PHOSPHATES! After years of fighting algae blooms I learned about phosphates. Got a measuring kit and found my phosphate levels were well over 3,000! Added phosphate remover until it got under 100 and now i check and adjust every time I open the pool, and throughout the season. Upon opening this year, I am under 50! My chlorine levels finally came back to normal (they were near zero, even after shocking) and chlorine usage went down. It has been a couple years now since I needed algaecide, too. Thinking back, I believe the phosphate came from lawn fertilizer being applied on a windy day.
Great topic! Thank you! Could you do a video about degreasing a sand filter. I am one of the 99.9% that has never heard of this and been dealing with this for the past 2 years. Thank you for your videos!
For now, just buy a filter cleaner / degreaser product from a pool and spa store - one which says "for use in sand filters" on the label. The instructions will involve dumping it into your pump, jogging the pump on for a second or two and then off again. This loads up the degreaser into the filter sand. Let it soak, as per the instructions, and the backwash / pump to waste. Cheers!
Really great stuff, Steve! I ran into one more: slightly broken filter. My water always looked pretty clear, but at night there was a "fog" around the lights. Very fine particles even circulating 2x per day. The pool sits among big beautiful evergreens, so I figured this was the price: tree dandruff too fine for the filter to catch. Eventually figured out that the pool guy of the previous owner broke off the air bleeder screen in the cartridge filter and never replaced it. This made a 3/4" pipe bypass of the filter medium. Fixing it made the water sparkly clear even at night. Also the tiny seeds stuck in the salt water chlorine generator during periodic checks just disappeared.
Huge props for mentioning degreasing the filter since it rarely gets mentioned in other videos/tutorials online. The water for my pool was still turbid despite balancing alkalinity, pH, and free chlorine levels. The water cleared up overnight only after reading the Pentair cartridge manual to use 1 cup of dish soap to 5 gallons of water to degrease. Additionally, it was further revealed after getting a more comprehensive test kit that the turbid water was partially a result of high calcium levels, over 500 ppm for a plaster/concrete pool due to calcium leeching from the walls from previously low calcium levels in the winter months and excessive calcium hypochlorite shocks during spring/summer months. Draining/refilling, seasonal checks of the calcium levels, and using liquid chlorine have alleviated most of these problems
Taylor test kit has 0.2 ppm scale for 25ml and 0.5 ppm scale for 10ml. I always use the 10ml sample size as it uses less reagents I believe. Problem is it’s in increments of 0.5 but I’ve noticed that you can get the most faintest of pink hues on some of the combined chlorine test and I assume it’s less then 0.5. I just want to go off that. As long as I get the faint pink almost clear ima call it good. Going to dose daily when suns down so the chlorine is a lot more effective and gets good amount of time sanitizing before the sun destroys it. I think I won’t have to breakpoint chlorinate. I really want 1-1.5 FC for maintenance and 2 - 4 after use or a 0.5 CC reading. Thoughts?
Hello Steve, so thankful for your knowledge and sharing. In the busiest time of my life with back to back high school graduation years with kids but after all this would like to pay you to come out to Ohio, re-construct the pool pumps, heaters, and salt generators and get this 6 year old system to run like it should. Finally, any products or tips to test and control for phosphates, could I just use a product to eliminate for them? I currently test free chlorine, combined chlorine, alkalinity, ph, calcium, and cya levels.
I appreciate the offer lol! Phosphate remover is what you use, plus find how and where they are getting into your pool. Other chemicals you are using, your source water, the fertilizer from your lawn getting in the water etc
my pool is clearing up. I'm in Wisconsin and we just opened it up for the season. How long do I need to run my pump and at which gpm's? I have a above ground pool 27' round and a variable speed pump.
Would you advise to start with the 10x free chlorine treatment when the combined level is 0.2 to 0.5 or instead wait until it is 1.0? It seems increasing free chlorine 10x 0.2 so from e.g. 2.0 to 4.0 is a lot easier than increasing it to 10x 1.0....
sorry Steve u lost me, u say a salt water pool generator will add 3000 ppm, then u said what ever number u start with, the upper limit should be 1500 ppm. So what TDS Levels will be ok for a Salt water pool.
Have a listen to that section again. Salt pools can not use regular measurements for high TDS levels because you are manually increasing the TDS to higher than normal maximum as soon as you put the salt in. So instead you measure the starting point TDS (after the salt was added) and then your maximum level TDS is when you reach 1000 to 1500ppm higher than this number. Hope this helps!
PHOSPHATES! After years of fighting algae blooms I learned about phosphates. Got a measuring kit and found my phosphate levels were well over 3,000! Added phosphate remover until it got under 100 and now i check and adjust every time I open the pool, and throughout the season. Upon opening this year, I am under 50! My chlorine levels finally came back to normal (they were near zero, even after shocking) and chlorine usage went down. It has been a couple years now since I needed algaecide, too. Thinking back, I believe the phosphate came from lawn fertilizer being applied on a windy day.
