Swimming pools blog

4 responses so far ↓

• 1 Neva Marjory // Feb 22, 2006 at 4:18 am

  Thanks for your response Peter! I really appreciate an input….
  Following are my comments:
  Cloudy white?
  The water looks blue … not cloudy white … just not transparent
  blue. Looks completely clear in the shallow end. I think it looks
  blue because the liner is blue. It seems to be clearing, just
  working it’s way down from the top to the bottom.
  We believe this step is done now. At first the chlorine (HUGE
  AMOUNTS) was just “sucked up” with no residual left the next day.
  Now we’ve been able to maintain a residual reading for a full week
  and still have 4.3 free after a week with only .3 combined.
  running the pump for 24 hours straight.
  We have been using a clarifier …. very dark blue liquid. The pump
  has been running 24/7 for the past 3 weeks and will continue to do
  so.
  
  I suggested this to the pool store today. We just replaced the sand
  last fall, so they didn’t think this would be necessary. Instead,
  they want me to thoroughly vacuum (to waste). They say the dead
  algae may be “clouding” up the water.
  All other readings are in an acceptable range. We were told to
  balance alkalinity and ph first as our water flows through a gas
  heater (not turned on yet) and the ph is very low (due to much
  spring rain) and corrosive to the heat exchanger.
  used chemicals such as Alum (Aluminium Sulphate), that form a goey
  gell in the filter media.
  The water is almost clear (I can see about 6 feet down). We never
  did go through a brown stage or a white stage. Just went from dark
  green to lighter green to aqua to blueish.
  So, now I’m back to questions: at what point should I shock the
  pool? What should I use to shock it? I am continuously using
  chlorine sticks in the skimmer (considering switching to pucks as
  they cost about half and seem to contain the same ingredients).
  Are the non-chlorine shock products (to oxidize) the way to go? How
  often?
  Your thoughts????
  Leah

• 2 Neva Marjory // Feb 22, 2006 at 11:47 pm

  Great posts! I wish I had read them before I had my own ‘Green
  Swamp’ a few years back…
  I was confused about one question in the original post — was the
  issue about an inline chlorine feeder or chlorine generator? The
  generators extract chlorine from salt solutions; the feeders merely
  hold pucks and stream water over them to introduce the chlorine (as
  opposed to putting pucks/sticks in skimmers, etc.). My pool came
  with neither; I was told to shock once a week and that would be
  sufficient. Needless to say, I added a chlorine feeder after talking
  to more experienced people. It was money well spent.
  Here are a few things I would add to the discussion:
  1. I don’t know how effective flocculants are for sand or DE
  filters. I was stupid enough to use them in my pool, which has a
  cartridge filter. It almost completely clogged up my filter.
  2. An old pro asked me if I had added any Cyanuric acid to my pool
  
  as a stabilizer. The supply store I had been going to had never
  mentioned it to me, and now I know why. I was going through buckets
  of chemicals trying to keep my water balanced before I added the
  stabilizer. Now, I rarely get out of balance.
  The biggest benefit I see is removing chloramines (combined
  chlorine). The free chlorine introduced to your pool bonds with
  organic matter to form this really nasty chemical. It sounds counter-
  intuitive to add more chlorine to reduce combined chlorine, but that
  is the remedy. If your chlorine level is fine, and combined chlorine
  is low, I would not use the shock.
  Kirk

• 3 Neva Marjory // Feb 23, 2006 at 7:15 pm

  Thanks for jumping in Kirk,
  Yes, you are correct. In the original post I was referring to an in-
  line chlorine feeder (erosion) rather than a chlorine generator. You
  have installed one of these on your pool …. what do you see as the
  benefits of this over placing the pucks or sticks in the skimmer?
  I agree that the main reason for shocking the pool would be to remove
  chloramines (or used up chlorine). The real question here is HOW
  MUCH COMBINED CHLORINE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER? HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?
  Routine shocking weekly when the pool doesn’t need it seems excessive
  to me. One pool store told me .3 ppm is the point at which to shock
  the pool. This seems like a very low number to me. Are there any
  other opinions out there?
  I have now obtained both chlorine and non-chlorine shock to be used
  as required. If the chlorine gets low (as it likely will in the
  hottest part of the summer), I’ll shock with the chlorine shock,
  
  thereby giving the chlorine a “boost” at the same time. However, if
  only the chloramines are high but the free chlorine reading is good,
  then a non-chlorine shock would be called for. From what I’ve been
  able to gather, the word “shock” is just a term used for oxidizing
  the waste that’s locked up in the water (chloramine). In fact, if
  you watch the surface of the water immediately following the addition
  of the oxidzer (either chlorine or non-chlorine based) you can see
  small bubbles or a minor foaming action taking place. I actually did
  see this the last time I shocked the pool.
  With regard to flocculents …. I haven’t tried an actual “floc”
  product. Rather, I’ve been using clarifying tabs and liquid. I have
  a sand filter though. I believe some of these products can’t be used
  on cartridge filters for exactly the reason you mentioned in your
  post. This past weekend, we tried something else that worked really
  well. With a sand filter, the filtration quality is not as high as
  with DE or cartridge. I was beginning to suspect that the dead algae
  in our pool was passing right through the filter and back into the
  pool, thereby clouding the water. We turned off our pump overnight
  and then vacuumed to waste (or drain) first thing the following
  morning. THIS CLEARED THE WATER AMAZINGLY WELL!. I am going to
  continue to do this every few days until all the really fine gunk is
  gone. We are experiencing heavy rain this past few weeks so every
  time the water level is up, I can vacuum to waste and clean it out as
  well as lowering the level in the pool.
  Unfortunately, this constant rain means the ph drops and more
  importantly, WE CAN’T SWIM!!!
  Any more comments, suggestions, or experience out there is more than
  welcome. I think this is the bare bones of maintaining your own pool
  and we can all learn from each other what works and what doesn’t!
  Leah

• 4 Donnell Irina // Mar 1, 2006 at 12:38 am

  I just replaced the sand in my filter with zeobest (got a great deal
  from coolpooldeals.com) and the difference is like night and day. My
  water has been crystal clear ever since with less chlorine and pump use
  than with sand.
  Tim

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