Rookie Pool Owner

[MrGammo]

Hello everyone. I stumbled upon this website recently and found a lot of great information. I'm still learning how to properly maintain my pool, and feel like I've been given wrong advice so far. I recently got my water tested at Leslies and got the following results:

Free Available Chlorine - 0 ppm
Total Available Chlorine - 0 ppm
Cyanuric Acid - 120 ppm
Alkalinity - 90 ppm
pH - 7.4
Copper - 0ppm
Iron - 0ppm
Total Dissolved Solids - 2100
Phopshates - 1000 ppm

I completely emptied out the pool and changed the sand filter in the summer of 2017. My pool currently looks clear, but there are a few algea spots on the walls and floor. I have a pebble tec pool, 10,000 gallons.

I was given the advice of filling up my pool tablet floater to the rim of tabs, which from what I've learned, resulted in my high CYA. I have since stopped doing that.

Any advice would be appreciated to get my pool where it needs to be. Thank you

[PoolDoc]

Why did you drain your pool?

Never mind, now. But next time, don't assume that just because your CYA is high, you have to drain. Your other readings look OK . . . EXCEPT the low chlorine.

Here are a few simple rules for you to keep in mind:

1. The common name for a pool without chlorine is a POND.
2. Your chlorine should be 5 - 10% of your CYA level . . . when things are going well.
3. At the first sign of algae, your chlorine level should be between 25% and 50% of your CYA level.
4. So . . . if YOU can't test and monitor your CYA level, then will not be able to consistently operate your pool well.
5. With test strips, you cannot measure EITHER chlorine OR CYA accurately enough, or across the ranges you need to do the job.

You'll need to get a K2006 testkit from Amazon, if you want to resolve your problems. Meanwhile, add 1 gallon of pool bleach (available at Amazon) per 10,000 gallons of pool water . . . and then brush the pool. Repeat every other EVENING till there's no trace of algae for 4 days. Then drop to 1/2 gallon every other day.

Once you have your K2006, you can stop flying blind, and actually dose appropriately.

BTW, you can swim safely with high chlorine. Just wear old swim suits and don't submerge dyed or colored hair. If you are unsure about this, Google "bleach baths". These medically approved therapeutic baths are used on children and have chlorine levels of 50 - 100 ppm.

[PoolDoc]

Upgraded membership and moved thread to the Testing section. You may need to log out and back in to see everything.

PS.You can search use Google to search multiple pool sites, using Google's 'advanced search operators" to limit your search to specific sites. This page of mine will create the search links for you. Google knows my site -- and all the others -- much better than those sites internal search functions! And, if you need to post pictures -- of your pool, filter, pump, piping, what-not -- there are instructions on this page

Please note: the Super Search page does NOT search directly; it only CREATES special Google links, that enable a FOCUSED Google search!