Green/Brown water..about to give up!!

[chem geek]

I had my pool at 30ppm with cya at 30 recently (possibly fighting algae... it was cloudy water), anyway, it did not bleach my dark blue liner. Guess I got lucky

At 30 ppm FC and 30 ppm CYA, the actual disinfecting and oxidizing amount of chlorine (HOCl) is 2.5 ppm which would be equivalent to having 5 ppm of chlorine in a pool without CYA (at a pH of 7.5). So while that it is on the high side, it apparently isn't in the range that causes bleaching to occur. Perhaps one needs 10 ppm or higher FC "no CYA" equivalent before that happens.

Or maybe you were just lucky!

Richard

[shelbi]

I know a few weeks ago, one of our floater bottles with chlorine tabs in it SUNK and stayed there for several hours before i found it....it bleached a huge spot on the bottom.

Still green today but much lighter - very pale greenish. Still cloudy. How long does this take? I know I had a pretty bad problem and it's only been 3 days. thank goodness it is working! I've been keeping my chlorine between 15-20ppm. My CYA was about 40 the other day. Have not checked it since Sat...does not seem to fluctuate much.

[shelbi]

Wed update: Water still very cloudy - very pale green. Most of this is from settlement on the bottom. When I vacuum, it lightens. I still have some brown color coming out of the return. Have not figured out how to vacuum to waste. I tried it the other day and my hoses collapsed - cheap intex tubes. Overall, it looks much better!! Here are my numbers:

FC - 10
TC - 12.5 (these were obtained by diluting then multiply by 5 - probably not completely accurate but pretty close)

pH - 7.6
Alk - 160-170
CYA 35

How am I doing? I have added about 4 jugs of bleach everyday since Sat. My numbers are always a tad lower than 15 when I check them but I always add a jug. Doing this three times a day. Anything else I should be doing? Try some patience, maybe? ha ha I'm trying!

Thanks again for everyone who has helped. I know sometimes it seems we ask the same questions that are already on here somewhere but it can be a bit overwhelming so personal help is certainly appreciated.

[aylad]

You're doing fine, keep brushing the pool daily and let your filter run 24/7 until it clears. Keep it at that shock level until your CC goes to 0, or until your water changes to blue/cloudy. The green has to be all the way gone.

Janet

[Spensar]

Good luck with the pool and keep plugging away at it! I had a big mess after coming back from holidays, and even though I've run the pool for 3 years, I was surprised at the amount of chlorine and time it took to finally whip it back into shape.

It WILL work. Like they are saying on the forum, just keep the chlorine level up until it clears! No vacumm to waste will give you a bigger challenge getting the dead algae out of the pool. Lots of filter cleaning I guess!

[shelbi]

woo hoo! finally clear! well not clear, very cloudy but not a sight of color - no green, no brown. Water is cloudy white. Hope this is right. Much prettier than brown! I've tried to vacuum but my hoses are collapsing. Since I couldn't see the bottom, I was getting pecans stuck in the hole which put too much pressure on it. Now i think it's ruined - time for a new hose i guess. So until I get around to finding one, i'll just let the filter do it's job. Did not check my numbers this morning but i did add one more jug of chlorine. So since there is no green, i can let my chlorine number just fall down to around 5, right? (I'll double check the best guess chart...my cya is 35)

Janet...thanks for all your help and support..

Spensar...yes, i was very surprised how quickly the problem came up. Haven't seen anything like that this year. But now I can say I am experienced at algae control...ha ha.

[Spensar]

Great news! Don't let your chlorine guard down yet! I'd keep it up at 10 or so until the water clears up really nicely. You aren't out of the woods yet. Can you post up your total and combined chlorine numbers? That will show if you are left with just cleaning up the dead gunk or if the beasties are still trying to multiply. Until you have constent CC of zero for a few readings I would keep the chlorine up there.

[shelbi]

Will post all my numbers later. No time to check before work today. will def keep my chlorine up for now. I think I'm FINALLY getting the hang of this.

Spensar, I see you joined this board in 1969...wow, didn't know there was internet back then....ha ha.