Help chemical balance whacked

[waterbear]

Question, Are you using test strips for testing. Your pH of 8.4 was a red flag for me. I know some test strips go that high but the drop based kits I have seen don't. If you are using strips they are not accurate enough for balancing the water! (IF you have a drop based kit that goes that high it is bogus since the Phenol Red indicator only tests up to 8.2! Get a different test kit!)

Your Chlorine level is very high, this will cause false readings on the pH and Total Alkalinity. Wait until your FC is below 10 ppm and then retest to get more accurate results.

Since your water is green you need to hit it hard and heavy with chlorine until it clears! How high to go is dependant on your CYA (stabilizer, cyanuric acid) levels. You posted that your cyanuric acid was 0! Your chlorine will not hold and is getting burned off by the sun very quickly, this is why your water is green! Recommened levels are 30-50 ppm and then keep your FC at 3-6 ppm and shock to 15 ppm. You have a vinyl liner and with NO CYA I would not bring the FC shock level to over 12 ppm to avoid bleaching the liner! You need to test morning, noon and night and keep adding enough chlorine to keep the level at 12 ppm until the pool clears. Vacumn out as much dead algae as you can in the process. Once the algae starts dying the pool will turn milky. Keep hitting it with cholrine until your FC is holding overnight then get some CYA in there to keep the sun from burning it off during the day. Let your FC drop to about 5 ppm once the pool is clear and keep it there.

[waterbear]

It definitely does sound like an algea problem. This will drastically raise your PH. You have to bring your PH down or the algea will continue to thrive. This will also help make your chlorine/sanitizer more effective. There is also a really great algecide that you can get for about $25 at walmart that takes care of almost every type of algae imaginable (including mustard). It is called "algae free". I would dose heavily with that and try to brush the walls and steps/ladder down as much as possible and the vaccum well. (We even took our steps out and bleached them and the sandbags that go inside to hold them down.) If you don't get the algae under control, you'll never be able to get the PH under control, and that will make it harder to level out your chlorine levels.
You also need to bump up your stablilizer, but be careful not to over stablize because this could cause more algae problems. I would up it by what the bottle says, but then be sure to test it reguarly (morning noon and night) to make sure that the levels are in range and not too high. Good luck!

I would suggest you read through the forum and then go to www.poolsolutions.com and read everything you can on there to see how this forum recommends dealing with problems like algae. You recommened an algeacide and I am wondering what is the active ingredient in it. If it is copper it is DEFINITYLY not a recommended product. If it is sodium bromide or inorganic ammonia compounds then it can create a whole new set of problems. If it is a linear quat it is also not a recommended product. If it is polyquat it is fine to use but only after chlorine itiself has not proved effective.

Also please explain to me how an algae bloom will raise pH?

[aylad]

I agree with waterbear...katw78, please take some time and read around the forum before you start posting advice. We have some tried and true methods for clearing up water problems that don't involve dumping other stuff in the water that may cause other problems later.

Also, I'm curious about your reasoning behind the relationship between algae, pH, and chlorine levels--while lower pH may or may not help your chlorine be more effective, I have absolutely NO knowledge of algae blooms creating pH problems.
Janet