Dealing with scale problem

[Watermom]

Stabilizer is NOT the same thing as a clarifier. Clarifiers cause smaller particles to clump together so they can be filtered out more easily, however, we seldom suggest using them. Stabilizer, or CYA, is kind of like sunscreen for your chlorine. Without enough in the water, your chlorine is quickly lost to the sun.

Regarding the two shock columns, you typically only need to shock as high as the first column unless you have a really resistant algae like maybe mustard algae. However, if you keep your chlorine at the proper levels, you never have to shock. Some pool stores will tell you that you need to shock weekly. That is not true. The only time you ever need to shock is if your chlorine levels drop too low or if you have a lot of organic debris in the pool. I seldom shock. I test my water almost daily and always maintain proper chemistry. When you do need to shock, you can just use bleach. We like to say that the word "shock" is a verb and not a pool product. You would just add a larger than normal dose of bleach to get to the shock level that you need based on the Best Guess chart. Make sense?

FC + CC = TC. Always. Regardless of what your CYA levels are, the equation is always constant. Ideally, you want your CC to be zero which means that your free chlorine and your total chlorine would be the same.

We may have already told you this but not sure. But, in your 25K gallon pool, each 121 oz. jug of 8.25% bleach will add about 3ppm of chlorine to your pool. Use that as a reference to help you figure out doses of bleach that you need to add to your pool.

Hope this is all helping you better understand taking care of your pool chemistry.

[PoolDoc]

Where have you seen stabilizer called "clarifier" -- if someone in a pool store is calling it that, I'm pretty sure they are just confused.

The relationship between CYA and chlorine is more a constant fraction, rather than a constant PPM. That is, under ideal circumstances, if your chlorine ppm is 5% of your CYA ppm, everything's good. On the other end, sometimes killing mustard algae takes a chlorine ppm that's 25% or more of your CYA level. The relationships are not all mathematically linear, so that's not perfectly true. For example, a chlorine level of zero is not going to help, even if your CYA is zero.

But, it's approximately true.

Finally -- your pool doesn't care how the chlorine gets there: chlorine gas, bleach (sodium hypochlorite), dichlor (sodium dichloro-isocyanuriate) all work. But if you use store bleach, get the PLAIN store brand 8% bleach, and not the 'flavored' bleach that Clorox has been marketing.

[beaverplt]

Hi, I have some clarifier that mentions longer chlorine life as a benefit. I wrongly assumed the similar benefit made it the same as stabilizer. I didn't use it anyway, so no harm. My CYA still is low a week after adding stabilizer. I added 4 more lbs today, which, according to the chart is supposed to raise it about 10ppm. I guess only time will tell. I tested PH and chlorine this morning. PH was 7.2 and chlorine was 5 ppm. I'm going to give the stabilizer a couple of days to work before adding any more chlorine. We're supposed to stay cool and cloudy over the next few days, so I think waiting will be ok although I will test daily. When my CYA looks better, I'll deal with the algae problem.

[Watermom]

If you stop adding chlorine, your algae will take over even more than it already is! You don't want that. You need to be adding chlorine daily up to shock levels! Don't stop and let the algae get even worse!

[beaverplt]

I'm so glad I read your posts about adding chlorine this morning. I was at 5 ppm this morning and added enough "shock" to bring it up to the shock level in Watermom's chart. (If my math was right I added 8 PPM with 2 gallons of 12% chlorine) The forecast was for mostly cloudy and cool so I thought I would not lose too much over the course of the day. As often happens, it was a gorgeous sunny day and most or all of what I added is gone. Using the color chart I'm somewhere between 6 and 9 ppm as of now. I added more immediately. The good news is I can see some progress with the algae.
I should probably have mentioned that last year, we had a terrible problem with scale after "topping off" our water level in spring with hard water. Our iron filter had clogged and I had to bypass it. I thought I could deal with the consequences in the pool in time, but suddenly found myself working 90 or so hrs a week. To make a long story short, we spent most of the summer working to soften and remove it. Some of that scale is still on the liner and is giving the algae a great place to root itself.
Lastly, I wish I had found this forum before I bought a large supply of shock. Our local Ace hardware always gives a good price on larger amounts in spring so I have always loaded up. It's a good price for "shock", but still more expensive than regular bleach.
Thanks so much for the help. You can bet I'll be referring back to the forum often.