Great topic! Thank you! Could you do a video about degreasing a sand filter. I am one of the 99.9% that has never heard of this and been dealing with this for the past 2 years. Thank you for your videos!
For now, just buy a filter cleaner / degreaser product from a pool and spa store - one which says "for use in sand filters" on the label. The instructions will involve dumping it into your pump, jogging the pump on for a second or two and then off again. This loads up the degreaser into the filter sand. Let it soak, as per the instructions, and the backwash / pump to waste. Cheers!
Thank you sir
Really great stuff, Steve! I ran into one more: slightly broken filter. My water always looked pretty clear, but at night there was a "fog" around the lights. Very fine particles even circulating 2x per day. The pool sits among big beautiful evergreens, so I figured this was the price: tree dandruff too fine for the filter to catch. Eventually figured out that the pool guy of the previous owner broke off the air bleeder screen in the cartridge filter and never replaced it. This made a 3/4" pipe bypass of the filter medium. Fixing it made the water sparkly clear even at night. Also the tiny seeds stuck in the salt water chlorine generator during periodic checks just disappeared.
Good info - thanks for commenting
Huge props for mentioning degreasing the filter since it rarely gets mentioned in other videos/tutorials online. The water for my pool was still turbid despite balancing alkalinity, pH, and free chlorine levels. The water cleared up overnight only after reading the Pentair cartridge manual to use 1 cup of dish soap to 5 gallons of water to degrease. Additionally, it was further revealed after getting a more comprehensive test kit that the turbid water was partially a result of high calcium levels, over 500 ppm for a plaster/concrete pool due to calcium leeching from the walls from previously low calcium levels in the winter months and excessive calcium hypochlorite shocks during spring/summer months. Draining/refilling, seasonal checks of the calcium levels, and using liquid chlorine have alleviated most of these problems
Great feedback especially foe other concrete pool owners especially since I did not talk about calcium - cheers
Is degreasing recommended for DE filters?
Excellent information Steve, thank you
I use DE filter. After 6 years it was not keeping water clear. I took it apart and soaked the filter fingers in trisodium phosphate. It worked!!
What do you think about the Sutro monitoring system? I've been using it going on 4 seasons, and it seems pretty accurate.
also, which product(s) do you recommend to degrease paper filters?
What can use for phosphates?
Taylor test kit has 0.2 ppm scale for 25ml and 0.5 ppm scale for 10ml. I always use the 10ml sample size as it uses less reagents I believe. Problem is it’s in increments of 0.5 but I’ve noticed that you can get the most faintest of pink hues on some of the combined chlorine test and I assume it’s less then 0.5. I just want to go off that. As long as I get the faint pink almost clear ima call it good. Going to dose daily when suns down so the chlorine is a lot more effective and gets good amount of time sanitizing before the sun destroys it. I think I won’t have to breakpoint chlorinate. I really want 1-1.5 FC for maintenance and 2 - 4 after use or a 0.5 CC reading. Thoughts?
Hello Steve, so thankful for your knowledge and sharing. In the busiest time of my life with back to back high school graduation years with kids but after all this would like to pay you to come out to Ohio, re-construct the pool pumps, heaters, and salt generators and get this 6 year old system to run like it should. Finally, any products or tips to test and control for phosphates, could I just use a product to eliminate for them? I currently test free chlorine, combined chlorine, alkalinity, ph, calcium, and cya levels.
I appreciate the offer lol! Phosphate remover is what you use, plus find how and where they are getting into your pool. Other chemicals you are using, your source water, the fertilizer from your lawn getting in the water etc
my pool is clearing up. I'm in Wisconsin and we just opened it up for the season. How long do I need to run my pump and at which gpm's? I have a above ground pool 27' round and a variable speed pump.
What do you have the day about using filter balls instead of sand?
Would you advise to start with the 10x free chlorine treatment when the combined level is 0.2 to 0.5 or instead wait until it is 1.0? It seems increasing free chlorine 10x 0.2 so from e.g. 2.0 to 4.0 is a lot easier than increasing it to 10x 1.0....
Don't wait until CC is 1.0ppm if you can avoid it. Lower CC means less chlorine will be needed to fix it so 0.5ppm is a great time to take care of it
What are those figures to the left of you?
Just some statues that I made. I have a youtube channel for teaching how to make that kind of stuff - #creatingconcrete
@@Swimmingpoolsteve thanks man! I'll check it out. They look really cool!
sorry Steve u lost me, u say a salt water pool generator will add 3000 ppm, then u said what ever number u start with, the upper limit should be 1500 ppm. So what TDS Levels will be ok for a Salt water pool.
Have a listen to that section again. Salt pools can not use regular measurements for high TDS levels because you are manually increasing the TDS to higher than normal maximum as soon as you put the salt in. So instead you measure the starting point TDS (after the salt was added) and then your maximum level TDS is when you reach 1000 to 1500ppm higher than this number. Hope this helps!
@@Swimmingpoolsteve got it, thanks