My Green Pool Saga - Help!

[waterbear]

Check your pH once the chlorine level is below about 10 or 15 ppm. It should be in the ballpark if you have a decent test kit. the 'cheapo' ones are usually worse about the interferance but the better kits by Taylor, LaMotte, and the kit sold on the poolsolutions website work pretty well up to about 15 ppm chlorine. Even the cheap walmart 6 way kit works at chlorine levels up to a bit over 10 ppm but if your chlorine is really high even these kits will show a PH of 8.2 or close to it when the pH is actually lower.

[Pamsel]

I have the Wal-Mart kit. It was the only place within 30 miles that had anything that tests for CYA. I plan to concentrate on the CL level now, brush and vacuum and stop with the acid until the water clears up. I am continuing to aerate. If this is not the right plan, someone please correct me.

[Pamsel]

This mornings test results:

CL 15
PH 7.8
TA 330
Water appearance unchanged.

PH may be testing a little high since the CL level is high. I plan to leave that alone for now and concentrate on maintaining the CL at 15. Or, since the water still is not changing in appearance, do I need to get the CL up to 20?

Also, will the TA begin to come down, if I stop putting in acid and just keep aerating?

[Rangeball]

Pamsel, We had a new vinyl liner installed last year. I used bleach for 1/2 the season, had to use a few jugs of acid to straighten out the pool store recommended mess my water was in, closed the pool with bleach and opened this spring with bleach. Liner still looks brand new.

I add bleach after sundown, and pour it directly into the skimmer. This way it's diluted when returned to the pool, and get's evenly distributed.

When I added the acid, I did it slowly, pouring a small stream in front of the return stream, to make sure it was dilluted and dispersed before it ever had a chance to contact the liner.

Good luck. The light is at the end of the tunnel, and it's so much easier/cheaper staying ahead of a pool that playing catch up.

[waterbear]

This mornings test results:

CL 15
PH 7.8
TA 330
Water appearance unchanged.

PH may be testing a little high since the CL level is high. I plan to leave that alone for now and concentrate on maintaining the CL at 15. Or, since the water still is not changing in appearance, do I need to get the CL up to 20?

Also, will the TA begin to come down, if I stop putting in acid and just keep aerating?

Keep hiiting it with chlorine and keep it at about 15 ppm. Like I said before, If your CYA biodegraded then there are a LOT of organics to burn off, Keep brushing and vaumning out as much as you can.
Airating is not going to have too much effect on the TA until you get the pH down to about 7.0. Reason is fairly technical. If you are interested in the reason let me know and I will post it but be aware it is chemistry nerd stuff!

With the walmart kit your pH readings are probably fairly accurate to maybe a little high with your CL at 15 ppm so don't worry to much about the pH right now. In fact, in a post about CYA biodegredation PoolDoc (Ben) said that in cases like this a pH around 7.8 is beneficial to helping clear the water. I would guess that your pH is in the 7.6 to 7.8 range now.

[Pamsel]

Ok, will just keep working on the chlorine, brush and vacuum for now. Will post an update tomorrow. Thanks!

[Pamsel]

Well, here is my morning update:

CL 10-12 (since I am doing the dilution method it's hard to tell exactly)
PH 8.0
TA 330-350 (depends on if I stop when it first turns pink or when it's red)

Pool water still unchanged in appearance...dark green and cloudy.

At 10:00 last night I brushed the whole pool again, and added 5 gal CL

I don't seem to be making much progress.

Since I have no CYA reading, I got granulated cyanuric acid last night and put some in an old knee-high and hung it in front of my return jet this morning. It's rapidly washing it out of the sock, into the pool. I hope it's not going in too fast. Someone in an earlier post suggested I do this. Is this likely to help hold my CL level, if I get some stabilizer in there?

Am I missing something? Maybe I need to be holding my CL level at 15-20 instead of 10? I would have expected my water to be clearing by now. Also, I'm wondering how I am to keep the CL level maintained at 10 when I should only add CL in the evening. Is it not correct that to add it during the day when the sun is shining is basicly to waste it? I have been adding during the day, but it is very sunny today, so I didn't add today. My last check of CL (mid-day) was 8.0.

[waterbear]

Well, here is my morning update:

CL 10-12 (since I am doing the dilution method it's hard to tell exactly)
PH 8.0
TA 330-350 (depends on if I stop when it first turns pink or when it's red)

Test is done when it turns red. Add one more drop and if there is no more color change then don't count the last drop.

hope this helps