Algae in condominium Homeowner's Association pool

Postby **Denali** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 00:56

Henry_R wrote:The pH reducer container says to "broadcast" it in the deep end of the pool. It only mentions disolving it in water if the pool is 4' or less. This pool is at least 6 feet deep and I followed the instructions on the label by broadcasting it into the deepest part of the pool.
Then there shouldn't be any problem with an interaction.

I'll find something to keep the sample out of light. Is it ok to use the water sample container from the test kit? The one for the CYA test is the only container I have that has a cap. Will any residual CYA reagent in the container skew the test at all if I rinse it well before hand?

I have nothing else to take a water sample with me except perhaps a 16 oz soda bottle.

Clean anything you use well before adding pool water. You want to have enough water for all the testing so maybe use both.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 01:01

Ok, you're right about having enough. As for the soda bottle. Will residual CO2 cause any problems?
I can rinse it forever, but sometimes the CO2 stays even after that.

Postby **Denali** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 01:04

Henry_R wrote:Ok, you're right about having enough. As for the soda bottle. Will residual CO2 cause any problems?
I can rinse it forever, but sometimes the CO2 stays even after that.

Honestly I don't know. If you have or can get any glass jars, they would work.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 01:54

I'm rinsing the plastic bottles out w/ water over night. With some luck any CO2 will be displaced and not remain by morning. I don't have anything glass that's both small enough and has a water tight lid.
It has to be water tight since I ride the bus and the bouncing of the vehicle can sometimes rattle teeth
and would certainly be enough to open a lid that wasn't tight.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 10:26

The 10% liquid shock was old according to the mfg!
I emailed them last night with the date codes and was told it is
old and should have been restocked.

No wonder the stuff isn't working well.
It explains a lot of why the chlorine didn't seem to work after Sunday
even though this is stronger than the 6% generic bleach.

I'm still going to take a water sample to the pool store though.

I want to know as much as I can about the water and I'm just wasting reagents doing
it myself right now.

Postby **chem geek** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 10:58

I've got to tell you that I'm sorry you're going through the issues with your HOA pool and that things like buying old/weak chlorinating liquid are happening. You've got a lot of patience and are to be commended. Thanks for hanging in there.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 11:09

I have more patience than I knew I had. I'm more concerned that I've wasted $30 in CYA and pH reducer by adding bad chlorine. Lowes should be responsible for this mess. I wonder what I can say to them to get them to give us compensation? I'm going to ask for a manager at the least to make certain no one else has this issue. I should have known the bottles were old given the amount of dust on them.
I just didn't think since they're located outside the dust was a real indication of their age.

I wasn't told how old they are either. I've asked the mfg how to interpret the date codes so I can
do so without having to ask in the future.

If I hadn't noticed the label stating "this product degrades with age." I wouldn't have even questioned it.

I'm just not sure what exactly I'm going to say to return the 4 and a half empty bottles and three unopened bottles to convince the return desk person that the stuff is bad.

I've gone around with old stock at Lowes before and had to get the mfg to call them to change the stock
when they were either unwilling or unable to do so. That time it was thinset for tile that had lumps in the bags indicating it was old and had absorbed moisture. Even after my telling them the stuff was old it remained on the shelf for weeks later.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 18:07

I took the water to a local pool shop. THe results are: TC=0, CYA=25, TA=30, pH=7.5.

I got 12lbs of baking soda to lower the TA, and more CYA to raise the level. Then I got some calhypo shock. I'm about to go and return the bad chlorine so wish me luck.

Postby **Denali** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 20:39

Henry_R wrote:I have more patience than I knew I had. I'm more concerned that I've wasted $30 in CYA and pH reducer by adding bad chlorine. Lowes should be responsible for this mess. I wonder what I can say to them to get them to give us compensation? I'm going to ask for a manager at the least to make certain no one else has this issue. I should have known the bottles were old given the amount of dust on them.
I just didn't think since they're located outside the dust was a real indication of their age.

I wasn't told how old they are either. I've asked the mfg how to interpret the date codes so I can
do so without having to ask in the future.

If I hadn't noticed the label stating "this product degrades with age." I wouldn't have even questioned it.

I'm just not sure what exactly I'm going to say to return the 4 and a half empty bottles and three unopened bottles to convince the return desk person that the stuff is bad.

I've gone around with old stock at Lowes before and had to get the mfg to call them to change the stock
when they were either unwilling or unable to do so. That time it was thinset for tile that had lumps in the bags indicating it was old and had absorbed moisture. Even after my telling them the stuff was old it remained on the shelf for weeks later.

Wow! What a pain. Just when the pool is starting to look good you run into this. Even with the bad chlorine you haven't wasted the other chemicals. Good luck with returning and getting a refund. I would hope they would take it back without a problem.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 21:05

The lady at the return desk started to balk but her supervisor must have asked a manager who approved the return. They took my reply from the mfg of the stuff too stating it was likely bad due to the date code.

Not a bad transaction but I'm not done with Lowes yet:

I'm going to email Lowes corporate too and see what other compensation they'll give us.

It's going to cost us more in chemicals to get it back to what it was starting to look like on Sunday
before I added the shock and that's not including time, gasoline, *and* added electricity to run the
pump for 3 extra days straight instead of it clearing from the chlorine level coming up
and my being able to shut it off for some time.

Perhaps they'll give us some sort of store credit to buy there or something. That'd work since
I'll need to get that vacuum hose and plate at some point this week.

