Crazy Pool Readings! URGENT HELP REQUIRED ! PLEASE HELP!!!

[Watermom]

Until your registration is completed, you won't be able to see the rest of the forum or follow links while you are logged in. So, copy those links that Carl gave you and paste them into a browser window after you first log out.

(Use this one http://pool9.net/cl-cya/ instead of the second one that Carl gave you.)

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Hi Carl.

Many thanks for taking the time to reply to my mail. Your help is greatly appreciated. Your comment about alligators was very funny. The worst we can expect in the UK are frogs in the pool... certainly no alligators. Apologies for the delay is responding been busy with family and reading your excellent pool solutions website.

1) I have used your dilution method to measure the Free Chlorine in the water and I believe it to be 10.4.

2) I have also lowered the pool water by approx 20 to 30 %. I hear you when you say that this is not going to make a huge difference, but I had started the process, so I let it run for a while. I am now refilling the water and expect this to be complete in a day or so. Also my pool line is really old and faded, so don't want to fade it anymore. My kids also have sensitive skin.

3) You would not believe the hundreds of pounds I have wasted on expensive pool chemicals in previous years. Your pool solutions website is a revelations! I have been hunting high and low for the last few days for cheap bleach. Sadly in the UK most bleach comes with foaming agents or fragrance. This is the only variety that I have found that looks suitable....

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/produ.../?id=260550096

On the plus side it is cheaper than bottled water! On the negative side.. it is only 1.5% so I have had to buy all the store stock! So I have 13 bottles (26 litres). I will need probably the same amount again to finish the job. No big deal, just means I will need to hit another branch of the same supermarket later in the week.

4) The plan is to let the pool water level return to normal. Retest for FC, TA, CYA, PH etc Get the pump going and use the supermarket bleach ASAP. I did by some Algaecide a week ago, but having read your email I have decided to leave it well alone for now.

5) I believe my bottom drain to be blocked, so I am dependent on my skimmer basket return. Water pressure at the sand filter is very good. There seems to be no visible means of playing with the bottom drain. I may try a drain snake when the algae is gone.

6) I skimmed an article you wrote about lowering TA. It said I needed to aerate the water... pardon my ignorance, but my haywards multiport valve has no such option. Do you mean filter? Below is a link to a pici of the type of valve I have.

http://yourpool.co/running/what-do-a...g-actually-do/

Below is a pici of my pool just before I started draining.

http://s46.photobucket.com/user/stan...a44ad.jpg.html


Many thanks again!

S

[CarlD]

Hi Carl.

Many thanks for taking the time to reply to my mail. Your help is greatly appreciated. Your comment about alligators was very funny. The worst we can expect in the UK are frogs in the pool... certainly no alligators. Apologies for the delay is responding been busy with family and reading your excellent pool solutions website.

1) I have used your dilution method to measure the Free Chlorine in the water and I believe it to be 10.4.

That's probably good enough. I never measure closer than .5...10, 10.5, 11, etc.

2) I have also lowered the pool water by approx 20 to 30 %. I hear you when you say that this is not going to make a huge difference, but I had started the process, so I let it run for a while. I am now refilling the water and expect this to be complete in a day or so. Also my pool line is really old and faded, so don't want to fade it anymore. My kids also have sensitive skin.

20 to 30% means you'll lower CYA by 20-30%, which will help. There's lots of discussion of what REALLY bothers skin. All evidence is that it's not the Free Chlorine, even when it's very, very high, but rather the Combined Chloramines that are irritating to skin and eyes--which is why the IDEAL CC level is...zero. The next thing you need to remember is that "high chlorine" is only high relative to CYA. So when your CYA is over 100, the recommended FC level of 8 to 15 is actually no higher RELATIVELY, than an FC level of 2-5ppm is when CYA is under 30ppm!

If you look up the thread I started recently on liner fade, you can see how much my liner faded in 12 years (rebuilding the pool now). Fading happens.

3) You would not believe the hundreds of pounds I have wasted on expensive pool chemicals in previous years. Your pool solutions website is a revelations! I have been hunting high and low for the last few days for cheap bleach. Sadly in the UK most bleach comes with foaming agents or fragrance. This is the only variety that I have found that looks suitable....

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/produ.../?id=260550096

On the plus side it is cheaper than bottled water! On the negative side.. it is only 1.5% so I have had to buy all the store stock! So I have 13 bottles (26 litres). I will need probably the same amount again to finish the job. No big deal, just means I will need to hit another branch of the same supermarket later in the week.

I'm confused: The description says "less than 5%" yet it seems to be only 1.5%.. Are there no pool stores that sell "Liquid Chlorine"? You can test the stuff easily. All you need is an eyedropper with a 1ml marking. Fill a bucket with 10l of tap water. Test its chlorine level. Then add 1ml of bleach to the bucket and mix. Measure chlorine level again, and subtract the tap water's chlorine level. What's left is a good estimate of the ACTUAL strength of the bleach.

But you're wise to avoid the sudsing, frangrances, etc. They WILL give you problems!


4) The plan is to let the pool water level return to normal. Retest for FC, TA, CYA, PH etc Get the pump going and use the supermarket bleach ASAP. I did by some Algaecide a week ago, but having read your email I have decided to leave it well alone for now.

If it's not Polyquat, don't use it.

