Hello Hello,

Its been a year that I have not posted.
I just want to say that , without this forum and the expert members, I could not have the best water clarity, comfort to the swimmer etc etc ( all the good things )........so thank you to everyone who have assisted me in 2009.

When you spend enough time learning this forum and do the homework right, stable water all year round is not a dream. It is a reality. I have not done superchlorination in like a year.............amazing this BBB and the 101 of this forum.
I have finally get my water to be very stable, this is so rewarding.

For those who are still trying, keep learning. It is a process that you can't master in just a week or two.
Once you know your water, you can predict its behaviour and when you do, even a pool party with lots of kids will only produce very minor clouding which will go away in 12 hours........must be dirty kids.....hahaha.

Two things I learnt, one is install a flow meter.
All those water flow estimation pool builders calculated need to be verified as total turnover is a very important key.

2nd is, your pool is not a bathroom.
I only allow swimmer in after they had taken a full shower and shampoo their hair....yep, this is true.
Its cheaper and less frustrating to provide soap and shampoo than to see my pool less sparkling or having to run my second 1.5HP back up pump . As with green water problem, prevention is always better than cure.

I never turned off my main pump ever since over a year ago. Only during repair some months ago that it was shut down and it did its nearly 20,000 hours service and it lived up to my expectation. Enjoyed the water clarity so much, USD 15 cents per Kw/hour is no big deal, keep them pump running and I get only two turnover a day of 24 hours.

Have fun everyone and again thanks TFP and its core members.




While at it, guess how deep my pool is...............?

Regards,
SPP

Forgot one thing........

Thanks to Duraleigh for making those nice test kit affordable.

Local dealer don't stock FAS-DPD because no one buy them and they worry of the expiry. Sorry, no Taylor test kit available here too, only Rainbow test kit. With FAS-DPD one will never use the OTO again

Look at the trouble I have to go thru, keeping always 6 months supply of test kit which I share with another pool owner.

SPP

Looks good. I would guess 8.7 feet deep.

Hi James,

It is 13.2 feet deep. Its for dive training, so 4 meter is minimal.
The shooting angle and the water clarity can be deceiving

Here is an underwater shot. Sorry for the poor quality photo. Me do not have SLR underwater camera with big strobes. This is a night shot , not day time shot and no strobe. Its a GoPro camera...



Later,
SPP

I was going by the dimensions in your signature of approx 36 ft by 15 feet and a volume of 35,000 gallons. A 15 X 36 X 13.2 foot pool would have a volume of closer to 53,000 gallons.

aha, cool.......
Nearly 50% of the pool is very shallow at 4 feet. For standing chest high. It is not all deep section.

IYA

The optical illusion your pool makes is pretty cool. It scrunches up the top. 4 feet? Wow... looks like 1 foot in the images.

Very nice pool btw. Thanks for sharing.

That is cool. All I can say is your water looks WOW! ...and I bet the diving is fun...I see a short diving platform, no board?

That water is super clear.

Glad you guys enjoy it.
There is no jumping board sorry The pool builder made that jumping platform, I suppose just for the look.

There is something unique about being able to maintain high clearity at all times, its rewarding.
No red eye, low chlorine level with ozone assistance, no sticky hair and all the "bad" things common to unbalanced pool........I really do feel the hard effort is rewarded. My kids are now always complaining when swimming in public pools with friends... , man, for me the daddy who heard that and went thru nearly a year of TFP Education, I do feel its worth it.

Guys like Jason Lion and Chem Geek and the rest.............wow, I don't know how to thank them enough.

Remember when we were teenager and got our first brand new sports car ?
We washed it clean, wax it and do all the pampering, when it shines and gleam, that is the sensation of reward. Its not about the car value, its about how clean and shiny you can make it to be. That is the sensation I get after I learnt enough in TPF Education System.

Here is a night shot with a confused auto white balance. No flash. 1/60 sec, ISO 1600. Center weighted. Cheapest Canon basic 18-55mm lens. I use 175Watt HID x 3 and 1 of 250watt HID as exterior pool light. Me dont like internal pool light because its function I seek not good looks. Its a dive training pool afterall.


Its not those expensive car HID, its more like mercury type but a bit more advance. I think color temp is under 5000 kelvin, can't remember exactly. I know my Canon SLR sometimes get its auto white balance setting confused when I take night photo with this so called "HID" and majority of the scene is the water and not the pool perimeter.

