Well, I'll add my story to the list of conversion but with a pleasant surprise so far. I have had a Bac pool for the better part of 20 years. My pool is 23 years old with the original liner. 20x40 and approximately 30,000 gal. For three years I have fought pink water mold and white water mold. This year after having the pool open for 7 weeks I had spent almost 1500.00 in pool chemicals and still had a cloudy, white water mold pool. I was about to just fill it in when I came up on this website and found the discussions on converting. I just sort of read over the post very fast and didn't really get into the details, but was sold on the idea. I called a new pool person in my area and discussed it with him. He said that all his customers that had Bacquicil pools had switched over and that he had only one customer left using it. I asked him what he thought I should do and he told me to get 10 lbs. of shock and shock it and be prepared to vacuum out lots of " coffee ground" looking stuff. Well, that was Friday late in the day. I went to Lowes and purchased 4, 5 lb. boxes of AquaChem Shock Plus ( 20 lbs.) a tub of 3" tabets, dispenser, algicide and some test strips ( no quality test kit available on Friday night). I came home just before dark and started dumping in the shockplus. Immediately I got plumes of mustard looking clouds in the pool. Every bag generated a new plume. By dark the pool was completely mustard/green in color with lots of " icy" looking scale on top. It was scary to say the least. I went to bed and couldn't sleep thinking and hoping I had not made a mistake. By 6 AM on Saturday I was up and dumping in the remaining 10lbs. of shock. Still each bag generated a plume of mustard looking water in the pool. I hopped in the truck and went back to Lowes and picked up 28, 180 oz. containers of bleach. I went home and tested the pool with the strips and had ZERO chlorine. I started dumping in bleach and ended up putting 12 bottles in, which is around 15 or 16 gals. Each bottle turned the pool more mustard/green.
Had to leave the pool for a party most of Saturday afternoon, but while I was gone I found a small test kit in a rural hardware store, thought it was better than nothing. Got home around 11 PM and tested the water, ZERO chlorine again. By now I've dumped in 20 lbs. of shockplus and 12, 180 oz. bottles of bleach. Before going to bed I dumped in 6 more bottle of bleach, there was no color change and no plume. I then let it run for a few moments and took another chlorine reading...it was above 10...(10 was as high as the kit would read.) Went to bed and got up to a mostly clear pool. What a surprise, actually I was shocked. I took some more pictures and will add some more bleach tonight but I have backflushed the filter once after it raised up just 2 lbs. I have not brushed or vacuumed the pool at all, but I see no goop, coffee grounds or anything on the bottom. There is a light bluish substance on the white pool steps you can see in the pictures. I had just pumped the pool full of bac products the week before the conversion? Any ideas on why I have no residue, BaquaGoop or pressure build up. The only thing I didn't mention is that I changed the sand just before deciding to convert, so the sand is new.

Friday late in the day:






Sunday about 11:00AM:




After I typed this post I went ahead and put 6 more 180 oz. bottles of bleach in and the pool did turn slightly green. I'm guess I'm still fighting the Bac, just wondering if the worse is yet to come?

Welcome to TFP!

You are already through the worst of it. All that is left now is to get rid of the last of the more hidden baqua. That goes a little more slowly, but is actually a lot less work.

I strongly recommend reading the conversion instructions. Finishing up the conversion is much easier if you have a FAS-DPD chlorine test.

At this point you probably only want to add chlorine in the evenings. During the day you will be losing a lot of chlorine to sunlight.

Cool pictures!

+1 for posting pictures!

