Help! Big Time!

[aylad]

Let me get this straight if the bottle says 3 QT, how many bottles do i need to add?

I thought 4 QT = 1 gallon, so would that be 3 bottles?

If you'll add 3 of the 3qt bottles, that will be close enough to 2.3 gallons. Keep your pump running 24/7, watch your pressure so that you can clean the cartridges as needed. Brush the pool at least once a day. The key to clearing up the green is going to be to go up to the shock level, and STAY THERE. That means testing 2-3 times daily and adding whatever amount of bleach you need to get back up to the 20 ppm. If you just shock it once and let it come back down, the pool will not clear. You need to maintain the 20 ppm until the pool turns to cloudy blue, then you can slowly let your Cl drift back down, but with your CYA that high, you never want it to go below 5 ppm, to keep it from turning green again.

Janet

[PoolKid]

Alright, The only problem is that i dont really have a test kit that test to 20ppm. So dose anyone have a way to do a best guess of the ppm level?

I got strips that test to 10ppm.

Im waiting till tommorow morning to put it in the pool. since its 10pm now.

[aylad]

It would be better to put it in tonight, since the sun will consume some of the chlorine. You want to put it in initially after sundown so as much as possible stays in the pool to work on the algae. Then retest tomorrow and add more to get back up to 20. You're not going to be able to clear up the algae problem without risking bleaching your liner if you don't have a test kit that will accurately measure up to 20, so I highly advise you to at least get one of the OTO test kits that tests for pH and Cl. An even better buy for the money would be to go to WalMart and buy the $14 5-way drop-based kit.

If you have one of the cheap OTO test kits, you can measure up to 5 ppm with it--you just dilute your pool water 1:1 with distilled water, test as usual, the multiply your result x 2 to read to 10 ppm. To test to 20, you would need to dilute it 1:3 and multiply by 4.

You also need to get your pH up to at least 7.0, because a pH at 6.0 is very acidic and can start to damage your liner. Your alk should be in the 80-120 range, as well. you can raise both at the same time by adding Borax washing soda or soda ash.

Janet