At the very least I hope it gets the stuff pulled from the shelf since they have at least a pallet of it.

I still didn't hear back to my reply to the mfg rep. He might send me some free of charge too.
Even so I want Lowes to take action and I'm going to see what I can get. With our money
as low as it is the more the better.

BTW, how do I calculate the power demands the pump is making?
It states it's a 230/115V unit and lists the rating as 7.1/14.2

The HOA President is worried our power bill will be skyhigh with the runing the pump 24/7 for what'll
be 5 days straight. She's mandating I turn it off for at least 12 hours per day come Friday.

If I'm doing the numbers right 230V @ 7.1A per hour is 1633 watts per hour.
And 115 @ 14.2 is the same amount. That comes out to about 40kWh per day at 24 hours?
Does that sound about right?

That's not too much in the end if I'm right.

Postby **Denali** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 22:24

Glad to hear about Lowe's. Some freebies would be nice.

As for electricity useage, that is beyond me. You are set up at 230v. I understand your president's concern on cost but really has to decide on whether she wants to pool cleaned up or not. You are doing what is needed to get it clear. Pools are an expense, no way around that.

Postby **Henry_R** » Wed 10 Jun, 2009 23:58

Thanks anyway. No problemo.
If my numbers were right then our costs to run the pump 24/7 for a week is only $50.

Considering we were paying $200 plus chemicals per month for pool service and haven't had to pay that now for three months, just over $300 (when all is done it'll be that much) to get the pool back to normal including chemicals and electricity is cheap.

We put three 182oz bottles of bleach and 4lbs more of stabilizer in there a couple of hours ago.
The pool calculator said to add 2.6 bottles, but my neighbor poured all three 182oz bottles in there.
The FC level should go to 11 and shock level is 10 according to the calculator.

The reaction was much the same as Saturday night; it has begun to turn milky after some good agitation and with luck will start to get to bluish by morning as it had started to do on Sunday. I bought some Cal-Hypo based shock and my neighbor wants to throw it in there if it begins to clear up some.
I'm not happy about that. I'd rather wait until I can get a decent TC reading with my test kit then put in the shock to avoid over chlorination. Is there really such a thing when the TC was so low?

I'm trying to be conservative on what and how much we add. But am I being too conservative?
Should we throw the shock in there to reinforce the chlorine or leave it to settle?

Postby **Denali** » Thu 11 Jun, 2009 01:02

Henry_R wrote:Thanks anyway. No problemo.
If my numbers were right then our costs to run the pump 24/7 for a week is only $50.

Considering we were paying $200 plus chemicals per month for pool service and haven't had to pay that now for three months, just over $300 (when all is done it'll be that much) to get the pool back to normal including chemicals and electricity is cheap.

We put three 182oz bottles of bleach and 4lbs more of stabilizer in there a couple of hours ago.
The pool calculator said to add 2.6 bottles, but my neighbor poured all three 182oz bottles in there.
The FC level should go to 11 and shock level is 10 according to the calculator.

The reaction was much the same as Saturday night; it has begun to turn milky after some good agitation and with luck will start to get to bluish by morning as it had started to do on Sunday. I bought some Cal-Hypo based shock and my neighbor wants to throw it in there if it begins to clear up some.
I'm not happy about that. I'd rather wait until I can get a decent TC reading with my test kit then put in the shock to avoid over chlorination. Is there really such a thing when the TC was so low?

I'm trying to be conservative on what and how much we add. But am I being too conservative?
Should we throw the shock in there to reinforce the chlorine or leave it to settle?

The goal here is to get the FC level to your shock level and keep it there. That involves testing and adding chlorine if needed, retesting and so on.

Lots of pool products list them as shock. Shock is something you do to the pool by adding chlorine. It doesn't take a product called shock to do it. Cal hypo is a form of chlorine. It does add to calcium hardness but used in small doses shouldn't be a problem. Normally you dissolve this stuff before adding in a bucket. It is slow dissolving so will cloud the pool if not pre-dissolved.

Really not a matter of being conservative or not. No need to go too far beyond shock level. More important to keep it at shock level until the pool is clear.

Postby **Henry_R** » Thu 11 Jun, 2009 08:06

I'm kinda frustrated this morning:
I just checked the chlorine, pH,CYA, and CH.
All are idea, CYA is at least 50. Hooray!
pH is stable at 7.2, TA is 120. TA is high side of normal, but ok.
CH is about 320-340ppm. That's within range too.

Chlorine is STILL reading as nil and the color is STILL green. ARG! :wtf:

I can understand the kit might be bleaching out after the amounts of chlorine I added last night,
but the color doesn't confirm that. It's seafoam green. If only the tests are bleaching out then why
on earth if the water green? Especially after adding 546oz of 6% chlorine?! The poolcalculator says the FC level should be 11.4 after that dosage.

How much CH does the Cal-Hypo add? I have two bags of CalHypo in powder shock form that's 46% chlorine. I'm going to have to do something. Bleach isn't working well enough obviously.
I'll have to try that calhypo next. I just don't want that CH to go too high.

Postby **Denali** » Thu 11 Jun, 2009 13:44

That is disappointing. Did the pool store test for copper? The persistent green color sure sounds like copper. If they did test for copper, post the level.

Can't find any info on how much calcium hardness it adds but 2 bags won't push your levels too high.

If this chlorine does make a difference in water clarity I think you'll have to consider using a chelator to bind the copper.

If you get a chance to take another pic of the pool water, please do and post it. Curious to see what it's looking like.