what is the bbb method

[shyiwas]

i have a salt pool on my #2 pool guy and yesterday walked out and have green alge in my pool have pebble tech and rock features with major calcium build up does this bbb method help with my problems? help new at this

[chem geek]

With a salt pool, that I presume has a saltwater chlorine generator (SWG), it is unusual to get algae unless you had the Free Chlorine (FC) too low relative to your Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level. Either that or you were opening the pool over the winter and did not add chlorine to it (and the water was too cold for the SWG to operate).

BBB just refers to using Bleach, Borax and Baking Soda for chemical additions of chlorine, increasing pH, and increasing Total Alkalinity (TA).

In your situation, you need to get chlorinating liquid or unscented bleach (e.g. Clorox Regular or off-brand Ultra) and add it to the pool to get rid of the algae. You need to measure your pool's CYA level to know how much chlorine to add -- you increase your FC to be about 40% of the CYA level to kill the algae and you keep adding chlorine to maintain that FC level until the pool clears and the FC level holds overnight.

Get yourself a good test kit: either the Taylor K-2006 you can get at a good online price here or here or the TF100 test kit from tftestkits(dot)com here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is comparably priced "per test".

Richard

[Guest]

major calcium build up

Welcome to the SWG club

Calcium build up and scale, I hate it.

[chem geek]

You can significantly reduce the amount of scaling as well as the rate of pH rise in an SWG pool by following the guidelines described in Water Balance for SWGs. Having the CYA level be 70-80 ppm and the TA lower at around 80 ppm and using 50 ppm Borates will significantly reduce or eliminate the scale buildup and reduce the rate of pH rise (assuming your Calcium Hardness isn't really high). However, if your SWG system doesn't automatically alternate in polarity (usually every few hours or cycle), then scale buildup can still occur. Most SWG systems now alternate in polarity to remove scale buildup.

Richard