All I can say is, be patient with TPF Education System. Results don't happen fast but the final result is really nice.
Water stability is what I really enjoyed and that means less work and no superchlorination.

I been logging all FC consumption based on X divers being so many hours in my pool or X swimmers in the pool.
I know how much FC loss during a rain and day time.
All these daily notes eventually work wonders. Now I put liquid chlorine a few hours ahead based on who ( swimmers or divers ) and how many people will swim in the pool. The minimum average for my pool to stay clear under "load" is 1.5 PPM FC tested using FAS-DPD based on 7 divers with full scuba gear as the "load". A long pool session by say 7 divers with full scuba gear will make FC to dip down. If they dont take a bath before entering water, I have seen 1 PPM FC lost at night time. If they took a REAL bath with the soap and shampoo I provided, I loose 0.5 PPM FC.

The problem is, when loosing 1 PPM FC from a 1.5 PPM FC level , the result is 0.5 PPM FC . It is not enough to handle 7 divers load and water needed to stay sparkling. So best way is to raise the FC by at least extra 0.5 PPM before the divers entering the water. I also applies strict rules that NO ONE is allowed to urinate in the pool. I made it clear that its their mouth and toungue which will taste their own urine . I also do not allow kids of an age where they can't cotrol their own urge to urinate or poop. I do not want to have any feces incident. That will set my pool out of action for at least 4 days and touch wood if i see such yellow organics in my water

My ozone does help but since the pump which it is connected to is a 12 hour turnover, ozone can't prevent minor clouding like FC could in real time. The ozone can polish the water after all activities done , but since its half life is so short it has no "spreading or retention disinfection power" like FC. If you look at my water jets inlet, its only like 1 foot from surface and the 12 foot water column below it did not get any ozone benefit.

A diver with full gear consumes like double if not more FC than a regular swimmer with simple lycra swim suit or shorts.
I have taken all pre-caution that scuba tanks for pool use stays for pool use and not allowed to be used at sea. All dive gear rinsed clean before entering the pool. Without all these pre-caution the very-very small particles will cloud the pool.
My pool is located by a busy street, not main street but cars are passing by all the time and my city pollution is high, well its a 3rd world country. Its really hard to maintain a pool sparkling clean at all times in such conditions, unless I really spend time on it.

Hence the main pump never get shut down........ its 24/7 365/365, no choice.

The pool builder did not understand a dive pool concept like mine, and so was I in 2007 when it was first built.
I do get sanitation blind zone, the deeper part and at the corners between deep meeting the shallow........I call it the drop off. This is why I bought a back up pump on trolley with flexible hoses. I can suck and jet the water to anywhere I want when mixing liquid chlorine. I used to dive the pool with scuba gear, toothbrush in one hand and the vacuum hose on the other hand..... to clean the tile grouts. Those rough surfaces do allow bad stuff to stick and dust to collect. If I known better I would use bigger tiles so that I have less grouts total area. Spent like an hour tooth brushing every horizontal grouts at the deep end.

So it is not only understanding the BBB method and chemicals. You must know the limitation of the water circulation system too. Chem Geek is correct to keep reminding us that 600-700% turnover is = 1 actual complete turnover, since we suck and discharge the water within the same pool......a 100% filtration can never be achieved by a mere 2 turnover.

My pump on trolley do show its worth when it comes to speeding up mild cloudy water to sparkling water.
Its simple hose, no 90 degrees bent and so on, made that pump a very powerful pump compared to the main pump which needed to send water going thru 1 sand filter and 1 cartridge filter and lots of PVC piping elbows and etc etc.
If you see the photo above, the cloth filter on the deeper pool end is the Slime Bag. That is the output hose of the trolley pump
The suction hose is the other one heading to the shallow side of the pool. If I do not do this, I cant get proper chlorine distribution for the deeper side of the pool.

If I ever build another pool again, I know now what I want and how to do the plumbing and choice of pumps for better result. My pool 1.5" PVC pipe plumbing is a constrictor. I paid some energy bills just for the parasitic resistance it offered.

Happy pool maintenance guys............and glad I can share my TFP Education experience.

SPP

Just curious, with the pool in shade (is it full?), what do you keep you CYA at? If it is zero, couldn't you up your CYA a little and have a slightly higher FC reserve in the pool? I am assuming you have good ventilation.

