new user, old pool, trouble with algae

[ksukris]

CYA tested to 200 ppm. Yikes! I've been keeping shock level around 35 ppm of chlorine. Yes, I'm using distilled water to dilute, I did a quick check with full-strength pool water and got a deep orange color. As for my liner, it only has a couple years left anyway, is there any other danger to overshocking? I don't plan on jumping in anytime soon Just stocked up on more bleach, in the past 6 days I've added 16 gallons.

[PoolDoc]

With 200 ppm CYA, 35 ppm is NOT over-shocking . . . if the water is clear, feel free to swim.

(Don't tell the local health inspector -- he hasn't read the Best Guess page -- but the local country club pool I service was at CYA=100 and FC=28 most of this past weekend. Over 400 people swam, with no complaints!)

[ksukris]

After lots of reading on this forum and on poolsolutions.com, I've decided I don't want to deal with 200 ppm CYA. I've been a pool store junkie for years, and there is no telling how much crap is in my water besides the high CYA. I'm going to drain and refill. I'm aware of the issues with draining (floating pools), but that isn't a problem in my area. I lost all the water a couple years ago over the winter when there was a hole in the liner, and since the cover was on I have no idea how long it had been like that before I noticed it! No damage to the walls of the pool then, so I'd rather pay the $200 for new water from the city and start fresh. Once I have new water in, I'm going to use the dichlor I still have laying around until my CYA is 30 ppm, then switch to bleach. I'll add a little bleach as I refill to make sure I don't get an algae bloom before I can get the equipment running. Is this crazy? It doesn't sound like I have many options unless I want to deal with high CYA.

[ksukris]

Oh, and my liner only has a couple years left in it anyway. Has some wrinkles (which I know will get worse when I drain/refill), and is pretty faded. If I can get this season and next out of it, I'll be happy, then it's time to replace anyway. Water here is cheap, too. I'm really excited to get off to a good start with my new education about what my pool REALLY does and doesn't need.

[Watermom]

Sounds like you are aware of all the possible pitfalls. One thing you might try is to drain and fill at the same time using a large plastic tarp to keep the new water from mixing with the old water. That would keep the pool from every being empty. You drain from the bottom and fill from the top. It has to be a big enough piece of plastic that it can extend onto the sides of your deck so that as the volume of the water increases on top, the sheet has room to sink without falling in and allowing the new and old water to mix.

I have never done this myself, but it has been discussed on the forum before. You may do a search and read some threads. Use the search feature in my signature below.

[PoolDoc]

Oh, and my liner only has a couple years left in it anyway. Has some wrinkles (which I know will get worse when I drain/refill), and is pretty faded. If I can get this season and next out of it, I'll be happy, then it's time to replace anyway. Water here is cheap, too. I'm really excited to get off to a good start with my new education about what my pool REALLY does and doesn't need.

Your choice, of course. But I wouldn't, unless you are willing to do a liner installation in June. Old liners are notoriously brittle and susceptible to splitting.

If you really want to drain, there is a way to do a 'drain-in-place' but you'll need a tarp or pool cover that's about 10' bigger than your pool, so, for a 16x32, you'd need a 26 x 42 tarp. You could buy a new over-size winter cover, and do it with that.

Let me know if you are interested.

[BigDave]

Why not just run a high CYA pool until you replace the liner? Who knows, you might like adding chlorine only occasionally.

[ksukris]

Well I drained, refilled, and have been holding water for 36 hours, so I hope that means it was successful. I worked very quickly, left about 18" of water in the deep end to hold the liner down and immediately started refilling with three hoses pumping water into the pool, got it filled back up in about 24 hours. Added bleach as I went, as the little bit of old water that got mixed with the fresh was pretty nasty. I untucked the liner at the point where the shallow end starts getting deep, and tucked the hose from my shop vac in there to help hold the liner until water reached about 4" in the shallow end. Funny thing is, about 3 years ago, we didn't close properly and decided to drain/refill but didn't know any better that it could ruin a vinyl liner, that's when I got a couple wrinkles in the shallow end. This time, working quick and using the shop vac, I was able to drain/refill without adding any more wrinkles. I know that may have just been dumb luck on my part. I do appreciate your advice and took the warnings seriously, but I really wanted to get off to a fresh start after discovering this forum. From now on, I'm not putting anything in my pool unless I know exactly what it is and what it will do!!

Oh, and the little bit of green that was left from the old water quickly disappeared, water is blue, a little cloudy (can see bottom of shallow end but not deep end), but overall MUCH better. My test results this morning showed my FC and TC right at 8.0 ppm, ph 7.8, TA 80, and CYA at 30. I'm using my remaining trichlor pucks from the pool store until CYA gets to about 50, then it's all BBB from here on out. The cloudiness seems to be improving, but I've got a skimmer sock in there to help anyway. I've been reading lots of other threads on here over the past week, and feel like I have a better understanding of pool chemistry and operations, but I'm sure I'll be back with more questions over the summer. So glad I don't have to go back to the pool store and empty my wallet again!!!

[PoolDoc]

Sounds like you're moving toward a good pool summer!