How to up the stabalizer level?

[jeff6898]

Any tricks on keeping stabalizer in the pool? I have already put in 10 lbs of stabalizer and my reading is always 0 I can not get any stabalizer to stay in the pool.

13,500 gallons 24ft round pool.
alk 80
ph 7.5
fc 0
stab 0

[chem geek]

Something is wrong since stabilizer aka conditioner aka Cyanuric Acid (CYA) does not go away except by dilution (and by breakdown from bacteria when there is no chlorine in the water).

First of all, how are you measuring the stabilizer/CYA level? Test strips are not very accurate for this. You should have a good test kit, either the Taylor K-2006 or the TF100 from tftestkits.net.

Also, are you able to add chlorine and get a measurable Free Chlorine (FC) level at night? If you have no stabilizer, then during the day the chlorine will breakdown, but at night it should normally hold. If you add chlorine at night and don't get a measurable FC (with the pump running) measuring after 30 minutes of circulation, then you may have ammonia in the pool from bacteria converting the CYA into ammonia. See if you have a Combined Chlorine (CC) reading. For ammonia, you can get a test kit from a pet/fish/aquarium store.

I think it most likely that your test result for CYA is wrong as that's easy to fix with a better test kit.

Are you just opening up the pool after having let the pool go over the winter? Do you have algae in the pool or is the water clear?

[jeff6898]

I am using the strip test kit. THe pool has been sitting for a year with no pump running or chemicals put in. I am getting it reay for the summer now. It does have alot of allergy in it. On Sunday I put in 10 gallons of liquid chlorine and it showed a high reading until THursday when it showed zero.

[chem geek]

So, stabilizer take a while to dissolve depending on how you added it (did you add it to the skimmer?). So it may not register for days. 10 pounds of stabilizer in 13,500 gallons would raise the CYA by 89 ppm which is TOO MUCH. Also, with the pool not having chlorine in it and having algae, it may have bacteria that will consume the CYA. So you should be shocking the pool and following the advice in Defeating Algae keeping in mind that you don't just dump chlorine in once, but need to keep adding it to maintain a high Free Chlorine (FC) level relative to the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level.

10 gallons of even 10% (let alone 12.5%) chlorinating liquid in 13,500 gallons would raise the FC by 75 ppm which is way, way too high to add in one shot. I hope you did not damage your liner (you said you had a round pool so I presume it is an above-ground pool with a vinyl liner). You REALLY need a good test kit because high chlorine readings will bleach out a DPD chlorine test though in your case it sounds like you did measure high readings with the test strips. The problem is that now we don't know if the zero is really zero or just a high chlorine level that is bleaching out the strip. Please get a good test kit (that I referred to before -- the Taylor K-2006 here or the TF100 here). If you just want to get something quick to confirm that you've got chlorine in the pool, then get a cheap OTO chlorine test kit that shows the chlorine level as yellow (as opposed to DPD chlorine test that shows pink/red) since that won't bleach out and will at least tell you if you've got chlorine in the pool. What color does your test strip normally show when there is chlorine in the pool?

So now you've probably got too much CYA in the water and that's going to make it hard and slow for the water to clear taking more chlorine and time than it would have otherwise. You also will be starting out with high CYA such that your chlorine choices will be more limited. PLEASE get a good test kit and read up at the Pool School to learn how to maintain your pool. Who is telling you to add the amounts of chemicals you have been adding? Is it a pool store?

For now, add SOME chlorinating liquid to the pool -- probably 2 gallons then retest in an hour and add more to maintain at least 15 ppm FC and if you start measuring CYA then try and maintain an FC that is 40% of the CYA level until the pool is clear, you measure <= 1 ppm FC drop overnight and <= 0.5 ppm Combined Chlorine (CC) all measured with a FAS-DPD chlorine test (such as the ones I recommended).

Richard

[jeff6898]

Ok worked on the pool real good and the green is gone. There is no slime on the bottom or the sides. my only problem now is the water is very cloudy. Got the follwing readings from the pool supply compnay in town. WHat would my next step be for the cloudiness?

ph 7.2
fc 10
alkinity 85
stabalizer 0

NO matter now much stabalizer I put in it still reads zero

[chem geek]

PLEASE get yourself a proper test kit, the Taylor K-2006 or the TF100 from tftestkits.net so that you can get a measurement of the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) that you know is reliable. You do not want to put in too much stabilizer or else you'll have more problems with the pool since it decreases chlorine's effectiveness significantly allowing algae to grow.

I suppose it's possible they sold you something that wasn't really CYA, but again, get your own good test kit since both test strips and pool stores are unreliable for this test. You want to use a liquid turbidity test such as shown here.

As for the cloudiness, it will clear if you maintain a high enough FC relative to CYA, brush the pool, keep the pump running, clean/backwash the filter. See this link for how a pool gets cleared of algae using chlorine (bleach, in this case) alone. It takes some days -- up to a week if the circulation is poor. In the worst case if you don't have a floor drain and the circulation is very poor, you may need to use a flocculant and vacuum to waste.