[beaverplt]

Two years ago, We had a "gusher" of a leak in a return line and lost a lot of water quickly. To make a long story short, we bypassed our iron filter (which was failing at the time also) and water softener to refill the pool more quickly. I was not very vigilant at testing the water because I was spending more time digging down to and repairing the line. We have very hard water and the result of all this is our vinyl liner is about 70% covered in white scale. We tried a powder (I don't remember the name of it) that the pool dealer recommended to soften it. It barely touched it with the main benefit being my hardness decreased quickly. Of course the scale gives algae a great foothold and I'm fighting that right now also. Through my last thread I've managed to greatly improve my pool chemistry, but how do I deal with that much scale?

My test readings this morning using an HTH 6 way kit gave me these three readings.
Chlorine (using the color chart) 9 ppm
TA 110
PH 7.2
When I tested for hardness, the sample turned yellow after I put in the 5 drops of indicator and swirled it. I have no idea what that means. Last week it tested at 210. Is my water suddenly too soft? Is the kit defective?

Considering that we have algae clinging to the scale I added 2 gallons of 12.5% chlorine to raise the chlorine level. What should I do from here?
Thanks

[PoolDoc]

+ Watch the Taylor videos, or at least the 2 calcium ones, and then retest:

http://pool9.net/tk-guide/
http://pool9.net/tk-interfere/

+ Order a K2006 -- you're gonna need it! http://pool9.net/tk/

+ Use bleach to keep your chlorine in the DARK yellow OTO range, till ALL traces of algae are gone.

[beaverplt]

Hi. Thanks for the links and advice. Thanks to this forum and the advice I've gotten, It seems I am on the right path. Keeping the chlorine in the dark yellow to orange area has been helpful. Brushing 1 - 2 times a day along with running our Dolphin has loosened some of the scale and along with it taken out algae with it. Here is my problem, While I fully intend to get a K2006 kit, some recent issues with other household problems have stretched our budget farther than we'd like. It's an expense that will have to wait. In the meantime, My HTH kit, while maybe not the most desirable, is still better than dip strips and will need to do for now. This takes me back to my question on the yellow color test result. Nothing in the HTH instruction guide deals with that result. Has anyone had this experience with the HTH kit? One thought that comes to mind is the high chlorine level. Could that mess with the test result?

[PoolDoc]

Here's a rough color chart for high ranges with OTO: http://pool9.net/oto-chart/

As far as I know, I'm the only one who has advocated using OTO this way; certainly I've never seen a pool kit with color block for the high range.

I'll help where I can, but you have to understand: no matter what your budget is, your pool will NOT forgive you. And it will cost far, far more to clean up, than to avoid problems.

I'm sure you really want to swim. But you might consider replacing the cover on your pool -- leaving 1/8 exposed, to 'breathe' the gases that form when chlorine breaks down goo. Covering the pool with hurt the algae and GREATLY reduce the chlorine need to eradicate it. That's the only way I know to deal with your situation AND cut expenditures significantly.

You would be able to swim in the late evening, without increasing costs much IF you avoid lotion on the swimmers (chlorine demand) and pee (BIG chlorine demand). You could continue aeration that way, too. Just keep it covered when the sun is shining.

Best wishes.

[beaverplt]

I'd rather leave covering the pool as an absolute last resort. To keep my cover on means having the brass bolts raised. Too great a risk of someone stubbing a toe. I am making progress. Maybe not as fast as I'd like, but as I keep at it and follow your advice on chlorine, oh, etc, the algae is slowly going away. My biggest concern is the scale. I think my current course of action is helping, but getting the strange reading from the hardness test concerns me. I'm still curious what a yellow color result when the hardness indicator is used means with the HTH kit.