The Numbers Are In! Need help fine tuning...

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Very much so! It has been fun learning so much and seeing progress too! Hopefully once I get home today it will have shown even more improvement!

When should I start to add my salts? I will have to add a few bags to get that level up. Is it okay to do that now?
 
Puffin said:
It has been great following your "blow-by-blow" progress. Thank you for sharing. I think I speak for most of us, we'd love to see some pictures of the pool as you progress.
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I will defintely get some pictures posted. I have some of how it looked starting out, from a few days ago, and I will take some of it now and thru the end.
 
SPKNout4CHRIST said:
Very much so! It has been fun learning so much and seeing progress too! Hopefully once I get home today it will have shown even more improvement!

When should I start to add my salts? I will have to add a few bags to get that level up. Is it okay to do that now?
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Personally, I'd wait until I was done backwashing so often, because every time you backwash, you'll lose some of that salt you just added.
 
I'm a new pool owner but was wondering how much money it would cost to clear up algae using the pool store recommendations.

Im glad to have found TFP while my pool was being built.

Also enjoying the play by play account. Looking forward to a happy ending and photos.
 
carlos31820 said:
I'm a new pool owner but was wondering how much money it would cost to clear up algae using the pool store recommendations.

Im glad to have found TFP while my pool was being built.

Also enjoying the play by play account. Looking forward to a happy ending and photos.
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I would say it would cost too much! I had been to the pool store a couple of times blindly before venturing online and finding TFP and had already spent over 200 dollars on chemicals. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I can tell a difference and that I am on the right track with bleach and the TFP method for a lot less than I had already spent at the pool store.

Something funny actually happened the other day when I stopped by the pool store to get a vacuum plate for the skimmer. I told him that I was using bleach and what I had been doing and tried to break it to him easy. Then he brings up that I need to add my salts so that my SWG will start to work and says that he has a bag of regular salt that will work and it is only $14 versus the Mineral Springs he had been trying to sell me for $33. He said he wasn't supposed to sell that to me, but it would work in place of the MS. I thought that was funny because until then he had not even mentioned the other salt option. I still did not tell him that I could get the same thing at Lowes' for $5 a bag.
 
I have a quick question. Below is what my filter looked like last week when I cleaned it out. Would it benefit me to go ahead and take it apart again and hose down the inside? I am thinking that a lot of junk has been pushed through there since then and it may help with the cloudiness. Just let me know your thoughts! ::epds::

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I might wait until you are just about almost done and then backwash 1 final time, take the whole thing apart and clean everything.

From my experience a straight backwash never truely cleans a DE filter. I've taken to breaking mine down twice a year and really cleaning it. Once your pool is cleared a clean DE filter will last quite a while before it needs to be cleaned again.

Nice pic by the way - no wonder it's taking awhile to clear your pool!
 

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Ok, sounds good. Thanks!

I have another question about water level. I tried to find something on it in other threads, but could not. My skimmers have arrows on the side where the water enters (one arrow on each side of the opening), is that where the water level should be? I am thinking so. It was higher than that, but after backwashing a few times since starting it dropped and then I added some water to the pool and then saw the arrows, luckily I was right on them. I just want to make sure that is what they are for. The level is between 1/3 and 1/2 from the bottom of the skimmer opening.
 
If the arrows are 1/3rd to 1/2 from the bottom, then it's most likely the minimum level that should be allowed. My skimmer runs about 2/3rds from the bottom and most others I've seen run from half to 3/4ths from the bottom.
 
Getting closer!! :lol: I can see pretty much all over the shallow end with some cloudiness still and I can see all of the ladder in the deep end!! Woo hoo! I can tell a definite day-to-day improvement.

Still wondering why the FC is not holding over night and the CC remains at 1? Does that mean I still have algae? It has been kept at shock level pretty much continuously for 1 week and 3 days now with pump running 24/7. Thanks!
 
SPKNout4CHRIST said:
Getting closer!! :lol: I can see pretty much all over the shallow end with some cloudiness still and I can see all of the ladder in the deep end!! Woo hoo! I can tell a definite day-to-day improvement.

Still wondering why the FC is not holding over night and the CC remains at 1? Does that mean I still have algae? It has been kept at shock level pretty much continuously for 1 week and 3 days now with pump running 24/7. Thanks!
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I suspect there is still some algae hiding behind the lights, in the pipes, and in the filter. And quite possibly some hardy algae in the water that's still reproducing almost as fast as you're killing it.

You can't let up and coast, or it will resume growing faster than you can kill it, and all the bleach you poured in will have been wasted.
 
The last little while is the hardest to wait on. It's getting so close that you want to start backing off, but as Richard said, now is not the time to let up. It's not unusual for it to take two weeks or more of constant shock level to kill everything. One little bit left in a light niche or ladder pipe, etc will over take you again as soon as you let the FC drop. We've actually had to have people take the lights out and manually clean behind them to get rid of it all. I've had people pour straight bleach in the ladder rails and rungs when there's a way to do it.

It might be time to start checking for stuff in those places.
 
If you can inject bleach in and behind them, that usually helps without actually having to dismantle anything. I've used tubing to get into tight places. If you drop a little in the water it's no big deal, might actually help a tiny bit. Some ladder rails are sealed and you don't have to worry about those.
 
It's usually yellow/mustard algae that will be behind light niches and under ladders since it prefers shade and this kind of algae also requires higher levels of chlorine to kill. This isn't where green algae normally grows and it looks like you've got green algae. On the other hand, you had a LOT of it which makes it more likely to be growing or at least end up in more places. Anyway, Bama's advice would certainly be a better-be-safe-than-sorry approach.
 
Bama Rambler said:
If you can inject bleach in and behind them, that usually helps without actually having to dismantle anything. I've used tubing to get into tight places. If you drop a little in the water it's no big deal, might actually help a tiny bit. Some ladder rails are sealed and you don't have to worry about those.
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I was under the impression that I was using straight bleach to keep my chlorine levels up. Is that not what Clorox is or am I missing something? Have I been putting the wrong thing in? Thanks!
 

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