having trouble with a cloudy pool

[adambeazley]

ok, so I got my taylor testing kit in and just went out and ran a few tests...

Something apparently got into the strainer and died, so my PH was below 7.0 or right at it. Just dumped 4lbs of borax into the water.

Now the thing that is confusing me is the CYN Acid test... I filled up the little bottle to the 7ml mark, added the R-0013 and mixed for 30 seconds, but the water never turned cloudy. I squirted the mixture into the small tube with the black dot, but the dot never "disappeared" when viewing t through the water from the top... Does this mean that my CYN levels are way too low?

Im heading on vacation today, the pool is starting to turn green again... what shoudl I do before leaving to help clear this up? dump a bunch of powder shock to get the CYN levels up?

[PoolDoc]

1. Your CYA test result = 15 ppm CYA *or* less (probably, zero).

2. It's too late to try to adjust chems.

3. If you're leaving today, see if you can get http://pool9.net/polyquat/ some polyquat algaecide locally. If you can, add 4x the normal algae dose, and put your filter on BYPASS or recirculate. (The filter tends to remove it).

4. Alternatively, add 1 gallon of PLAIN 8% bleach per 10,000 gallons of water AND put 1 or 2 'floaters' filled with chlorine tabs into the pool.

Good luck!

[Watermom]

But, make sure the trichlor tabs do NOT have copper in them.

[adambeazley]

ok I am back from vacation. While I was gone my mom was feeding my dogs and she dumped 1 powder super shock every day while i was gone (gave those instructions to he before seeing the responses above). It also apparently rained and flooded around here, so my pool got totally topped off and is still at the overflow drain hole, so the CYN I was hoping to get from those CYN shocks did not even register on the tests I just took tonight.
PH: 7.6
TA: 90 ppm
Calcium Hardness 110 ppm
FC: 0
CYN: 0

Just dumped 6 gallons of bleach to shock it because its green again (darn frogs). also put a couple of trichlor pucks in the strainers. About to head to the store to get some CYN and some more bleach, now that I have the time to truly shock treat it!!!

any tips at this point?

[PoolDoc]

I should have been promoting these videos more; watch them, especially the CYA (not: CYN) test, and see if you did it correctly. If you did, you have no stabilizer.

http://pool9.net/tk-guide/
http://pool9.net/tk-interfere/

Also, post your pool dimensions. You entered your address, so I looked at your pool. Scaling off Google Maps photos is not very accurate, but your pool does not appear to be a 50k pool . . . so I can't figure doses for you. It looks like a 20x40 short L, but those are typically 30,000 gallons (20 x 40, 3.5 water depth in shallow, 8.5 water depth in deep)

However, if you've got algae, 6 gallons of 8% bleach is not enough for a 50k pool and barely enough for a 30k pool.

[adambeazley]

oh Gosh, I even drew the swimming pool in 3D when I first moved in, to get the cu. ft. and you are right its 30,000 gallons, I'm not sure why I was saying 50K... I guess I just remembered wrong one day and just started repeating it.

[adambeazley]

ok just an update... a few days ago I put in about 8lbs of stabilizer and finally today my CYA is at a 52-53 (I'm in South Louisiana).
CYA: 52
PH: 7.2 <--why did this drop? Add Borax or baking soda? TA is low... does that mean baking soda woudl be better
FC: 5.6 ppm (when I tested it earlier--> shocked with 8 more gallons of 8% Bleach-> this should put my chlorine up to about 22ppm)
CC: 0.4 ppm
CH: 110 ppm
TA: 90 ppm

So my main question is what do I do next other than just brush the pool, keep the FC levels high >15 and wait for the pool to clear up? Should I try to adjust the PH at this point? Would I be better off using baking soda to do that in order to increase the Alkalinity too?

thanks for all of the help.

PS: I went ahead and did the side by side test that you asked me to do and here are the results from the Biogard Multi-test 1200-V

FC: 5 ish ppm <-- its harder to read and match than the taylor kit, but close, however the Biogard kit only goes up to 5 ppm for Free Chlorine.
PH" 7.2-7.5 <-- somewhere in between.. again its hard to read and match (taylor is much better)
TA: 110 ppm <-- same at Taylor test

thats all the test that the multi-test offers. For the most part its pretty accurate, but hard to read comparatively speaking.

[PoolDoc]

If you would, fill out the chart, so I can advise you better: http://pool9.net/pf-chart/

Also, tell me how your water *looks*.