I Have Cloudy Water And Cannot Hold Fc

[coolpool4u]

Hello I hope some one can help! Getting frustrated. I opened my pool 2 weeks ago and found the water green. The cover had a hole and we accumulated alot of leaf debris. We have an above ground pool 16X24 oval 11,000 gal. We have not had this trouble before and are not positive we want to do what the store recommends. We shocked with 5 bags hypo-chlor and used algicide. In one week the green is gone but we have a cloudy/milky looking pool. We have tried 7 more shocks in two days time and we are not holding FC, I had the water tested and read alot of the info at this site.

CYA 31

TC 0

FC 0

PH 7.5

TA 141

ADJ TA 132

TH 317

Checked ammonia and that is not a problem. Light yellow. The store performed a chlorine demand test and recommend (Bioguard chems) 10#Super Sol and 10#Burnout. To me that is alot of chemicals and expensive ones to boot about $140. Do you have an alternative suggestion? Could we use bleach as the chlorine? How will it effect PH? My TH-calcium? is high I think due to the hypo-chlor shock. Help!

[PaulR]

Bleach works great as a chlorine source. It sounds like you might need a lot... Basically, to wipe out the algae, you need to get your FC up to about 12 (according to this chart) and keep it there until you have: (1) overnight FC loss of no more than 1ppm; (2) CC under .5ppm; and (3) clear water.

Bleach doesn't really affect pH although a pool store might tell you otherwise. Adding bleach moves it one way, but the chlorine combining with organics moves it the other way, so it's a wash.

TH is probably mostly CH and the cal-hypo didn't help. But it's not ridiculously high; the Pool Calculator suggests as long as your pH doesn't go up too much it should be okay.

--paulr

[chem geek]

Paul (as usual) gave excellent advice.

BioGuard SuperSol is Dichlor where for every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) that it adds, it will also increase Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 9 ppm. BioGuard Burnout is Lithium Hypochlorite which won't add anything extra, but this is the most expensive form of chlorine by over a factor of 5 (see this post for a cost comparison of chlorine sources).

The 10 pounds of SuperSol in 11,000 gallons would increase FC by 60 ppm and CYA by 55 ppm. I would not use this product since it would increase your CYA level by too much, especially at this point when your pool is not stable. Getting your CYA to 85 ppm will make it much harder (slower) to oxidize whatever is in the pool. Though some people operate their pools at a CYA of 80 ppm in very sun-intense areas, you need to be careful about it.

The 10 pounds of Burnout would increase the FC by around 38 ppm. There's no problem with this except that it is so expensive.

A much more economical solution is to use chlorinating liquid (or 6% unscented bleach), though it will take a lot of it.

You should do your own bucket test to determine the chlorine demand. I wouldn't trust the pool store. With no measurable ammonia and no CC, I don't think the chlorine demand is that high. Also, I'm not sure I trust the CYA or other numbers they are giving. You should get your own good test kit, either the Taylor K-2006 you can get at a good online price here or the TF100 kit from tftestkits.net here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is less expensive per test.

Please read Defeating Algae and note that you don't just dump some chlorine in and walk away. You keep adding chlorine every hour or so until you get the FC to hold and you then maintain the high shock level of FC. Initially, the FC consumption will be fast, but then it will slow down as the pool starts to clear.

Richard

[coolpool4u]

Paul (as usual) gave excellent advice.

BioGuard SuperSol is Dichlor where for every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) that it adds, it will also increase Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 9 ppm. BioGuard Burnout is Lithium Hypochlorite which won't add anything extra, but this is the most expensive form of chlorine by over a factor of 5 (see this post for a cost comparison of chlorine sources).

The 10 pounds of SuperSol in 11,000 gallons would increase FC by 60 ppm and CYA by 55 ppm. I would not use this product since it would increase your CYA level by too much, especially at this point when your pool is not stable. Getting your CYA to 85 ppm will make it much harder (slower) to oxidize whatever is in the pool. Though some people operate their pools at a CYA of 80 ppm in very sun-intense areas, you need to be careful about it.

The 10 pounds of Burnout would increase the FC by around 38 ppm. There's no problem with this except that it is so expensive.

A much more economical solution is to use chlorinating liquid (or 6% unscented bleach), though it will take a lot of it.

You should do your own bucket test to determine the chlorine demand. I wouldn't trust the pool store. With no measurable ammonia and no CC, I don't think the chlorine demand is that high. Also, I'm not sure I trust the CYA or other numbers they are giving. You should get your own good test kit, either the Taylor K-2006 you can get at a good online price here or the TF100 kit from tftestkits.net here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is less expensive per test.

Please read Defeating Algae and note that you don't just dump some chlorine in and walk away. You keep adding chlorine every hour or so until you get the FC to hold and you then maintain the high shock level of FC. Initially, the FC consumption will be fast, but then it will slow down as the pool starts to clear.

Richard

Thank you! I will do the bucket test and let you know how it goes. If the amount of bleach needed is way out there, should I consider draining some of the pool water?

