Help Pool Green

[resapre]

Hi. So I have both more bleach and another gallon of liquid chlorine, which is best to use? I used liquid chlorine yesterday and it did not raise my Chlorine level to anything. I did add 3QT size container of bleach this morning and now my FC is reading between 5 and 10.

I also am using this power blaster vac thing and it is picking up a lot of algea and sludge off the bottom as well as brushing it every 15 - 30 minutes and cleaning filter cartridge.

Will the PH being so high affect the green and algea? I do have dry acid, should I add that?

Thank You so much for answering so quick.

[kelemvor]

Hi. So I have both more bleach and another gallon of liquid chlorine, which is best to use? I used liquid chlorine yesterday and it did not raise my Chlorine level to anything.

Bleach and liquid chlorine are exactly the same chemical compound (Sodium Hypochlorite). The main difference is that liquid chlorine is usually stronger. You'll need to know the concentration to use it effectively, and it should have a label on it that says (perhaps 10% or 11.5% or 12%). The other difference is usually price. Where I live, liquid chlorine is much cheaper than bleach; but in many areas the opposite is true.

The bleach should also indicate a strength such as 5.25% or 6% or something else. If each gallon of 6% bleach will raise your chlorine by 11.3 ppm, then a gallon of 12% liquid chlorine will raise your chlorine by 22.6ppm.

Here's the "but". But, if your liquid chlorine or bleach is old it will be weaker than what it was sold at. The higher the concentration, the quicker it loses strength. If your jug of LC was very old, that could easily explain why adding a gallon didn't do much. Freshness counts with Sodium Hypochlorite, especially at higher concentrations.

To clear things up you're going to need to test and dose as often as possible. The more consistently you are able to keep things above 25ppm, the quicker you'll clear the pool. Also make sure you're running the pump 24x7 while cleaning up and of course cleaning the filter media when the pressure reaches 10lbs above the reading you see after cleaning it (while you're cleaning up the mess, the pressure can rise very quickly). The pH needs to be brought down to prevent scaling issues, but at 25ppm the pH readings won't be super reliable.

Edit: Don't stop shocking when the pool first becomes clear. You'll know you're finished when you can go from sundown one day to before sunup without losing 1ppm of FC. At that point you will be able to let the FC level drift down to somewhere between 8 and 15ppm in order to keep things nice and clean. It shouldn't be hard to maintain given your very high CYA level.

[Spensar]

If you are using pucks or sticks for chlorine, best to stop using them. Those also included stablizer, also referred to as CYA. At 100, that level is plenty high and requires higher chlorine levels to clear the green up. If you keep using them, the CYA level will keep climbing.

Seeing as you are in Nevada, I would guess that water is is fairly $$, but removing half or so to bring the CYA down would not be to practical. Keep pounding it with bleach in the meantime, and it will take more than you think. Killing the algae uses up chlorine quickly, and you need to keep the levels up. Over a few days the water will likely go from green to cloudy/milky, and then to clear. As posted above, don't let up on the chlorine levels because the water isn't green anymore, if you do the algae will grow back.