Thank you to everyone for sharing their knowledge and experiences here at trouble free pool. We started to convert from baquacil to chlorine 1 week ago. No baquacil was added for 9 months so I'm assuming it is very low. Using the pool calculator I have been adding the recomended amount of chlorine each evening to reach 15 ppm. Our pool is 23000 gallons and I've been adding about 6 gallons of bleach each day. The pool still has a slight green tint to the deep end. The backwash discharge is starting to look better. So far I have been through about 30 gallons of bleach. FC is still only 1 or 2 in the morning. CC is above 30. My questions are: Is the high CC reading a concearn at this point? Should I hit it harder with the bleach? ( I checked after adding amount recomended by pool calculator, in the evening after brushing, and FC is only about half of the recomended 15 ppm about 20 minutes after adding bleach) Can 78% cal hypo be substiuted for bleach? I'm being burried in bleach jugs
Started baquacil conversion
- Thread starter stingray
- Start date
Welcome to TFP!
Conversions do take a lot of bleach! Everything you describe sounds normal. The CC level does get very high in the middle of a conversion, and should start to come down soon.
If your CH level is low enough, you can use some cal-hypo. But a conversion uses so much chlorine that using mostly cal-hypo would raise the CH level too much. High calcium levels can lead to cloudy water and calcium scaling.
Conversions do take a lot of bleach! Everything you describe sounds normal. The CC level does get very high in the middle of a conversion, and should start to come down soon.
If your CH level is low enough, you can use some cal-hypo. But a conversion uses so much chlorine that using mostly cal-hypo would raise the CH level too much. High calcium levels can lead to cloudy water and calcium scaling.
Welcome to TFP! Glad to hear that you have started your conversion from baq to chlorine. You will be so glad that you made the switch. 
Sounds like you're getting through the process well. Richard's right... we love to see pics of the process! Always neat to see a conversion (or swamp) turn into an oasis.
Hi, it's been about 2 weeks into our conversion and each evening FC has been brought up to 15ppm. The water has been clear for about a week but I am unable to FC any higher than 9 by morning. I have used close to 100 gallons of bleach so far. Can I add any cya at this point? Should I try a different oxidizer? Has anyone heard of Flip Out biguanide remover?
Has the FC level been around 9 several days in a row, or has it been going up slowly, or wandering around? Are you able to test after sunset in the evening and before or very close to sunrise in the morning?
At this stage of the conversion you can save chlorine by only adding chlorine in the evenings after sunset.
No, you should not add any CYA until the overnight FC loss is 1.0 or lower. Adding CYA too early will greatly slow down the conversion process.
There are various products like Flip Out. All of them end up being more expensive than chlorine. Some of them are just a little faster than chlorine and several avoid the strange colors, but none are significant enough improvements to warrant the extra expense.
At this stage of the conversion you can save chlorine by only adding chlorine in the evenings after sunset.
No, you should not add any CYA until the overnight FC loss is 1.0 or lower. Adding CYA too early will greatly slow down the conversion process.
There are various products like Flip Out. All of them end up being more expensive than chlorine. Some of them are just a little faster than chlorine and several avoid the strange colors, but none are significant enough improvements to warrant the extra expense.
Jason, thanks for your reply. I have been testing FC at 9pm and 7am. FC at 9pm is brought to 15. FC was hanging around 2 in the mornings for about 7 days. Water quality is clean and clear. 3 days ago morning FC was 4.5, backwash discharge was improving. At this point I used about 80 gallons of bleach. I cleaned the filter and changed the sand. Next morning FC was 9. Today I am out of drops but will continue with usual amount of bleach [4-182oz jugs] this evening. Drops should come today. I may have been early on changing the sand but it did look pretty bad I'm just tring to figure out what is eating all this chlorine.
There are still baquacil breakdown products in the water, and probably in the plumbing as well, that are getting further broken down by chlorine. From your description you are making good progress. The FC level first thing in the morning should continue to improve day by day.
I just wanted to update this thread and let everyone know our conversion has been compleated. It took about 3 weeks until the pool would hold FC 15ppm over night. I think it would have gone faster if I would have kept boosting the chlorine level every hour. I added CYA and have been on the BBB method for about a little over 1 week. The pool looks absolutely clear, feels great, and no longer stinks looks cloudy or burns your eyes like it did with Baquasil. Thank you Jason and I hope everyone enjoys their pools.
Good luck Leebo! Just stick to the conversion instructions and everything will work out. My pool has been great it is 24000 gallons, cya 30 and I add about 1 to 2 quarts of bleach each day. The pool stays crystal clear. I have had no need to shock yet and it has been about 7 weeks since the conversion has been compleated.