Brown water inside Intex filter

[Pappy]

You may not have a skimmer basket. It's ok to sprinkle borax around in the pool, or into the return jet. Just be sure it doesn't clump up.

[Robryan29]

Pappy - Bought two boxes of Borax. Sprinkled 4 cups the first night. pH went to 7.6 very quickly. Since then all levels (pH, FC, Alkalinity, Stabilzer) have remained stable. I've had to add some Borax and chlorine here and there after swimming, but everything has been good. Water is clear. The brown "dust" has been attributed to the pollen from the trees in the yard next door - which I vacuum every few days or so. Thanks for all your help and guidance. I'm still waiting for my Unicel cartridges (after 10 hours of pump running, my Intex filters still get brown). One question for you - I bought a gallon of standard bleach from the local grocery store, since I'm running low on my chlorine granules. How much should I add to the pool if/when the chlorine level drops a bit?

[Watermom]

In your pool, every cup of 8.25% bleach will add about 1.2ppm of chlorine. Use that to help you figure out needed doses of chlorine. Your needed chlorine range is based on your CYA level. Read more about the connection between CYA and chlorine here:> http://pool9.net/cl-cya/

What kind of granules are you using, dichlor or cal-hypo?

[Robryan29]

I'm using Guardian Chlorinating Granules (unsure is dichlor or cal-hypo). I haven't any stabilizer. Should I? My "guess strips" consistently range in the 30-50ppm range.

[Watermom]

Not a good idea to add anything that you are unsure of the ingredients. Better check the label and post the ingredients.

Wait until you get your K2006 and test the CYA before deciding if you need to add any more or not.

[Robryan29]

The granules I'm using are calcium hypochlorite. The bleach I bought is 5.25% sodium hypochlorite.

[Watermom]

I haven't seen 5.25% bleach sold for years. If that is what it is, each quart will add about 3ppm of chlorine to your pool. Once your cal-hypo is gone, I'd just stick with bleach for now until we see what your CYA reading is.

[Robryan29]

Using the Taylor-2006 kit, here's my results:

Ph 7.8-8.0
2.42 ppm of FC
.44 of combined chlorine
110 ppm total alkalinity
Maybe 30-40 ppm of CYA. Water never got cloudy enough to measure.

[Watermom]

There is no way to get readings to two decimals places with the Taylor K2006. These testing demo videos might help you.

http://pool9.net/K2006-vid/

[Robryan29]

The instructions said to multiply he number of drops used by .2