Hi Linen,

The pool has a full cover shade, sort of gray plastic. I can open 30% of it.
Only when the sun at west position, the deeper side gets direct sunlight at an angle.
The shades do allow UV to enter I am sure. Its not those expensive shade with UV filter.

I keep the CYA at 25 PPM only by using those Tri-Chlor. Don't like too much of it. Dive gears do load the water a great deal and I rather chlorinate the pool twice a day than to rely on higher CYA. I want faster kill on the germs and what not.
I have a staff I have trained and I am usually hands off on the pool since 1 year ago.

I read the pool logbook only to see what's going on.

Later,
SPP

But i do see the pool water everyday, so I can tell if things are not right.

I for sure do not understand shaded pools, but it looks like you could go up to 6 ppm per poolcalculator and still be "normal". Seems like that would be the better side for FC to be on since the divers bring in a lot of organics?

Well, at 1.5 PPM FC and 25 PPM CYA, you can't smell the chlorine at all even with your nose near the water.
The only way to smell it is by rubbing on our skin and let it re-act with our sweat , then very minor chlorine smell will come...very vey minor.
That is the beauty.

At near 5 PPM FC, I can smell chlorine when I cupped the water with my hand and bring it to my nose. I guess I am sensitive to chlorine. Ventilation for my pool is near identical to open pool.

I think the best is the lowest CL level that can bring stable clear water.
By doing chlorination twice a day, there is not much "hill and valley" if you make a CL graph. Stability of CL level is important for comfort and sanitation. I dont have CL injection or the kind, its manual spread with hands.

If one chlorinate a pool say once in two days, there will be high and low CL level.
I try to aim for 0.5 PPM FC shift, 1.5 PPM to 2 PPM and no lower than 1 PPM.
I think the diver wearing all those neoprene suits, and whatever fabrics the stabilizing jacket is made of, they do consume chlorine because in a poorly maintained pool, those dive gear color will be "washed" in less than a year where in a real sea diving use, it takes 2-3 years to get the same effect.

It is really nice when swimmers or divers do not feel any chlorine at all.
No matter what, chlorine is an oxidizer , so less is always better.

My friend's pool maintained the same way as mine, will loose 1 PPM FC a day. 10% of under the building and 90% of it being an open air pool. Mine loose O.5 PPM a day, same 25 PPM CYA level. If it is windy and leaves from trees hit the water , he will loose FC at night time.

Here is what his pool look like.
It main lap pool is 25 meters long or 82 feet. Width is about 15 feet. Max depth at end is almost 9 feet.
The shallow wide one is the kid's pool. I think 30 feet wide or so but only max 3 feet deep the entire pool.
Water approx 225,000 liters or 59,500 US Gallons.








His pool is more "tempramental" than mine. His builder also miscalculated the water flow. I placed 2 flow meters, one for each for his 1.5 HP pump. He is getting 12 hours per turn over like mine and not the 8 hours predicted......with both pumps running.
By right a twin 1.5 HP should be doing better than a single 2 HP. Same sand filter with zeolite and cartridge filter in series. So he got four filters. The pump room is undeground, so he paid flow/energy penalty in pushing the water up as there is a ballast tank involved and no more gravity advantage. Same ozone set up like mine but twin. Still using the silver/copper mineral thingy ( useless !! ).

The pool design is also unique as it is an above-ground hybrid with in-ground. The deeper end is above ground while the shallow end is in-ground.

Due to this pool height difference and different depth of the water inlet jets into the pool, the water distribution/circulation is rather odd, I mean not too optimum.

This pool has a dedicated 1.5 HP pump for a vacuum robot. I used that pump with a Slime Bag cloth filter connected at the robot wall output via a hose. His robot works with positive pressure not vacuum. I placed that Slime Bag on the kids pool to increase actual total pool turnover and the kids pool get to be clearer than the main lap pool because that is where the Slime Bag is. So total 3 x 1.5 HP pump for this pool.

Recently I told him to add another 1.5HP pump with cartridge type filter and with flexible hoses like my trolley pump, so his pool boy can direct the suction or discharge to anywhere in the pool. To be used at night and at times when no one using the pool. 8 hours turnover is what to be expected and that is barely enough for my city's bad air pollution. So his pool stability for clarity can't compete with mine. I can manage stability also due to the shade I have.

Later,
SPP

I share my pool test kit with this friend.

I think for my city's pollution level, I mean dirty dusty kind of pollution, a 5-6 hour turnover is good to have.

SPP