marie pm'd me (& Evan) to take a gander at this thread. Let me take a whack at helping this 'Pamsel in distress'
The info you've received thus far is good, I see a couple things that haven't been adressed. :
You did the partial drain and refill, which water source did you use for the refill? Your TA increased, instead of going down, I suspect you used the community water and that it is high in TA (& possibly iron) have you used the same source to 'top off' the pool for the past 5 years? I don't want to give you more work, but I do want to help you, please have the community water and the pond water tested for the usual perameters and metals and let us know the results. (I'm thinking that the pond water will test better than the community water, and will be your prefered (though not optimal) method of filling the pool, a little pond scum can be dealt with by a bottle of bleach, high alk and metal tap water will require more costly chems and more time to correct)
I can't remember if anyone told you about the problem of cya being algae food over the winter, Ben has a riff on it somewhere (could one of you computer literate folks please link it up - who knows what would be the result if I tried) and he says it can take a ton of bleach to get the problem taken care of.
One last thing, I'm hearing thunder and don't want to fry my pc, when using the sequestering agent, place a chlorinating tab in the skimmer, you need the cya anyway, it'll help the metal come out of solution in the filter where it belongs. As for adding granular cya (stabiliser) put it in an old kneehigh or pair of pantyhose and just drop the packet in the skimmer.
Thanks for the compliment Marie in asking for my input! I hope this adds a little to the thread and lets Pamsel get swimming soon!!