Mayday!! Mayday!!

[kingbud]

Just bought home with a whoppin big pool with whoppin big problems. I need help with (1) where to begin and (2) how to figure out how much of whatever to use get the water in shape. (I'm not a novice, just experienced on a much smaller IG vinyl lined pool.) the facts and figures:

inground painted concrete, 45,000 gal
pH 7.9
TA 121
Calcium hardness 145
Free CL 0
Total CL 1.0
CYA 8

Yes I have algae, and it is on the march; but although it looked like a farm pond when we took over, I got the water cleared up to where you could see the bottom before the algae took off. Slowly vacuuming the bottom to waste, lots of organic matter and silt. phew

... three weeks ago I said "I ain't afraid o' no swimming pool". now I'm eating those words

Thanks all

[waste]

The first thing you want to do is hit it hard with bleach, and keep hitting it until the water clears! What do you have for a test kit? Even if you have a bad test kit, you can use the color of the water to determine the shocking (until you get a good kit) - hit it hard with bleach until the water starts to become clear, then you'll need a FAS/ DPD kit to complete the process.

Good luck!!

[Watermom]

Any improvement?

[kingbud]

Hi WM, thanks for asking. The short version is the water is back to clear, ph is still a little high at 7.8 but I'm going to leave it be for now. I'm building up the hardness in 12 lb doses so it's up to 179 by now. I hit it with 2 5lb shocks of dichlor, a 5 gal jug of 10% bleach, and several pounds of granular trichlor - actually decomposed pucks. Since it had no stabilizer when I started I felt like it was OK to use this stuff up. The latest CYA is 30. The pool supply made a big deal about copper and I put in 2 quarts of Algaeban, their copper algaecide. I don't know what happened but the copper reading at the last analysis was less than .10 Finally, alkalinity is at 106 and FC/TC was 5.0 Surprisingly, the phosphate level was acceptable.

So I done pretty good on straightening out my chemistry, and the water is nice and clear so I can see to..... VACUUM. Lots of green slime. How would I know if the algae was dead if it doesn't change color? It does come up fairly easily but there is a lot of it. About the only feature of this pool that I can't complain about is that the waste is hard piped into the city sewer, so I don't have to mess around with a long hose and all that trouble.

Next on the horizon: the DE filter and pump are both shot, and the filter was undersized at 36 sf (for reasons completely lost on me two of the grid ports on the header were plugged, which reduced the capacity by 15%... beats me... 36sf wasn't enough in the first place!) Also, we need at least another suction line, the two existing were undersized at 1-1/2. I'm thinking if I stay with DE I really need a 60SF unit and 2hp motor. I've christened my pool Lake Woebegone for now, but it will be a real beaut when everything is up to snuff... this mother would be large for a motel pool, and it's 12' deep!!! There- hope I didn't bore you too much with my tale of troubles. Thanks for your interest.

ooh! ooh! funny story: when we first started with this monster, the water was nearly black, complete with a rainbow sheen. The shallow end was dry so it was around 4' low. I got two of those 5 gal jugs of potent bleach- my wife was standing with me in the shallow end when I poured them in.. we stood there for a moment admiring how the color of the ook seemed to lighten as the chlorine worked, but suddenly, in the deep end, I saw motion... when all that bleach reached the far end of the pool and hit the wall the water actually boiled! My brother, the engineer, remarked that with all that rapid oxidation I was lucky it didn't catch fire!!

[Watermom]

Hope you don't live with a bunch of blondes. People usually blame chlorine for turning hair green, but actually it is copper.

[kingbud]

How would I know if the algae was dead if it doesn't change color?

[Vinyl_Guy]

How would I know if the algae was dead if it doesn't change color?

I am lost when it comes to chemicals, you people are amazing when it comes to that.

But I've vacuumed a few pools in my day .

If the algae comes up very easy and doesn't cling at all, it's pretty much dead.

[kingbud]

Merci beaucoup, mon frere!

[aylad]

Generally once the algae dies, the water will change to a cloudy blue.

About the copper--once your copper level gets high enough, then you're going to have staining of the pool with higher chlorine levels, then the care of your pool is going to take on a whole new dimension.....as well as people having green hair and nails, as Watermom noted above.
Copper does have an algaecidal effect, but so does correct levels of chlorine. I personally wouldn't add anything else to the pool that contains copper!

janet