[chem geek]

That's completely up to you, but yes if it's an extraordinary amount then you can consider water dilution which will help.

[ps558]

That's completely up to you, but yes if it's an extraordinary amount then you can consider water dilution which will help.

I thought Burn Out was Cal Hypo and only the winter shock was Lithium?

[coolpool4u]

That's completely up to you, but yes if it's an extraordinary amount then you can consider water dilution which will help.

Ok I just want to be clear how to do the bucket test. What time of day, evening? I get 2 gallons of pool water and add 2t of bleach, test, should be 80ppm, wait 30 min and test fc. If none add 1t, test should be 40ppm, wait 30 min and test again. How many teaspoons should I try? If it does keep fc how do I calculate how much 6% bleach/chlorine to add. When I add bleach I should dilute and add very slowly near the return. If I do this I hope to have no trouble with my liner.

Now I have a seperate question, we are talking about going away for the weekend. How can I treat the pool water to be sure I donot come back to green? Should I cover? If I add algicide and 2 or 3 triclor tabs to skimmer. Or we should not leave because it will set us back too much? We wanted to be sure we had enough time to do bucket test and chlorine add, we would do it when we came back.

Thank you for all of your help, I really appreciate it!

[chem geek]

That's completely up to you, but yes if it's an extraordinary amount then you can consider water dilution which will help.

I thought Burn Out was Cal Hypo and only the winter shock was Lithium?

It depends on the type of Burn Out. BioGuard Burn Out 35 shown here is Lithium Hypochlorite while BioGuard Burn Out Extreme shown here is Cal-Hypo 47%. So you are right that I could have been assuming the wrong kind of Burn Out.

[chem geek]

Do the bucket test away from sunlight in which case it won't matter if it's day or night. If your bucket isn't clean, then clean it with diluted bleach first and rinse thoroughly. Fill the bucket with tap water and measure the chlorine which should be zero or perhaps 1 ppm if your tap water is chlorinated. Then dump and fill with 2 gallons of pool water. I'd do 1 teaspoon of 6% bleach at a time since that's 40 ppm FC which is quite a lot already. I wouldn't bother with more than 3 or 4 teaspoons since I doubt you'll want to add more than 120 ppm FC of chlorine to the pool. If you wanted to, you could do the bucket test with 1/4 teaspoon to get 10 ppm FC resolution -- up to you.

After you do this, then you'll know within 40 ppm (or 10 ppm) how much chlorine to add so at that point you can add 10-20 ppm FC at a time to the pool until it holds. Just make sure you add chlorine slowly over a return flow with the pump running in the deep end of the pool and to ensure thorough mixing lightly brush the side and bottom of the pool where you add the chlorine.

As for going away, that depend for how long. Usually, Trichlor tabs don't last more than around 4 days so if you are gone for a week you'd have to over-compensate with more chlorine. For sure you should cover the pool since keeping sunlight out of the pool will help and your chlorine usage will likely be less than 1 ppm FC per day with no sun on the pool (could be a lot less, depending on what's going on in your pool).

You could add PolyQuat 60 algaecide which should last a week or a little more. Just keep in mind that larger doses consume some chlorine so you'll need to raise the chlorine a little after adding the algaecide (check the FC some hours after adding the algaecide).

[coolpool4u]

Do the bucket test away from sunlight in which case it won't matter if it's day or night. If your bucket isn't clean, then clean it with diluted bleach first and rinse thoroughly. Fill the bucket with tap water and measure the chlorine which should be zero or perhaps 1 ppm if your tap water is chlorinated. Then dump and fill with 2 gallons of pool water. I'd do 1 teaspoon of 6% bleach at a time since that's 40 ppm FC which is quite a lot already. I wouldn't bother with more than 3 or 4 teaspoons since I doubt you'll want to add more than 120 ppm FC of chlorine to the pool. If you wanted to, you could do the bucket test with 1/4 teaspoon to get 10 ppm FC resolution -- up to you.

After you do this, then you'll know within 40 ppm (or 10 ppm) how much chlorine to add so at that point you can add 10-20 ppm FC at a time to the pool until it holds. Just make sure you add chlorine slowly over a return flow with the pump running in the deep end of the pool and to ensure thorough mixing lightly brush the side and bottom of the pool where you add the chlorine.

As for going away, that depend for how long. Usually, Trichlor tabs don't last more than around 4 days so if you are gone for a week you'd have to over-compensate with more chlorine. For sure you should cover the pool since keeping sunlight out of the pool will help and your chlorine usage will likely be less than 1 ppm FC per day with no sun on the pool (could be a lot less, depending on what's going on in your pool).

Great thanks for the advice! I will be gone only 3 days. Let you know the results. Have a great weekend!

You could add PolyQuat 60 algaecide which should last a week or a little more. Just keep in mind that larger doses consume some chlorine so you'll need to raise the chlorine a little after adding the algaecide (check the FC some hours after adding the algaecide).