Can POP be bought anywhere?

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dattia

dattia

0
LifeTime Supporter
Jun 12, 2008
520
West Chester, PA
Cuz I think I am just about out of my supply. :(

I started out with a horrible mess due to my own actions. I started to make some headway and my black/brown mess is now a lovely shade of green/gray, but it has been this shade for well over a week now. My progress seems to have stalled. I know that there is still yard debris in the pool, but I can't see it to get it all. I have been in the swamp twice now and when I walk around, the floor feels relatively clean, not at all what I was expecting. Still, at times, I use my skimmer net and am able to scoop a decent amount of leaves and then at other times, I only come up with one or two. Sometimes I vacuum for a good period of time with nothing coming up and other times I hit a bunch of pine needles. I am brushing, vacuuming, scooping, pouring in bleach diligently and brought my CYA up from 0 to 40 and even replaced my sand and added a bit of synthetic water polisher (substitute for DE). The water is very polished, but still green.

Someone please tell me that I am on the verge of a sparkling oasis before I pull out all my hair.
 
I wish I could... I thought I had enough reagents to make one more chlorine test but I ran out on the 32 drop and the sample was still pink. (I am expecting my replacements today or tomorrow).

FC - >16
CC - could not be determined today since I used my last drop of R-0871 on the FC test, but in the last week, it has gone back and forth between .05 and 1
CYA - 40
TA- questionable because the colors went from green to orange, but I suspect that may be because of the high chlorine
 
Best way to refresh your supply of POP is to hang out in the coffee bar section of the forum or the Show off you swimming pool section or to head over to the grill with skill section and hang out for a while! :goodjob:
 
dattia said:
Still, at times, I use my skimmer net and am able to scoop a decent amount of leaves and then at other times, I only come up with one or two.
You want to use a leaf rake (the thing with the mesh "bag"), not a skimmer to get stuff off the floor.

Sometimes I vacuum for a good period of time with nothing coming up and other times I hit a bunch of pine needles. I am brushing, vacuuming, scooping, pouring in bleach diligently and brought my CYA up from 0 to 40 and even replaced my sand and added a bit of synthetic water polisher (substitute for DE). The water is very polished, but still green.

Someone please tell me that I am on the verge of a sparkling oasis before I pull out all my hair.
Click to expand...
If your pool is staying green then you don't have enough chlorine in there. Instead of 16 bring thr FC up to about 20 or 25 ppm.
 
I just received my refills..thanks duraleigh!

Without adding anything since my last numbers, this is my complete set of new numbers

FC - 18
CC - 0
TC - 18
pH - 7.6
CYA - 40
TA - 120

Since the beginning, I have not put anything in my pool except for baking soda, CYA and bleach. Since yesterday, I started using only Clorox brand to see if it makes a difference. I replaced 250 pounds of sand and added Fiber Clear as an alternative to DE. Initially, my filter was blowing sand in the pool, but that has not happened since I disassembled it and replaced the sand. No other chemicals have been added to the pool. I am also using a skimmer sock. The backwash process seems to be as it should and I rinse before returning to filtration.

The color is a cloudy green gray with visibility of about a foot to a foot and a half.
 
Two days later and everything looks to be the same. I'd like to say the pool looks a tad lighter, but this is the first time the sun has poked through the clouds, so I think it is the extra sunlight playing tricks with me.

The kids are having a party here next week and wanted to tell everyone to bring their towels... I told them to hold off, as I honestly don't think it is going to change much.

Time to drain?
 
I don't know exactly what it's called, but we call it a leaf catcher. It attaches to the hose, and leaves and stuff go into a net bag attached. You can use one of those to get some of the stuff off of the bottom. That won't get your pool clear, but I'm sure it doesn't help that you have a bunch of stuff down there.
 

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Next Thursday.

My FC has been doing very well actually, I'm not saying that it is holding, but it remains at high levels. I did kick it up a notch and the filter has been running 24/7 for about three weeks. The weather here has been very gray and rainy, so I was hoping that would give me the opportunity to keep my FC at high levels without losing much to sunlight.

