Water Quality in your Intex Pool – When Problems Arise

Even with an effective and regular water maintenance routine, your pool water will eventually develop a problem from time to time. There can be many reasons for this – Equipment failure while you’re away from home. Power outages.. Weather blowing in dirt or debris.. Heavy pool use..

Whatever the reason is, water problems will happen from time to time. If you’ve established your daily & weekly routine of testing & adjusting your water, you already know that there is no reason to panic. If you’re new to pool maintenance or you’re starting with slimy, green water, then relax. It doesn’t take a professional chemist to get clean pool water, and it’s not expensive either. There will be some time & effort to get your water clean, but it’s not likely to be an expensive, long term nightmare.

Steps for cleaning water in your Intex pool:

1. Ensure that your pump is operating – If your water is stagnant and not circulating, it will be very difficult to get it clean. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to run your pump 24 hours per day (if it’s not already) when you’re addressing water problems.

2. Clean your skimmer – A clean, clear skimmer ensures that your pump is circulating your water well and prolongs the useful like of your filter.

3. Clean or change your filter – As the chemicals kill algae, bacteria & other organisms, the filter will remove them from your water. It will also remove dirt & other floating debris from your water.

4. Clean water with Pole Skimmer/Net – If your water has large clumps of algae, leaves, or other debris, clean it out with the Pole Skimmer/Net attachment that came with your Intex pool. If this isn’t adequate for the job, you can buy a replacement at the pool stores, but be aware that the Intex hardware is not compatable with conventional retail hardware. If your water is in very bad shape, this is probably the least pleasant and most time consuming part of the job. But most Intex pools can be cleaned in just an hour or two.

At this point, you’ve established good water circulation & filtration and you’ve manually cleaned up your water as much as possible. Now you can put some chemicals to work.

The goal is to ruthlessly bombard your water with high levels of chlorine (aka “Shock” your water) so that any bacteria, algae or mildew that has taken over will be quickly & forcefully killed.

5. Measure Stabilizer (CYA) – Measure the stabilizer (CYA) level with your test kit and adjust to the suggested level. If your level is too high, then you will need to drain water & refill to adjust. If it is too low, then add a stabilized chlorine tablet, or use the calculator at www.poolcalculator.com to determine how much granulated stabilizer to add.

6. Measure & Add Chlorine to Shock – Measure your FC level with your test kit. Determine the chlorine level needed to shock your water, based on your level of stabilizer. Then, use the calculator at www.poolcalculator.com to determine how much chlorine is needed to get your chlorine to this level and then add the chlorine.

7. Stick with it – Repeat steps 2, 3, 4 and 6 until your water is clear. The more often you repeat step 6, the sooner your water will clear up. It would be good to repeat this step every few hours, but you don’t have to go to the point of waking up in the middle of the night to measure & add chlorine.

Depending on how bad your water is, you should be able to recover from almost any outbreak within a few days or a week at most. After you’ve recovered, start (or resume) your daily and weekly routines.

 

3 thoughts on “Water Quality in your Intex Pool – When Problems Arise”

  1. Had an Intex pool given to us (15×42-frame). Had the water trucked in today. The water went in clear put within an hour turned green. Started the chemical process and followed instructions closely. Ph balanced, chlorinated, shocked and even an algae control solution used. New filter and pump ran for 7 hours. Water is still green! Very little change if any. According to the test strips, levels are all Ok with stabilizer still low. Should I wait it out a liitle or can I do something else? Thank you.

    Reply
    • Give it more time. 7 hours isn’t very long. Keep your chlorine levels elevated higher than normal, perhaps even at shock levels. It might take a day or two, but eventually things will come around.

      Reply

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