Richard

[jeff6898]

I am going to order one this week. I am going to try the flocculant and see what happens. Thnaks for all the advice, you're a life saver.

[jeff6898]

OK used a friends test kit that is like the one you had me order. Here is what it says

Total Chlorine 0.5

free Chlorine 0.5

ph 7.2

alkalinity 95

calcium 85

stabilizer 60

dissolved solids 4,600

suggestions with these numbers? No green just very cloudy

[chem geek]

Since you have a vinyl liner pool (correct? you said you had a round pool so that's probably above-ground with a vinyl liner), you don't need a lot of CH, though to prevent foaming you might consider raising it to 100-150 ppm. You can easily do that by using Cal-Hypo as a source of chlorine for a short time, but be sure to pre-dissolve the Cal-Hypo in a bucket of water before adding it over a return flow in the pool. You don't want it settling onto your liner (you can lightly brush the side and bottom of the pool after adding it, just to be sure).

Add chlorine to the pool for sure. Since it's cloudy, you want a shock level of chlorine to clear it faster so that's around 40% of the CYA level or 24 ppm. Use The Pool Calculator to figure out dosing and keep your pump running 24/7 until the pool clears. Brush regularly and clean/backwash the filter as needed. The pool should clear up in a matter of days. It sounded like you were going to use a flocculant -- did you do that?

I don't think your friend's test kit was the same as what I suggested since it would have measured Free Chlorine (FC) and Combined Chlorine (CC), not Total Chlorine (TC). I'll bet your friend had a Taylor K-2005, not a K-2006. The difference is that your friend probably has a DPD chlorine test where you compare the intensity of pink/red against a standard. This only reads up to 5 ppm and tends to bleach out above 10 ppm so is not good when you shock the pool. The test kits I recommended have a FAS-DPD chlorine test (see this link for a demo of the FAS-DPD chlorine test) where you count the drops until the sample turns from pink/red to clear and the test can measure accurately to 0.2 ppm (or 0.5 ppm depending on sample size) and up to 50 ppm FC (or CC).

Also, the test kit does not check for Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) so I don't know how your friend was testing for that unless test strips were being used. The TDS number is high and would say that you've got a lot of salt in the pool. I suggest you take a sample of water to the pool store to see if the TDS reading is correct. Normally, salt isn't a problem, but starting out so high could have metal corrosion issues in your pool at some point, if the pool has cheap materials.

Your Total Alkalinity (TA) is fine.

Please read the Pool School for more info on how to maintain your pool.

[jeff6898]

Sorry missed that total combined chlorine says 0

What is the proper way to use the flocculant? THe pool peole says to have

high chlorine level, low ph pour it in the pool run pump 12 hours then turn off and let sit 12 hours then vacuum

bottle says add to skimmer, run pump 2 hours shut off pump then let settle 12-48 hours. WHo is right?

It is a vynal pool

[chem geek]

If the circulation in your pool is reasonable, follow the instructions on the bottle. It normally should not take more than an hour or two to have the product be thoroughly mixed throughout the pool water. The idea is to get the product mixed, not to have multiple turnovers of the water through the filter. If one simply stirred the pool with the pump off, then that would cause mixing without any circulation through the filter whatsoever and the flocculant would still work.

[jeff6898]

OK I put the pump on bypass to pool, put the floc in around 2:00 have excellant pump flow Let the pump run for 3 hours shut off around 5 just got in to check the pool 8:30 the next day ans still very cloudy can't see at all through the water. Let it sit more or should I vacuum now? Will the pool water be clear when the floc actually works?

[chem geek]

If the floc worked, then the pool will be more clear and you'd see stuff piled at the bottom of the pool. You could wait a little longer and then vacuum-to-waste that which is on the bottom, then try filtering out the rest.

[jeff6898]

Guess its not working then its been 24 hours and not a bit clearer.

[chem geek]

I'm sorry to hear that. First off, check your pool water chemistry to make sure the saturation index isn't too high (pH, TA, CH). I doubt that it is given that the CH shouldn't be high given that it's a vinyl pool.

Though you could try a clarifier to see if that helps trap the cloudiness into the filter, take a look at this link for many reasons for cloudy water. I'd keep the pool at shock level (FC at 40% of the CYA level) though if you haven't seen any change over a couple of days, that is not encouraging. When starting with algae, a pool typically clears in a sequence similar to that shown in this link.

Make sure the filter is clean. You could try a skimmer sock if the cloudiness were "thicker" particles, but I suspect it's dead algae that should normally clear from shock levels of chlorine.

Worst case would require partial drain/refill, but that's a last resort. If the cloudiness were just from algae, then shock levels of chlorine would clear it assuming circulation was reasonable.