Small Pool, Cloudy Water

[mikemerritt]

Thanks for the reply Watermom,

The pool is just 1000 gallons. Its not much larger than a good hot tub and is mostly for a 5 year old. The pool was filled with treated city water and all that has been added to the pool is 2 lbs. of 15% multifunctional shock as needed over 3 weeks. That powder was bought by a newbie desperate to do something on a Sunday afternoon to make the water safe for the kid. You see, we live in the deep south and its like a pressure cooker here...Monday showed a heat index of 110 and 99 actual degrees.

I looked at Wal Mart last night and all they had for testing was 2 refill bottles for some sort of kit. No full kits and it seems no place for them on the shelves. I suppose I need to know the best place to get the Taylor or whatever kit you folks like so well.

I have been out of the powder mentioned above since Sunday afternoon and risked waiting until Monday evening after work to add bleach which I have gone to after reading here. I waited until this morning (Tuesday) to look at the pool and .......you got it.....GREEN. I nailed it with bleach even though I haven't had the time to do the math on how much to add. I put 1/2 gallon of 3% in. I never thought missing a day could matter but both times I bloomed a nice crop of algae.

I'll get the proper test kit and will do whatever we can until the numbers are available. This little pool will be crystal clear yet.

Thanks a million,
Mike

[Watermom]

Uhhh --- my guess is that your pool is now clear?? In your small pool, 1/2 gallon of 3% bleach is gonna take the chlorine level to 15ppm!

Can you please tell us ingredients of 15% multifunctional shock?

The best price anyone has found so far (to my knowledge) for the Taylor 2006 is at this place:

http://www.amatoind.com/taylor-k2006-test-p-555.html

BTW -- in 1000 gallons, 1/2 cup of 3% bleach will raise your cl by 1ppm and 1/4 cup of 6% bleach will do the same. As soon as the pool is clear, you should try and keep your cl between 2-5 all the time right now because I doubt you have any cya in there. In your hot pool, algae's gonna want to grow fast. You'll probably need to add bleach morning and evening until you get some cya in there.

Repost with ingredients and we'll go from there.

EDIT -- Does your pool have a skimmer basket? You may want to try some skimmer socks to help filter out a lot of the stuff which is most likely dead algae. That could help with the cartridge clogging problem.

[mikemerritt]

Yeah.....not green anymore! Its back to the milky white that I posted about at the start of this thread.

The shock is sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione 15%. Other 85%.

I ordered the kit. Could you point me to the skimmer sock setup? This pool has no skimmer. I vacuum with the SIMPLE 15.00 water hose rig and a pool net.

I'll have a real pool someday!

Mike

[Watermom]

Skimmer socks won't work if you don't have a skimmer. Basically a skimmer sock is a little sock that you wrap around the skimmer basket to help catch little stuff. If you have no skimmer, no need for skimmer socks.

You know what? I think if this was my pool that only held 1000 gallons, I'd just dump the water and start over. You are going to really struggle to clear it I think with no skimmer and most likely an inadequate cartridge filtration. Dead algae is most likely not going to be caught in that vac net thing.

Now that you know how fast an algae bloom is gonna start in your hot climate, just be diligent about chlorination so one can't get started. You've ordered the good kit which will hopefully arrive quickly and we can help you tweak things once you can test.

That is my opinion. What do you think?

[mikemerritt]

I have no problem with starting over with this pool. I will have the new kit and we will try to keep the water clear. We will step up to a 5000 gallon or so pool no later than next spring & I see that I will be able to learn what I need to know here.

Thank you so much for taking time to help me.

[Watermom]

You are very welcome, Mike. Let us know when you refill and get some good testing numbers. We'll help you get all your levels balanced. In this case, refilling and starting again are a good decision.

[drako4]

Hi,

I am also in the process of setting up a 1700+ gallon 12 x30 Intex pool for my kids.. It also has no skimmer. Once I fill the pool am I going to be at a disadvantage as far as maintaining the pool as a result of this. Have a 530 gal/hr pump and cartridge. Hopefully this does an adequate job????
I am not really in favor of paying the $170 for the Taylor test kit up here in Canada. Only reason being, the kit is more than the whole set up. Can anyone recommend another way or test kit that may be cheaper and do close to the same thing as the Taylor... Maybe I am dreaming!
I had no idea this whole pool thing was going to be such a hair puller!

Cheers,
Carrie