Alot of money spent - still no solution

[dannalong]

I have an intex easy set up pool 15 x 42. Live in country with well water. Had water tested. Results: temperature: 90. CYA: 0; Free Choloine: 0.1; pH: 8.3; Total Alkalinity: 172; Tot Hardness: 214.

Here's the problem. When I put the water in the pool for the first time to fill up, the water stays clean and beautifully light blue / white. Perfect. I was told to add metal control to the water and let sit for 3 days. I did that. Well, now to add ph- to get my ph and alkalanity levels down (they were high on the test strips).

I noticed that the sides after 5 days of no chlorine were getting real slick. and the bottom too was slick but the water was still pretty.

The filter has been running constantly since last Friday night. And I change the filter daily.

I put ph- and chlorine in pool as directed. The night was fine but I didn't let the kids swim. The next morning I put chlorine and ph- again; hours later the pool water is green. You can see the bottom but its green.

Went and had my water tested - the results were above. Bio Guard recommendation:

In Skimmer, put 1.5 ounces of Lo 'N Slo; add 2.5 lbs of stabilizer 100; and 1 bag of Burn Out Extreme. I then was to fill the skimmer with chlorine tablets (1 inch) and keep it full.

I did this last night starting about 5:30. This morning the pool hasn't changed. the filter is running great - the skimmer is full with chlorine.

I don't want to spend more money. I spent close to 150 yesterday on products alone. What is next?

[chem geek]

If you had no Cyanuric Acid (CYA), aka stabilizer or conditioner, in the pool, then the chlorine would not hold during the day because it breaks down quickly from sunlight. The Burn-Out Extreme is 47% Cal-Hypo. Given your already hard water, I wouldn't use Cal-Hypo. Also, once you get your CYA level up, I wouldn't use Trichlor or Dichlor regularly either. Do you have a source of chlorinating liquid (the pool store or hardware store) or bleach (the grocery store)? Whenever you add concentrated chemicals to your pool, you should do so by slowly pouring over a return flow with the pump running to ensure thorough mixing (for Cal-Hypo, you'd need to pre-dissolve it in a bucket of water first, but as I said, I wouldn't use that with your hard water).

According to this site, your 15'x42" Intex Easy Set pool is 3284 gallons. You can use The Pool Calculator to calculate dosages. The 2.5 pounds of stabilizer would increase your CYA level to over 90 ppm which is WAY too high! You would have to maintain a much higher FC level. I wouldn't go higher than 80 ppm at the most and you should instead see how things go at 60-70 ppm first and then maintain the FC at no lower than 5 ppm (at 80 ppm CYA you should maintain the FC at no lower than 6 ppm). You definitely don't want to use Trichlor pucks as these will increase your CYA level. For every 10 ppm FC added by Trichlor, it also increases CYA by 6 ppm.

With the high TA level in your pool, you will be adding acid frequently to lower the pH. Though this is fine to do, you could also get this over with early by lowering the TA with more acid addition and aeration at lower pH (the procedure is in the Pool School).

Please read the Pool School for more info on how to maintain your pool. Right now if the pool has algae, you need to read the section on Defeating Algae and shock with higher levels of chlorine. However, with your high CYA level and such a small pool volume, you might be better off draining and refilling (i.e. starting over), but taking charge of your pool.

You really should get your own good test kit. I would not trust the pool store numbers and without knowing accurate numbers you can't really know exactly what to do. Get yourself the Taylor K-2006 kit at a good online price here or the TF100 from tftestkits.net here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is less expensive per test. If you cannot afford these kits, then at least see if you can get an HTH 5-way from Walmart or other source that can test for Free Chlorine (FC), Total Chlorine (TC), Total Alkalinity (TA), Calcium Hardness (CH), Cyanuric Acid (CYA). The only real downside to this test kit is the chlorine test since it cannot readily test high shock levels and isn't as accurate. After getting things set up initially, all you will really need to manage your pool is chlorinating liquid or bleach and a little acid.

[dannalong]

Thanks so much for responding. I will follow your links and read what it says.

I have taken some test strip readings. Early this morning and just now. The chlorine is extremely high - way deep purple like its off the test strip. And I have the bioguard silk 1" tabs in the skimmer. Pool place told me to keep this full.

I called them to say it was still green - he advised to keep the filter running and eventually it will clear up (??).

I'm still unsure what to do next - I do have access to the store bleach. And walmart products.

I have a big bottle of unused hth chlorinating granules, I have a big bottle of metal control, and I have 3 2" chlorine tablets "floaters" that are hth also.

The sides of the pool are no longer slippery from what I can tell. I was told the kids could swim because the burn out killed all algea but unsure of that truth.

The pool possibily looks clearer but it still has the green tint. I can see the bottom easily but yet the water wasn't the pretty blue when I first entered the pool.

If there is anything else you can tell me - please respond.

here are the current readings on the test strips:

Total Hardness: 200
FC: dark purple (not even on the test strip)
PH: 7.2
Alk: 240
Cyanuric Acid150-300

[chem geek]

With your very high CYA level I would dump and start over. It will be very hard to kill the algae by chlorine alone and you could use an algaecide that has copper in it, but then you'd have high copper levels that could stain (though less likely on vinyl than on plaster). Besides, you really need to lower the CYA level and that can only be done with dilution so you'll have to dump some of the water anyway.

I'm sorry you got taken down this wrong path, having too much Cyanuric Acid (CYA) put into the pool and then using stabilized chlorine to make matters even worse. I wouldn't necessarily trust the test strips. Yes, your CYA is probably at least 90 ppm due to the stabilizer you added and could be higher given the stabilized chlorine, but it may not be 150 ppm. A half drain/refill might be good enough. With a good test kit, you'd know for sure.

The HTH Chlorinating Granules are Cal-Hypo which at least won't increase CYA. It will increase Calcium Hardness (CH), but that's probably low in your pool. If you wanted to increase the chlorine by using them, you could, but again with the high CYA the chlorine is far less effective so algae will continue to grow faster than you can kill it unless the FC level is quite high. The normal shock level for fast clearing is an FC that is 40% of the CYA level, so you can see why this becomes impractical when the CYA is much more than 80 ppm.

If you still have green cloudy water, then the algae is not dead. It would have to be gray with no green to be dead. See this post for a pool with algae getting cleared by chlorine alone and you can see the dark green fade to a lighter green/blue cloudiness before it starts to clear.