Before and after!

[LasVegasLawyer]

On Friday (July 22), I looked at Dad's pool, and saw this:


I began the shock process. I cleaned the filter. All 420 sq ft of it. I added stabilizer in an old pair of nylons. 40 gallons of Clorox later...



I began to wonder if adding bleach was working, or if I was just pouring more money down the drain. I continued to add bleach. After 80 gallons (July 28):


Or, another sequence, looking into the deep end:



I think the pool has turned the corner. What do you think?

UPDATE: After a month of BBB and using the SWG, this is the result:



Since it went blue, the pool has been used constantly by my nieces and nephews, and my kids love going over and going swimming. This site was a pool-saver! Thanks you guys!

 

[fsteve65]

Great job

 

[frogabog]

Call me crazy, and a betrayer of all frogkind... But I think the blue looks better on your dad's pool than the green.

Awesome job, now that's how to hammer it! Is dad impressed yet?

 

[Patrick_B]

Turned the corner without question. Good job, way to be persistent, and conrats on the sparkly pool. Hope Dad is happy.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Persistance pays off again!

 

[dmanb2b]

Great Job!

 

[Samantha_in_AL]

Way to go LVL! Congrats on a job well done. Never underestimate the power of bleach, and a little POP! (Pool Owner Patience)

 

[woodyp]

Nice example of the Power Of Persistence on that big old pool!

 

[Suziqzer]

Awesome! Looks like persistence paid off again!

It's amazing to me how in the first two photos you see the reflection of the sky in the waters surface because it's acting as a mirror due to the cloudiness of it. In the third picture all you see is blue all the way to the bottom of the pool.. Nice!

 

[Richard320]

I've bookmarked this thread. I am sure I will have ample opportunities to post the link in the future, when someone expresses dismay that 4 or 5 gallons of bleach didn't clear it, or am I sure that all they need is bleach, because the pool store told them they needed....

 

[frogabog]

The continuity of the images represents very well how awesome this works when done properly. I hope to see another installment added to the original post layout so that we can see the end game mega sparkly result as well once it's fully complete.

Very nice job BTW, Friday isn't really that long ago :~}

 

[67stang]

So this is my first post, and I am just reading and learning so I can better manage my pool.
I dont have any major issues, but do want to get it down to a "trouble free process" AND one that is the most cost effective. So when I see this post I have to wonder.. 80 gallons of bleach at probably at least $2-3 a gallon....that's a pricey proposition! The first winter after I bought this foreclosed home, and knew nothing about my pool or maintaining pools, I came out to find my 14000 gallon pool looking the same shade of green as your first pic. I took some advice and shocked it with two little orange bags of pool shock...$12. Then I ran the filter for 24 hours and brushed and brushed. Then I cleaned my cartridge filters and ran the pump some more. Finally I added two gallons of 12% pool bleach. $8. All that and 36 hours later I had the same blue pool as the third pic.

So I guess my, probably naive, question is... If I got the same result for a tenth the cost, isn't that more Effective and trouble free? Any reason not to use the little bags of pool shock in the event you get a massive algae bloom?

Thanks

 

[LasVegasLawyer]

So this is my first post, and I am just reading and learning so I can better manage my pool.
I dont have any major issues, but do want to get it down to a "trouble free process" AND one that is the most cost effective. So when I see this post I have to wonder.. 80 gallons of bleach at probably at least $2-3 a gallon....that's a pricey proposition! The first winter after I bought this foreclosed home, and knew nothing about my pool or maintaining pools, I came out to find my 14000 gallon pool looking the same shade of green as your first pic. I took some advice and shocked it with two little orange bags of pool shock...$12. Then I ran the filter for 24 hours and brushed and brushed. Then I cleaned my cartridge filters and ran the pump some more. Finally I added two gallons of 12% pool bleach. $8. All that and 36 hours later I had the same blue pool as the third pic.

So I guess my, probably naive, question is... If I got the same result for a tenth the cost, isn't that more Effective and trouble free? Any reason not to use the little bags of pool shock in the event you get a massive algae bloom?

Thanks

YMMV. I can get Clorox for about $1.75/gal. According to the pool calculator, if you used 2 lbs of cal-hypo shock, that bumped your chlorine level up 13 ppm. Adding the bleach gave you an additional 15 ppm. When I started, I registered absolutely no FC. I poured in 5-182 oz jugs of bleach, enough to bump it up 13 ppm, the same amount as your shock product. That 13 ppm lasted me less than 4 hours. After reading more posts here, I've come to the conclusion that I probably had ammonia in the pool. It certainly followed the typical characteristics: 0 FC for a lengthy period, 0 CYA, and massive chlorine demand. Put another way, you were able to shock your pool using 28 ppm of chlorine: 13 from the cal-hypo, 15 from the 10% bleach. Adding 28 ppm to my pool would have cost me $28 worth of bleach, $36 worth of cal-hypo, or $70 of di-chlor. For me, the bleach wins out for providing the chlorine economically.

Plus, I live in Las Vegas. Our tap water has a CH of 298 ppm, so the very last thing I want to do is pour more calcium into the pool.

 

[frogabog]

A green pool does not equal... another green pool.

Without specific information regarding the actual degree of an algae bloom, composition and quantity of debris and it's decomposition rate, comparing green against green has no basis in equivalence.

It takes what it takes, to beat the algae 100%. You can throw stuff into your pool and hope for the best, or you can take control and know what you're doing at every step (proper testing). Too many come here after attempting the former and failing, lots more who did the former and succeeded for years until suddenly nothing worked. Many dollars spent on unnecessary chemicals.

The important part is that once you're in control, water is balanced, and you know why your pool varies a little here and there and how it reacts to xxxx conditions... you only put into it what it needs. Nothing more, nothing less. And those chemicals in their most basic and readily available state consist of bleach, baking soda, borax, muriatic acid (dry acid), and cyanuric acid. It's overall simplicity is the key.

 

[Beamup]

Let's also note that pool store methods will inevitably crank up your CYA and/or CH to unworkable levels. Even when it seems to work in the short term, it's not going to last.

 

[LasVegasLawyer]

Update: I added a final round of pictures to show the current state of the pool. The pictures don't show how clear it actually is now, because the pool was getting mostly indirect light (the sun was almost down, and so a lot of the pool was in the shade). There is still some kind of staining near the main drain - I think that was the result of someone deciding to acid wash black algae away several years back. Pretty sure that problem will have to wait for replastering. But the pool has been absolutely fantastic.