We have an above ground Splash pool 17 x 41 and have always used Baquacil. We put the pool up 4 yrs ago. Our well is so slow we paid to have water trucked in to fill the pool. It was spendy, but the only way. We swim our 3 dogs several times a week and use the pool 10 months of the year. We have had recurrent pink water mold problems; resolved for now. We currently have algae and the pool is leprechaun green. We shocked it with the baquacil oxidizer and added mps and the strip reads nearly blue black for oxidizer levels, all other chemicals are balanced, but 3 days later the pool is still green. We have back washed and used flocculant.
The guy at the pool place said that with all chemicals other than chlorine you have to replace the pool water as it gets "tired" and can no longer be balanced. We have never done that.
So, if we have to replace the water (meaning getting it trucked in again) would now be the time to switch to a SWG or some other chlorine method? What is recommended for pools that have active dog use.
Sorry for the multiple questions! We are at a crossroads and need some advice! thanks.
Elaine

We rarely advise draining a pool, unless you have high CYA or Calcium or Salt levels. Outsise of tha, chlorine can fix most anything that you may be experiencing with Baq Di you happen to get any test results from the PS? Here is a good article to read through

pool-school/baqua_chlorine_conversion

Thanks! I'll read that and share with my husband. Draining the pool is not something we want to do!

Elaine

The main thing with a baq conversion is that you will need a lot of chlorine. Many, many jugs of bleach are needed. Of course you can use other sources of chlorine to do the conversion but they come at a price. Calcium hypochlorite can raise your CH too much, too quickly. Dichlor raises your CYA too much. Trichlor is too slow and raises your CYA as well. Lithium hypochlorite is perfectly fine aside from the fact that it is typically prohibitively expensive. That's why we like plain old bleach. All it adds is what you need, it's immediately available in solution, and it's cheap.

ETA: Almost forgot...if you do the conversion, please take pictures and post them in a thread for us to see. We all love baq conversion pictures!

OK, we are committed! Unfortunately we have to wait for the test kit to arrive, they estimate April 6. We bought a cheap kit hoping we could start with that, but it doesn't measure FC above 8 and we couldn't get anywhere near a color match on the PH.
We had just put 5 gal of oxidizer in to battle the algae last week. Our test strips are almost black. Should we stop all baquacil products and just wait for the kit to arrive and then start the conversion? It took several days, but now the pool is finally clearing up and the green is nearly gone. If I stop all baquacil will the algae come back and will that make the conversion harder? I'm looking at the super high oxidizer levels now and thinking letting them drop would help with conversion.
Now that we decided to do it, waiting is hard! What do you think?
Also, about how many gallons of chlorine can we expect to use for a 20000 gal vinyl pool? My husband brought home 10% chlorine.
Thanks!

Absolutely stop adding Baqua products.

Any algae will get killed soon enough. It will be the least of the issues when you start. When you begin the conversion, the water will turn green anyway and then start to form a precipitate that will need to be vacuumed out. Keep your Baqua test strips handy. They will tell you the level of the Baquacil sanitizer and you will see it drop as you continue to add chlorine. Then more sanitizer will precipitate out. let it circulate at least few hours then shut it off for a couple hours just before you vacuum it out to waste. That lets anything in suspension drop out and land on the floor for easier pickings.


Scott

ETA on test kit is April 5. We are so anxious to do it!

I have read thru many of the posts on the conversion. Great info on wiping toys, ladders etc. A few questions:

1) We have a solar cover we use even with the dome on to keep the dome from being a sauna and decrease heat loss. it is is contact with the baqua water now, should we pull it on when it is at 15 and then remove it for rest of conversion?
2) We are in the Pac. NW, so not lots of sun in April. If we keep the dome closed does the solar gain equal the same as direct sunlight in terms of chlorine burn off?
3) If we have vacuum hoses etc that have not been actively used in the pool in over a month is the baqua residue in them still an issue? If so what is the best way to deal with it?

Thanks!

1) The best thing to do with the cover is to remove it now and then put it back on for an hour or two later on when overnight FC loss is below 4 ppm and you haven't added CYA yet.

2) Keep the dome open for the first phase of the conversion, when you are losing chlorine very very quickly, and consider closing it later on when most chlorine loss is due to sunlight.

3) As with the cover, anything that has baqu on it should be soaked in high FC pool water for a limited time towards the end of the conversion.

Thanks Jason! Curious: why leave the dome open during the first phase?

There is going to be a lot going on in the water, some of which will release volatile compounds that should be allowed to blow away, instead of building up inside the dome. During the initial phase, chlorine will be getting used up so quickly that chlorine loss to sunlight is irrelevant.

The test kit is here. I am trying not to be too intimidated!!! Big question before I start: do i do the chlorine drop test to determine if I'm at 15ppm chlorine? I'm a bit confused as the mini test kit within says to just add the drops to the sample, the instructions on the lid describe adding the powder and drops and use the multiplier to see if I'm high enough. I'm guessing I use the chlorine drop test; am I right?

There are two different chlorine tests, the OTO test which takes five drops and turns various shades of yellow which are compared to a color standard, and the FAS-DPD test where you add a powder that turns the sample pink and then you count the number of drops till it turns clear again.

For a conversion, you figure out the size of your pool, and then use the Pool Calculator to tell you how much chlorine you need to add to get the FC level up to 15. Add that much chlorine, wait an hour with the pump running, and then measure the FC level with the FAS-DPD chlorine test. Given the new level, you again calculate how much chlorine to add from that starting level using the Pool Calculator, and repeat.

It won't be until the later stages of the conversion that the FC level will ever be much above zero.

Wow, the pool instantly turned a chocolate brown with a reddish hue. Then it went to ocher with a thick tan scum and this morning it is golden yellow! I've taken pics, don't know if they will do it justice.
I've used 28gal of 10% bleach so far. My FC this morning was 2.5; the highest yet.
The baquacil strip reads a very pale blue. I have no idea where we are in the process, but it is kind of fascinating in a disgusting way.
Thanks for your quick replies to my questions.

Post the pictures!! We love a disgusting freak show.

One of these days, someone needs to make a video of the first bleach pour. I think that would be really interesting.

We are getting there. The pool is a pale aqua color and i can see the second stair. We brushed the 3 sides we could reach and have the autovac running.
2 Questions:

That seemed to stir things up and it has required more bleach to get back to 15ppm than before we brushed/vacuumed. Is this normal?

Can we add flocculant to help filter out the particles and clear the water faster?

oops: We seem to have managed to get the chlorine too high at 30ppm; how that happened I'm not quite sure. We retested and got 33 ppm. Yikes!

Am i destroying my liner? Should I be worried?

That high for a short time isn't going to hurt anything. Just let it come back to shock level. It should come down pretty fast.

How about adding flocculant?

During a baquacil conversion there really isn't any point to using floc. The chemical reactions are going to take time and the filter will catch up well before they are complete. It is the already reacted parts that are clouding the water, so removing them quickly won't make any real difference.

Additionally, they congeal and much of it falls as a precipitate.

Scott