Green (algae ?) water-test results karenkr

[karenkr]

need help bad-problem green yuky water, have been fighting it for over 2 weeks. Have added almost 25 lbs of Dura Chlor(sodium dichloro triazinetrone 57%) using dura chlor tabs -3- daily , has trichloro-s-triazinetrone 99%, and have added 2 qts of OMNI Algae Terminator. This was all done by pool peoples direction. Could not ever get chlorine level up no matter how much chlorine added. Luckily I have found your site so Im hoping you can help. From previous discussion I took your advice and purchased borax and bleach and a drop test kit. Last night I added 2 boxes of borax and 1 gallon of bleach. This am I tested cl/br: 5/10 ph: 6.8 total alkalinity: 120 total hardness: 450 cya: under 90. What do I need to do next??
I dont know what kind of pool I have other than it is not a vinyl liner and the pool people said it held about 50,000 gal.

[aylad]

Hi Karen,
First of all, in a 50K gallon pool, one gallon of bleach will only raise your Cl by about 1 ppm. That's WAYYYY too low to clear up green water. To tell you how high your Cl needs to be, we need an accurate number for CYA. "under 90" isn't close enough--because there's a big difference in required Cl levels if your CYA is 30 than if it is 80. If you can either retest for it, or have the pool store test for it and post the result, it will help us tell you what to do. With that much dichlor and trichor used (both of which contain CYA), I'm suspecting that it's much higher than 90, so we may be looking at draining/refilling part of your water. Do not add any more algaecide or anything else the pool store tries to sell you until you've come back and posted a CYA number. We've helped lots and lots of people in your situation, without the need for buying a bunch of unnecessary chemicals that just cause more problems with your water, but it's going to take a little patience and some accurate numbers.

Welcome to the forum!

Janet

[karenkr]

Thanks for the info. There is no pool store within 30 miles and today being the 4th they are probalbly closed so I will re-test. All I have to re-test with is the walmart drop test - will that do any good to re-test with that? Sure appreciate your input

[aylad]

Yes, go ahead and retest with the kit you have....but ignore the Bromine scale since you don't have a bromine pool.

Janet

[karenkr]

Re-tested the water. Results as follows
Chlorine: 0
Ph : 6.8
CYA : 100
Should I add some more borax to try and bring up Ph? I have more dura chlor but am afraid to add until I hear from someone.
Thanks

[Simmons99]

You can add some Borax to raise the PH to 7.2, but you need to get the chlorine to at least 25ppm and keep it there (testing 3X a day). There is a bleach calculator that some of the members have on their signature that can assist you in the amount of BLEACH (plain unscented ULTRA bleach) to add. NO more tablets (trichlor or dichlor)- your CYA is too high and it will keep the chlorine from being as effective.

Also a 50K gallon pool is HUGE. What are the dimensions? You need an accurate # of gallons otherwise you will be overdosing your pool.

[karenkr]

I tried to measure my pool but I dont think I did it right. It is kinda L shaped and is 9-10ft deep at one end and 3-4ft deep at the other. The measurements I came up with were 14ft x 18ft at one end and 19ft x20ft at the other. I feel so dumb because I dont know what I am doing. I am basing the gallon size on what the pool guy told me . Im going to walmarts and getting about 10 gallons of bleach and a couple boxes of borax. Hopefully someone will tell me about how many gallons I should add and how much borax to add. I am a total geek at this , have always relied on the pool guy---but this year it has just about gotten the best of me financially with all the stuff he has put in and what he has sold me. Then I found this site so I am trying to go it alone ( with help from you guys) Test reading now are
chlorine: 0
ph: 6.8
TA: 120
CYA: 100
Sure hope someone out there can help me!!! Appreciate any input given
Thanks in advance

[karenkr]

Just got an email from the pool guy I used???? to deal with. Scared the living daylights out of me.Said he tested my water (I didnt know that he did) yesterday with these results, States I have to drain my pool because I have minerals in the water. Also that my water hardness is 540 and that I had a Phosphate reading of 1000. Also said that my pool is leaching through the concrete/gunite. Said my pool surface was shotand I needed a new gunite job--cost of $5000-6000. Can someone help me. There is no way can afford to re-gunite this year. Any suggestions?????? Back to my algae problems, I did add 4 gallons of ultra bleach earlier in the evening. Just re-tested my water and FINALLY had some chlorine , New test re: Free Chlorine: 5/10 Ph: 7.5 (finally coming up too) TA: 120 CYA: 100. For me this is an improvement. What do I do next??
Thanks

[aylad]

If you've been able to shock the pool without staining so far, then don't worry about the minerals--if they're there, the pool guy must have put them there. Ca hardness is high at 540, but as long as your TA and pH stay fairly low, it shouldn't be a problem for you right now. Ignore the phosphate reading, it's meaningless to you for right now. As far as the new gunite job, how does your pool look?

As far as the algae goes, shock your pool up to 25 ppm and keep it there by testing and adding more a couple of times daily...here's the link to the bleach calculator you can use to help determine how much you need.

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

Janet

[karenkr]

First--thanks so much for helping me. I am beginning to get so frustrated and I feel so D----Dumb. I was really upset when the pool guy said what he did- when always before he was telling us what a pretty pool and how good shape it was in. It is true that it is an older pool, dont know exact age, guess about 15 years but all it needed as far as we knew was a good paint job. There is no staining on it that I can tell. And until about 3 wks ago had not had algae or any major problems with the water. Anyway back to my green algae? problem. So far I have added 10 gallons total of ultra bleach and 3 boxes of borax. When I first started with the advice of this site--I had horrible algae and green yuky water, no chlorine level and a ph of below 6. Just re-tested with these results Chlorine: 3/6 Ph: 7.5 TA: 120 amd CYA: 100. I have tried to download the site you recommended and for some reason it just keeps coming up Page Expired , I even tried to type in address and am told the site does not exist. Is there another way to access the site? What do I do next. I was told by the pool guy that we had a 50,000 gallon pool, so how much bleach at a time should I add? Just tell me what to do and I will do it. Should I be adding anything else beside the bleach? The water is still green but I do feel like I am at least on the right track now-----thanks to you guys. Just dont know what to do next so please advise. Thanks so much--
Karen