5) I believe my bottom drain to be blocked, so I am dependent on my skimmer basket return. Water pressure at the sand filter is very good. There seems to be no visible means of playing with the bottom drain. I may try a drain snake when the algae is gone.

It could also be, now, a place where the algae is congregating.

6) I skimmed an article you wrote about lowering TA. It said I needed to aerate the water... pardon my ignorance, but my haywards multiport valve has no such option. Do you mean filter? Below is a link to a pici of the type of valve I have.

Whoops! Aeration is merely exposing lots of water to air. You can mount a fountain (I have one that screws into my return) or point the returns at the surface so they splash. Since the water isn't yet safe to swim in, you miss out on the best method: A gang of kids going crazy and splashing! Yup, that's all it is...Nothing to do with your multiport valve.


http://yourpool.co/running/what-do-a...g-actually-do/

Below is a pici of my pool just before I started draining.

http://s46.photobucket.com/user/stan...a44ad.jpg.html


Many thanks again!

S

Nice looking pool! I see the liner has pulled out of the corner near the diving board. There's a plastic strip you force into the corner when the liner is in place called "Liner Lock" that prevents that.

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Thanks again Carl!

Some recent updates..

So I refilled my pool and took some fresh readings on the 15th Sept

8th Sept PH7.4 FC 10.4 CYA 114 TA 268 (Before any action)
15th Sept PH7.3 FC 6.8 CYA 82 TA 238 (After draining pool 20% and refilling with fresh water)

I then added 26 litres of 1.5% Sodium Hypochlorite bleach from my supermarket

I waited 24 hours and checked FC...

16th Sept FC 11.2. The pool was / is still green

Clearly the volume of bleach was not enough....so I ordered some 14/15% chlorine shock (liquid). This should arrive anyday...
If it arrives today, I will add it today... The only question is.... how much!


I have looked into getting a pool fountain and will be persuing this! Kids will love it.

Regarding the slipped liner... and Line Lock... again I will look into this... but how do you pull the liner back into the right place? I have tried using hot water but this didnt help. Any suggestions?

Many thanks

S

[CarlD]

Hi Stan,

With your new readings, your target FC level is 20, based on your CYA. In my first post I gave you the amounts of chlorine to add to achieve certain levels. That's based STRICTLY on the volume of water--79k liters. So it doesn't change unless the volume changes, regardless.

Look at the Best Guess Table:
http://poolsolutions.com/gd/best-gue...ine-chart.html

While we measure everything in gallons, if you transpose to liters the ratios remain the same: 1 liter of 14% Liquid chlorine/bleach will add 14ppm of FC to 10,000 liters. 1 liter of 6% will add 6ppm to 10,000 liters. Since you have nearly 80,000 liters, you need nearly 8x as much liquid chlorine/bleach to get the same effect.

Once you get your FC to 20, you'll need to keep it there, checking and adjusting chlorine 3x/day to keep it at 20ppm. Meanwhile you need to vacuum and brush your pool daily, and expect it to take several days to a week to clear up. When the FC does NOT drop overnight by more than a little, for 2 nights running, and the water stays clear, you'll know you're done.

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Hi Carl

Hope you are well.

Since my last reading, I have done the following

1) I have added 20 litres of 14% sodium hypochlorite over a period of 2 - 3 days e.g. 10 litres first night, 5 the second and 5 the third. (I figure that this should have kept my FC levels well over the 20 mark for a couple of days).

2) There was no real change in the colour of the water after this period, it still looked green.
So i then went to the supermarket and bought some bleach and I added 26 litres of 1.5% bleach.

Soon after this, the water started to become lighter in colour... and I left the water alone for a couple of days.

Today, the water looked pretty good (not clear though) so we took a swim, and then I re-took some readings.
28th Sept. I also backwashed this morning.

FC = 13.2
PH = 7.6
CYA = 76
TA = 230

Below is a link to a photo of the pool. As you can see the green Algae seems to have gone, but the water is still not quite right. Certainly not clear. Any suggestions??


http://s46.photobucket.com/user/stan...f2c1a.jpg.html

Do I shock again? I have 2 X 5litres of 14-15% bleach ready to go.... thought I would check with yourself.

We are having some awesome weather for late September in London. Normally it is time to get the big coats out, but we have had blue skies recently.

Many thanks

S

[CarlD]

Stan, It is hard to tell, but your water looks cloudy, but I think your algae bloom is dead.
So what I think is going in is one of two things, maybe both.
(you never did give us a hardness/calcium hardness reading, did you?)
1) Dead algae which means you need to run your filter 24/7 and clean it out when the pressure rises. I don't know if they sell "skimmer socks" in the UK, but if not you can line your skimmer with a piece of ladies' pantyhose. It can help pulling particles out. If you have a sand filter you can add a little DE powder, just enough to raise pump pressure 1 psi. All this is to filter dead algae.
2) You could also have calcium clouding, depending on your calcium hardness reading, given your total alkalinity is so high. Try lowering your pH to 7.2 ( no lower as it may be overstated by your chlorine level) and see jf that helps. Follow our method for lowering T/A to get it down to around 100 and see if the water clears. A very high T/A, over 200, and a high CH, 400-500 ppm can cause milky cloudy water. It isn't dangerous but it is ugly.

Again, either could cause cloudiness.