Black spots on bottom of pool??

[rkrgk]

PoolDoc, I read somewhere that sprinking trichlor granules/cal hypo directly on top of the black spots or scrubbing the black areas with trichlor pucks with a holder (while keeping a lower pH 7.0) might help? And keep the pump switched off for the day or so for the granules to work directly on the spots and srcubbing. Do you think it will help?

[cbaird]

Pool Doc, thank you for your reply! I appreciate any help with this pool. I was waiting for payday but I am ordering that pool kit you suggested from Amazon, you are right in that I need to be testing for all this stuff myself instead of at Leslie's. I am hoping the booklet that comes with it will help me better understand the chemical interactions. I did take them another sample a few days ago and my cyanic is down to 80, which is better, and the phosphates are staying under 100. I am adding their PhosFree product weekly. I did treat last weekend with their black algae killer. I cannot see any diff tho. I am brushing twice a day, also with a small steel brush on the spots and they are maybe improving a bit. Hard to tell, there are hundreds of spots and there is not enough strength in my arms or time in the day to budge them! Most are in the deep end. I guess I am going to have to live with an ugly pool bottom. I cannot keep the FC at high levels for weeks, I have dogs that swim in and drink the water and keeping them safely away from the pool for more than a few days is very hard. The water is very clear and nice to swim in, the walls of the pool are good, spots are all on the bottom. I did scrape it with a toe tho and it smeared green.

I would love to see other people's pics of their spots but I cannot seem to open any, it says I don't have permission??

[PoolDoc]

What post are you using, that has pictures you can't see? (URL?).

High chlorine is not a risk for your dogs; until a few years ago, there was NO upper limit on the chlorine in drinking water! I'd be more concerned about CYA, and some of the additives you are using. It's not that I know they are bad for dogs; it's just that I don't know what effect they have.

Be careful about the Taylor booklet; it has some bad advice in it. The kit is excellent but the booklet mostly promotes pool industry standard methods and doctrine -- NOT the BBB method.