Hopefully! Well, I appreciate all of your input anyway! I have done the things you said (I think I have anyhow). The only other thing I can think of is to carefully lift the seams of the liner and try and make sure they are clean, but I would think that everything should be dead by now. Thanks again.

I'm willing to bet that your levels will flatten out now that you removed the ladder, I looked back through the thread and I could not see where you mentioned you had concreate holding the ladder down, that may be the problem right there, I don't know much about using concreat but maybe there is a chance it obsorbed alot of baqua or other junk and is now eating up your chlorine

looks like all has been done, now its up to persistence, my money is on the ladder and weight.

Fingures crossed for you tonight.

What is the best way to hold down the ladder? The concrete is in a 5 gallon bucket and the lid is on it, so I would not think that the concrete would actually have an effect on the pool water (since it is sealed inside the bucket). Can it still effect it? I will need to find something else heavy to hold down the ladder. What does everybody else use? I want to eliminate any possible problem.

Also, Is just washing down the ladder with bleach water good enough or will it cause me a problem when I put it back in the pool? I should not have to buy a new ladder should I?

Like I said, I'm not the expert, personally use pea stone inside my hand rails attached to the ladder, cleaned them real good prior to putting the ladder in, but my ladder is not a cake style its a step style that allows water to pass through.

but removing the ladder and the weight will elliminate that as a possible cause, I did my conversion with a ladder in the pool mainly so that I had good circulation.

My ladder is not cake style either see picture attached to this post. I am not sure pea gravel would work on this one because there are pass through holes in the rails, but that is a good idea. There is a plate on the bottom underneath side to set weight on to hold it down, concrete bucket was convenient but I will do something else.


I had hoped that leaving it in would get rid of anything still on it along with what is in the pool. I guess I will wash it down and put it back in?

don't put it back in, do what your doing through tonight and see if there is a drop. I mean clean it but leave it out until your PPM holds. I left mine out after I cleaned it until all of numbers held.

Sorry to be a pain. I did not mean put it in now, I meant when done with the conversion. But now I am worried that once the conversion is done that putting the ladder back in will cause this same issue. I guess I don't understand why it is not okay for it to be in now, but it is okay for it to be in later. Does that make sense? At any rate, I will do as you suggest. I am sure all of the advise given to me has been good, even if I don't understand why.

Go back to the basics of BBB........accurate testing and understanding the results.

You tested (accurately, right?) and have lost chlorine during the night. Two things consume chlorine......sunlight and organics in the pool. Since you eliminated sunlight, you have organics in the pool.

Chlorine is needed to kill the organics. To my knowledge. there is no cheaper way to remove the organics from your pool. There is no magic bullet nor any other path I can think of other than to add chlorine to your pool.

I do not understand why you are adding hourly or half-hourly. As I suggested earlier, I would test and add three times daily...evening, night, and early AM if possible. Anything more than that at this stage is overkill and a waste of testing reagent.

While I would not normally suggest this, it appears that you have eliminated almost all sources of your chlorine consumption except one.....your filter media. I would suggest you change the sand now.

Changing the sand out now is not what we normally teach but I have a feeling that is the only possible source of your chlorine consumption. I am going to repeat for emphasis that changing out now is not what we would normally recommend but, in your specific case, I think you would be wise to do so.

I would agree with this but he had the filter on recirculate overnight - doesn't that bypass the filter?

Yes, but I am suffering from information overload in this case and am not positive exactly what's been done in the past so it's time to reassess.

So, again going back to basics, it makes sense to me that there is virtually no other source for the FC loss. I would like to wait for a positive overnight FC loss test but OP may not be able to get to that point without a thorough cleaning of that filter.

Yes, I believe so.

Frustrated because the FC's would not come up much in an hour and such high CC's and thought that I could help by doing it more often, Sorry, I should have listened to you better. I probably wasted bleach. I will go back to three times daily.

I will not get back home tonight till 10:45 PM so will not change the sand till tomorrow when I am able to see what I am doing. In the mean time I will try one more time (since the ladder is out and I cleaned the filter top) to see how the FC holds overnight. I will only do two test and adds tonight.

Tomorrow is just fine....actually probably better than today.

Hose the filter out real thoroughly once you get the old sand out. Don't be shocked if you see a gooey mess in there.....it's fairly common.

Just wanted to mention that I have the same exact steps in my pool that you do. Water flows very well through them. Underneath my steps has always been clean and free of algae. I kept mine in for my conversion. I guess removing them doesn't hurt anything, but I don't think it is the cause. Hang in there, you'll get it. Don't lose hope!
I'm pulling for you!

Did not get home from work till 10:45 PM. Just before arriving home there was a major rain storm and the pool was very full. Rain storm is now gone so I ran the backwash for a couple of minutes to bring the pool level down closer to 1/2 way up the skimmer inlet.

11:00 PM FC=.5 added 2.2 jugs of bleach.

Checked FC at 11:30 and it was at 9.0

This is the only dose I will do tonight because of the late hour. I will check FC at 5:15 AM and see how much it drops. Will scrub down ladder with bleach and change out sand in filter tomorrow afternoon.

I guess it rained a lot last night after I went to bed and it is raining now. Water level was over the top of skimmer. I back washed to get the level down for today. tested the water and FC was at 3.0. Maybe that drop is not bad due to rain? Not sure if I should add bleach or not. decided not to add bleach, I will do two doses of bleach tonight. I will be home by 2:00 this afternoon at which point I will change out sand unless instructed not too after all.

Change the sand.

Day 12, Sep 4
Got home from the school at about 2:00 noticed some dead algae in the bottom so vacuumed it out.
Checked FC and it was 1.0, tested CC and (for the first time) it was actually measurable at 10.5. Maybe I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.
I am changing filter sand now. When complete should I bleach immediately or wait till dark?

Current pool pics. looks pretty good.

this is where the ladder was at

Save your bleach......don't add it while the sun is on the pool.

Bring it back up to shock level just after the UV rays get off the pool. Then test and bring back up to shock just before you go to bed. Plan on an overnight FC loss test tomorrow night.

Water is looking pretty good

POP (Pool Owner Patience) will help ease you toward that light at the end of the tunnel

Got my fingers crossed

Aaron,
Just to let you know I'm still here.Good luck..it's looking good.

Deb