I did not go as high as 25, I guess that is my next step... but the thoughts of draining are becoming very attractive at this point. I apologize for my lack of POP... I had it in abundance for the first few weeks! :?
 
I have one of those leaf catchers, and have not used it yet this year. I found it very difficult to manage. My son returns from senior week at the shore tomorrow and perhaps I will make him work off some of his debt by throwing him in the pool with that catcher!
 
YAY! Pool Owner Patience has been restored! :party:

I have to say that a bird's eye view of the water is MUCH better than peering over the side of a pool that is almost as tall as me! I climbed the ladder to enter my swamp and as I stepped onto the first stair in the pool, I did a once over. While the color remains the same, I was able to discern a distinct shadow that did not appear to be cast by the trees. It was indeed the motherload of leaves that had been alluding me. So with leaf rake in hand, I began to remove the shadow one small bag of leaves at a time. While I have a ways to go, that shadow is merely a 'shadow' of its former self!

This little bit of progress is all I needed to regain my strength and continue my battle. I am taking a little break and allowing the leaves to gather themselves on the bottom again and then I will have another go at them! Having an enemy that you can see (sort of) is SO much easier than fighting blind! :)

Thanks to all for your support!
 
OK...it's been five days since I posted in this thread. The party is tomorrow and it is a good thing that we didn't mention bringing towels. I have seen improvement, but very slight. I've been keeping the FC high, above 16 at all times, closer to 22 most of the time. I still cannot see the bottom but I think I could sorta see the vacuum head this morning, so I am taking that as a good sign... but in all honesty, not good enough.

My pH reading this morning was 7.1, I was surprised because I thought I would get a high reading from the constant high FC level. So I am thinking it actually may be lower than that. I added a box of 20 Mule Team to the pool and am waiting to test again. On a side note, I am still getting occasional leaves in the pump basket as I have the vacuum hose going directly in the skimmer hole. After cleaning out the basket a few times, I noticed that my hands have a horrible dry feeling. Is that indicative of super low pH?
 
Vaseline will make your hands feel better. Use lightly during the day, a bit more at night, or heavy if you can sleep with some cotton gloves on.

Probably due to bleach. I ruined my hands years ago using straight bleach to clean bathrooms, with no gloves on. Should'a noticed when the sponges disintegrated. Ended up with cracked and bleeding fingers due to contact dermatitis that lasted for years. Main ingrediant of the Rx I got was Vaseline. Vaseline works pretty good on its own as a first shot at it. Might be pH but I wouldn't know about that. Probably Vaseline will help that as well, very soothing.
 
I'm coming in late to this thread but boy howdy! Can I relate!

A couple of years ago when I was a total newbie I had some pool crisis or other and posted a question. To me, it was a crisis. To the experienced pool owners it must have read like just another newbie yawn. Can't even remember what it was all about. Four hours later I'm nearing hysterics and posted again. Why is nobody helping me out, I wanted to know. Because, dearie, it's Saturday. We're mowing our lawns, we're enjoying our pools, we're sleeping in. That's when I learned about POP.

POP means the pool will not implode in the next 24 hours. POP means throw some bleach at it, run the pump, scoop if there's anything to be scooped, brush if you really feel like you need to do something. If the pump burbs air inspect the plumbing for water drips, take it apart, put it back together. That's part of needing to do something. You might get lucky and fix the problem.

POP means shrugging your shoulders, accepting that it is what it is for today if you've done what you can. When it gets really bad and I just can't stand it anymore I drive down to Philly and shop the kitchen gadgets basement at IKEA. That always cheers me up. I may come back to a murky pool or a burpy pump but I have new measuring cups, so there!

Can POP be bought? Depends on your orientation. You can sometimes achieve it with Tequila or a particular sort of smoke. I find IKEA very therapeutic as well. These days, if my pool acts up, I reach for the vacuum and slide into the Zen of sucking up what I can see. My husband says I sometimes make evil little giggles. No doubt! I found an excellent vacuum head at ACE, translucent, heavier than the the one I had been using. I can watch it inhale stuff, love it!

With your numbers I would have told the guests to bring towels and warned them that their skin might slide off but hey, we have lotion.
 

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