Thanks for the rapid replies. I'm sure hoping that the worse is over, I'm going to pick up a good kit on Tuesday, until then I'll have to use what I have. I do have a question about balance. When I started I tested the pool with a Bacquicl test kit and the ph was a little below 7. After I shocked the heck out of it it dropped to 6.8 so I used boraxo to bring the Ph back to 7.5. This only took one box spread around the pool. Should I strive to keep it balanced during the conversion? I have printed off the Official Conversion information and will use that information to finish off the conversion as soon as I can get a test kit that really works. I'll post a few more pictures if anything changes, any ideas on why no goop?, no residue? no filter pressure? After reading all the post, I really expected more than a pool color change and then having it clear up so much. Oh...I'm not complaining at all, this has been a piece of cake so far. I can just feel my piggy bank filling up so I can get that salt water and generator going. My only regret is that I have literally spent thousands of dollars on my pool in the last few years and it's been almost un-swimmable most of the time. I guess I feel like I've been Baqua-fleeced.

* as a note, over the past month I have put 12 lbs. of Pink Treat in the pool, 4 lbs at a time. I'm not even sure what this is except it blew **** out of my lines each time I did it. I just assumed it was white water mold. I would have to floc the pool ( 4 times ) and then vacuum to waste. Could that have affected why I'm not getting any of the residue?

Thanks again.

There is not normally any need to pay close attention to your levels, other than chlorine, during a conversion. You want to keep the PH around 7.2 to 7.4, but remember that high FC levels make the PH test read incorrectly.

3 hours shy of 3 days after starting the conversion. about 2PM in the afternoon on Sunday, chlorine level is at least 10 PPM and the pool is crystal clear. Not seen it like this in years. Wanted to share my excitement and pleasure of making the conversion. I still have to get a decent test kit and make sure I follow the conversion procedure but here it is after not quite 3 days. I have had the pool pressure go up twice ( 2 lbs ) and have backwashed the filter each time. Still no residue, goop, coffee grounds, nothing. There are two small spots on the bottom of the pool about the size of a dinner plate that look like sand. I will vacuum them today. I'm still shocked and surprised.

A little over a week after starting my conversion, i have a completely crystal clear pool, the chemistry is getting there ( still working on getting the CYA up to the right levels). I'm holding between 1.5 and 3 PPM FC and have 0 CC. My PH is 7.4 . I could not be happier that I made the decision to convert and wanted to thank everyone here at Trouble Free Pool for all the information on how to make this happen. My only regret is that I didn't do this years ago. I'm basically using the BBB method with a few TriChlor tablets to help raise the CYA. Again, thank you all for the great guidance and information.

ps. I never did get any bacqua goop, coffee grounds or anything on the bottom of the pool, nor has my pressure ever gone up over 2 lbs....I guess I'll never really know why that didn't happen, but I'm tickled to death it was such a breeze.

Ok... we need a pic of the final outcome. I don't know where your CYA is at, but I would keep my FC at the target level as much as possible to avoid any future problems. Congratulations!!!

Congratulations!

CYA is 30 today. It's going up slowly but surely. Here are pics from today.

Wow... it looks awesome... you must be thrilled!

The pool looks amazing.

WOW, it looks really good man....congrats and you are well on your way to a TFP.

A-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!

Sweeeeeeet!

Do you by chance... have any baqua pics of the pool from the same angle? You said it never looked so good. I for one would love to see the best baqua pic you've got, to compare. Just for kicks and giggles.

Enjoy your pool. You get to this year!

You inspired us to try right now! Your pool looks amazing!!!! Just started conversion last night - hope to have sparkling, clear beautiful pool like yours real soon.

Thanks for sharing all those great photos!

Here are the only two pictures I have from this season. This is the best I could get out of the Bacquacil as far as clarity. You can see that the pool isn't even close to being able to see the bottom. At this point I had spent almost 1500.00 on pool chemicals. Finding this site was the best thing that happened. Out pool is now crystal clear...easy to maintain and truly trouble free. Yes..I test it every day so it's a little more time, but wow is it worth the two minutes it takes to test it. I'm using the BBB method, so I do keep a nice supply of bleach on hand and Boraxo.

Ah, Bud Light Lime....my fav beer.

Good job on the conversion.

WOW!

That's exactly the kind of before and after I was looking for. Were you aware your liner had spots before this?

Party time!