Newbies need help

[aylad]

Congratulations!! So far you're doing a wonderful job of getting your pool back, and you did a great job of not getting "pool stored"!

To finish clearing up the green, you need to get your Chlorine up to around 12-15 ppm...here's the link to the bleach calculator a lot of the forum members use to calculate how much you need to add. (Developed by mwsmith, one of the forum members)

http://www.hal-pc.org/~mwsmith2/BleachCalc262.exe


Try your best to keep it up around 15, and the green should clear soon, if it's not a metals stain. Second, you shouldn't have any bromine in the pool unless you've added it, so ignore that side of the scale. Your pH is fine, Alk is fine. For a gunite pool, I believe your Calcium hardness needs to come up to 200-400 range, which you could accomplish by using cal-hypo to shock with, instead of bleach.

Stabilizer is also labelled as balancer and conditioner. It is available at WalMart in the pool section, as well as Home Depot or Lowe's. The ingredient you're looking for is cyanuric acid or isocyanuric acid. The label will have directions for doseage based on pool gallonage. Shoot for about 20 ppm, but don't broadcast it in the pool like the directions say. Instead, add it through your skimmer, but then don't backwash or re-test for 4-6 days, because it takes a very LONG time for it to dissolve, and you don't want to overshoot it because lowering CYA is a pain. Alternatively, you can put it in a tube sock and put it in the skimmer or tie it in front of a return stream and that will help dissolve it, too.

You're on the right track, welcome to the forum!

Janet

[JJParrish]

Janet, thank you so much for your help. Here goes again:
1. When you say get the chlorine up to around 12-15ppm do you mean to try to keep it there 24hrs a day? We don't feel comfortable running the filter at night.
2. We have been shocking (thinking we are getting to about 15ppm) in the late evening and running the filter a couple of hours (treating as 18,000 gals est using 4.5 gals of 6% bleach??) Did this two nights in a row and remarkable difference. Will do again tonight. But, tomorrow I will get some Cal-hypo to use for shocking. How much of this do we need to buy? Does it come in little bags or buckets? How much?
3.We bought a 3lb bottle of the CYA/Stab from WalMart and, after reading your site, we are really nervous making sure not to add tooooooo much! I think I like your idea of the tube sock in the skimmer, will talk to hubby. How do we "shoot for 20 ppm?"
4. Hubby thinks our pool looks like it has a slight bluish tint now. White plaster w/stains and blue tile trim. All back yards on all sides have lots of tall trees, but ours does not. Some green reflection? I am a little color-blind, but it still looks greenish to me...esp in the deep end. What would bluish mean?
5. How will we know when the pool is safe for swimmers? (sorry, I know, dumb question alert)
We are so happy to find this site and trying to learn the BBB method. Thank you so much for all your help. Joyce
Again, thank you and the folks on this site.

[aylad]

Janet, thank you so much for your help. Here goes again:
1. When you say get the chlorine up to around 12-15ppm do you mean to try to keep it there 24hrs a day? We don't feel comfortable running the filter at night.

You don't necessarily have to run the filter at night, but the more you run it, the faster your pool is going to clear up. At a minimum, I would bring the Cl up to 15 at dusk and run the filter for an hour or so before shutting it off for the night, then turn it back on early in the morning and add Cl to go back up to 15. Keep in mind that once the algae is dead, the filter is what will remove it, so the more it runs, the faster your water clears.


2. We have been shocking (thinking we are getting to about 15ppm) in the late evening and running the filter a couple of hours (treating as 18,000 gals est using 4.5 gals of 6% bleach??) Did this two nights in a row and remarkable difference. Will do again tonight. But, tomorrow I will get some Cal-hypo to use for shocking. How much of this do we need to buy? Does it come in little bags or buckets? How much?

Cal-hypo is the main ingredient in most of the pre-packaged shock treatments (look at the ingredient label), and comes in all forms from small packages to big buckets. There is a small (maybe 4#?) bucket they sell at my WalMart which should be enough--once your Ca gets into the 200-400 range, you'll need to switch back to bleach.

3.We bought a 3lb bottle of the CYA/Stab from WalMart and, after reading your site, we are really nervous making sure not to add tooooooo much! I think I like your idea of the tube sock in the skimmer, will talk to hubby. How do we "shoot for 20 ppm?"

The label should tell you how much to add to get to 20, 40, 60, etc. ppm--
add what the chart says will get you to the 20-30 range. You can always add more later if you need to.

4. Hubby thinks our pool looks like it has a slight bluish tint now. White plaster w/stains and blue tile trim. All back yards on all sides have lots of tall trees, but ours does not. Some green reflection? I am a little color-blind, but it still looks greenish to me...esp in the deep end. What would bluish mean?

Bluish means your water is clearing up and you're on your way to a blue, clear pool!

5. How will we know when the pool is safe for swimmers? (sorry, I know, dumb question alert)

Generally, once your Cl has come down from the shock level (with a CYA of 0, that would be less than 5), and you have no CC, and your pH is in line, (which yours is), your pool is fine for swimming.

We are so happy to find this site and trying to learn the BBB method.

We're glad you found the site--keeping a crystal clear pool is very easy and inexpensive once you get a handle on the water chemistry!

[JJParrish]

Janet,
YOUR information has made my day! Thank you! Blue means on the way! YEA! Will keep you posted with numbers. Again, THANK YOU and all those who contribute to this forum. I believe I'll try to find that swimsuit now. Thanks, Joyce