Pool opening - 2013

[ajb8898]

Hello again! This will be my second year here. We opened the pool to lots of algae. My husband dumped in a ton of chlorine and about a week later, this is what we have:

CYA 65
FC 40
CC 2
pH 6.4
TA 107

The FC is an estimate as I did it by 5. The water is blue-ish but very, very cloudy.

[BigDave]

"by 5" - I don't understand.

How do you get pH 6.4? I this is accurate, you'll need to act soon to raise the pH.

Blue-ish - cloudy sounds like dead algae - it will take the filter a while to clear it up.

What kind of filter - how powerful is the pump?

[CarlD]

Did you use di-chlor powder for your chlorine? That explains the high CYA. It's not BAD, but I would only use liquid chlorine or bleach from here on in. No more powder or tablet chlorine.

If your pH is accurate, with a vinyl pool you need to raise it IMMEDIATELY so your liner isn't damaged. Add a full box of 20 Mule Team Borax (not pH Up! or any soda ash). Wait an hour or two and measure pH again. Keep it up until pH is at least over 7.0. Then aerate your water because your T/A will rise when you do this. Aerating will raise pH without raising T/A further.

You did not post hardness. While it's not needed for vinyl pools, if it's very high (like 500ppm) it could make your water cloudy--milky. Otherwise it's probably dead algae.

FC of 40 could bleach your liner but otherwise won't hurt it. You really only need to keep FC at 20 to kill everything and get rid of your FC. I'm guess "By 5" meant you used 25 ml of water and every 5 drops is 1 ppm. Don't waste your chemicals. Use 10 ml of water and 2 drops is 1 ppm. You don't need more precision than that.

All this is in addition to Dave's sound advice. Watch your pump pressure: When it goes up 5 lbs, back wash your sand filter. You could try adding a little DE powder to your filter through your skimmer 1/4 to 1/3 cup should be enough. DE's cheap--a 10lb box is less than $10 and lasts a sand filter owner years. Also skimmer "socks" pull out a lot of fine junk like pollen before it even gets to your filter.

Good luck!

[ajb8898]

OK sorry for the delay, I thought I'd get an email when someone replied.

Yes, my husband dumped in TEN bags of powder when we first opened forgetting that it was only like TWO we were supposed to use. We are definitely only doing bleach from here.

OK as for the Chlorine reading, I think I totally misread the instructions. Sorry, need to dust off my Taylor kit skills from my first year last year. I did the 10mL sample and counted 40 drops.

The pH level didn't even register on the Taylor kit it was so low. I have an eXact digital reader (someone gave me) and it registered it as 6.4.

Carl, what is DE powder?

[ajb8898]

I got the pH up to 6.8 and added more Borax and then checked the Chlorine and it was down to 0 so I added bleach.

The calcium hardness was only about 80-90 so it must be the dead algae.

[CarlD]

You're on the right track. DE is diatomaceous earth, used primarily in DE filters, one of the 3 common types of filter and usually described as "the best", in terms of its filtering capability. But a sand filter with a little DE in it can easily do as well.

If you used 40 drops at the 10ml level your FC was 20ppm, what you need to keep it at as it dropped 0--meaning you are fighting an algae bloom.

So...check your FC 2-3 times a day, adding bleach or liquid chlorine as needed to keep FC at 20.
Brush your floor and walls once a day.
Vacuum to wasted every day.
Keep at it till the water is clear and the fc doesn't drop so dramatically.

Let us know what's happening.

[ajb8898]

Everything seems to be stabilizing some. I'm not losing chlorine quite as quickly and I'm not getting as much dead algae floating to the top. Water is blue but still very cloudy, although less cloudy than it was.

My issue is the pH doesn't seem to stay up. I keep having to adjust. Is that normal? What would cause that?

[CarlD]

Dichlor is somewhat acidic. Trichlor (sometimes sold as powder) is HIGHLY acidic. May be the cause of your pH problem.

[ajb8898]

I haven't used anything except bleach since that first time. Would that still be affecting it?

[ajb8898]

I'm continuing to deal with cloudy water. My skimmer sock keeps getting less and less dirty through the day so I hope that means it's slowly clearing out.

I've been keeping my chlorine at 20--it's been several weeks now. Is it safe to have it at shock level for so long?