Need Help!!!!

[CarlD]

OK,

First thing, you are not going to solve this in a day or in 2 days. But if you follow our instructions, you may well get your pool nice and clean in time for your party. Your PRIMARY ingredient is what we call POPP, which stands for Pool Owner Patience and Persistence.

As Polyvue said, we need "readings" from a new pool water test. Take it to the pool store and get them to give you the following:

1)Free Chlorine (FC)
2)Combined Chlorine or Chloramines (CC)
3)Total Chlorine (TC)
(if they give you FC and EITHER CC or TC, it's OK)
4) pH
5) Total Alkalinity (T/A) they may give you 2 numbers so report them both.
6) Stabilizer, aka CYA, aka Cyanuric Acid
7) Total or Calcium Hardness (CH)

They'll probably give you a phosphate level readout and tell you to buy phosphate remover. Don't waste your money, no matter HOW hard a sell they try.

Same with calcium. You have a vinyl pool. Calcium does NOTHING for a vinyl pool but cause trouble if you have too much. That will be another hard sell--to add calcium. Don't do it, no matter what they say.

Next: For now you are DONE buying things called "shock" and other pool store chemicals. The ONLY pool store chemical is Liquid chlorine, but unless it's marked at 12% and, per gallon, it's less than double the cost of Ultra Bleach, stick with the Ultra Bleach.

You are going to need to add Bleach 3x/day to your water, daily vacuum your pool to waste (a setting on your filter that dumps the water) and daily brush your pool. You'll need to test your chlorine levels 3x/day (use a search to find our Shot Glass Method for rough estimates of higher chlorine levels).

And read our stickies on spring pool opening and fighting algae. EVERYTHING you need to know is posted here.

We'll walk you through it, step by step, but start here. It's enough to begin.

BTW, how deep is the WATER of your pool? You said it was 27'. I assume that means a 27' diameter circular above ground. We need the depth of the water to estimate how many gallons your pool contains, so we can recommend levels of bleach to use.

Ultimately, you are going to do all the work cleaning up your pool, and will make the ultimate decisions of what is best for you. We can only offer you our best advice. The rest is up to you.

[mrsncrawler_77]

Readiings for today !!!!



(cc)0
(tc)0
(ph)7.2
(cya)0
(alk)120


i have a vinyl liner and my pool is 4 1/2 ft deep

thanks so far for all the advice and just let me know where i need to begin so i can get started

[CarlD]

OK, You'll need to know how many gallons your pool holds. You'll need the area of the pool times the 4.5' to give you the pools volume in cubic feet. Then multiply by 7.48 to get the gallons.

You'll want to add 3 gallons of regular bleach per 10,000 gallons. So if you have 13,000-13,500 gallons, you'll need 4 gallons of bleach. If you have 16,500 to 17,000 gallons you'll need 5 gallons of bleach. And so on.

Then you'll need to test your water two to 3 times a day to make sure your FREE Chlorine (which is now zero...Free Chlorine plus Combined Chlorine = Total Chlorine--and your TC is zero) is between 10 and 15 or 16 (don't worry if it's not exact). If it's below 10 you'll need to add more bleach. Every gallon of regular bleach will add a little more than 5ppm to 10,000 gallons--figure accordingly.

You'll need a lot of bleach, though.

[mrsncrawler_77]

ok yesterday i added 12 gallons of bleach and this morning i added 3 more gallons went and got a water test this afternoon and this was my readings

ph 7.5
tc 10
fc 10
alk 91
the woman at the pool store didnt give me a cya she just said it was low guess since i wasnt buying nothing she wanted to be snotty so how much more bleach am i going to need to add the water it is still cloudy and cant see the bottom but i know thats not gonna happen over night what do i need to add for stablizer and for how loing do i need to keep adding the bleach to kill the algea bloom

[aylad]

You need to keep adding the bleach until the water turns blue and the cloudiness starts to clear up. With sustained chlorine levels, it probably will take 2-4 days, depending on how consistent you are. Once it's turned blue, the cloudiness is mainly going to be dead algae that your filter will have to get out--so make sure your filter is running 24/7, and backwash it as needed when your pressure rises. Brushing your pool daily will help, but the key is to sustain that high chlorine level--don't let it yo-yo up and down. Hang in there, it's going to clear if you keep the chlorine up!!

The stabilizer is CYA--sold as "balancer" or "conditioner"...the ingredient is cyanuric or isocyanuric acid. I wouldn't worry about adding it right now--get your pool clear first and then add the stabilizer. You're going to be backwashing your filter frequently while clearing up the bloom, and the stabilizer will just wash out.

Janet

[CarlD]

If there's not another pool store you can buy the smallest amount of stabilizer (CYA) they sell, just to get them to give you a reading on CYA. If your first #s were right, you don't have any CYA and you'll need to add it sooner or later--and that's something you have to buy at pool stores anyway.

[aylad]

Also, WalMart sells CYA in a 4 lb container. Last few years I found it in a 2 lb container in the section for spas and hot tubs, but this year they didn't seem to have it...don't know if they were out or if they're not carrying it anymore.

Follow label directions for amount to target 20 ppm in the pool, but don't broadcast it over the pool like it says to...instead, put it in a knee hi or old tube sock and hang it in front of a return. That way it won't wash out when you backwash your filter.

Janet