Ok I have an above ground pool that we had pretty much given up on at the end of last year. Reading through these forums I have decided to give it another go and see if I can get chlorine to work. I have drain the pool about 4/5's down (11k gal) clean out as much or the leaves and pine needles as I can (no cover over the winter). I'm now working on refilling the pool from the hose.

My question is should I change out the sand in the filter now while the water levels are down (an easier task) or use the filter as is for the conversion then change out the sand? I think the sand was last changed the season before last.

Pikup

I don't think there is any reason to change your sand at this point if it was changed in the last few years. Sand should last several years... 5-7, maybe more depending on your pool environment.

Make sure you read through the pool school here and get yourself a good test kit that they recommend and you'll be glad you did!

Let us know how it goes.

Welcome to TFP!

Even though you replaced all of the water, you should still go through all of the steps of a baqua conversion. The conversion will go very quickly, but you still want to wait till you get to the correct step before replacing sand. There can be baqua residue in the plumbing that can still affect the sand filter, so best to wait till you get to the correct point in the sequence.

I didn't realize he was doing a conversion... missed that

Sorry I had had made an edit that removed much of that.

This pool has been using Baquacil since the late 70's. Before it was commercially available. My mother used to work with the folks that developed Baq and ours was a test pool for 20+ years. For decades it worked wonderfully, but the last 5 years or so it has become really unreliable. We have had all kinds of fun with pools looking like egg drop soup etc. I honestly believe they have changed something with the product.

I'll do my best to post pics.

Pikup