Ok here we go. Pictures to follow. After having baquacil for the last 3 years, this year the pool got very cloudy after a lot of rain. Pool store tested water multiple times. After getting everything to even out and spending tons of money we still head cloudy water which led me to here. I started to read about other people having the same problem and deciding to switch. So I went back to the pool store and bought 2 bottles of a chlorine convertor which was suppose to decrease the baquacil in the pool to start adding chlorine. Waited 1 week still reading 30 on baq test strips. Gave up on pool store order a taylor test kit and /started adding bleach. I did not have kit when I started the conversion so I guessed I was at 15 and added 3 gallons of 6% bleach 7/12/11. Did not have a day off until today. I have been adding bleach to keep pool at 15 ppm FC every hour. Pool is yellowish green and still cloudy. Should we start to see improvement?
Thanks

Welcome to TFP!

Make sure you read the baqua conversion instructions in Pool School.

The entire process can take a while and use a great deal of chlorine. Timing varies a great deal, but it is most common for the yellow/green color to last a few days. A great indicator of the progress you are making is to do an overnight FC loss test. As things move along you will lose less and less chlorine overnight.

Yes i did read the pool school forum and it was very helpful, I was not sure when the green would start to go away and the clear blue return. A lot of people on the forum started to notice improvement quickly and guesses..... We also drained half of our water before the conversion and baq levels were reading at 15-20 when we started. Will it help any to be shocking the pool as well or just bleach...

You are going through the shock process, with bleach. It is all about the chlorine.

Welcome! With bleach you ARE shocking the pool! Just without the unnecessary junk they put in the powdered shock to stabilize it in powder form. I would suggest a re-read of the converting from baquacil to bbb thread to gain a more comprehensive understanding. I know its a lot to understand all at once but be persistent, post often and stay out of the pool store and soon you will have a sparkly pool

How do I post the pictures as I go? Pool has been holding 10-15 ppm within the last 4 hours. It smells awful. The last 2 times I tested the water I ended up only needing to add 4 cups of bleach. I retested the baquacil level and it is now reading 0. Are we getting close?

If your pool smells bad, then the chlorine is doing it's job, it's killing the baquacil. The baquacil may be reading zero, but you are not done. You are done when you have an overnight chlorine loss of 1 or less, a cc of .5 or less and a clear and sparkily pool.

Don't get discouraged if it takes a while. I did a conversion 2 years ago and it took several days, but it is well worth it.

I don't know much about cartridge filters, but just make sure to keep them cleaned off during the process, all that gunk might build up on there. I'm sure some experts will chime in after bit, because they sure helped me understand the process as I was going through it, but it just takes a whole lotta bleach and a whole lot of patience =)

Day 2 full speed ahead. Ladt night FC was 15 at bedtime, and in the morning dropped to FC 10. I added the bleach to bring it back up at 6 am. At 2pm when I returned from the FC was 10, so I added the bleach again. Bought 10 more 1.5 gallons last night. So far used at least 20 1.5 gall of bleach. Pool does not have such a reaction when bleach is added at this point and there is no foaming brown gunk on the top. I continue to clean the cartridge daily it is very gross. I do not know how to upload photos anyone know?

For posting pics, many of us use PhotoBucket.Com. It's free and easy

After you upload your pics, copy/paste the the IMG code inside your post and the pic appears.

Still having some chlorine left in the morning is excellent progress.

Sometime when the FC level is fairly low, preferably below 5, it might be a good idea to double check your PH. If there isn't an opportunity, don't worry about it.

Should I still be trying to test every hour. I did a hour check a little while ago and my FC is still , so no bleach was needed. Yeah! I ested the PH yesterday it was at 7.2.

Ok ran out of reagent for taylor FC kit.. oops husband is getting more tomorrow. I feel like we are not really getting anywhere. The water is still green. We are holding fc at 15 during the day and only dropping to fc 10 overnight. Do we need to do anything else????

Just keep at it. It usually takes more than a couple of days to complete the conversion, mine took almost a week and lot's of bleach and lot's of patience. You sound like you are doing things right, so just keep it up =)

This is day 2 conversion
http://s1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc505/alf82283/?action=view&current=DSC02073.jpg

Day 2 7/15/2011

Day 3 7/16/2011

Day 4 7/17/2011 you can finally start to see through the water. Swaped out filter again. Still waiting for reagent r0871. Not sure if we are still losing chlorine or not.

Ok so here is my next question from what i am reading after losing only 1 ppm during the night the conversion is complete. You should change your filter and add cya to pool. How much cya. What is a good product? How often do you need to add cya? new to chlorine. Also when can we swim again???? IT IS HOT!@!

Hope eveyone enjoys my nasty pool pictures... I know during this conversion I searched pages of pictures to compare......