I wish I had found you guys a while ago!
We bought a home this spring that has a 26,000 gal. in ground vinyl pool. We have never had a pool before so this is all new to us. A previous neighbor had a salt water pool and it sounded like a good idea to convert, especially after we heard how much the baquacil cost that the previous owners had been using. Unfortunately, instead of finding you guys I got advice from the pool store and from a neighbor who has salt water and said he has helped a number of people install them. (including a couple of baqua conversions) My pool looked very cloudy and nasty so my neighbor recommended draining half of the pool and re filling it (our water is very cheap) before converting, as that would make the process easier. After re-filling the pool looked great, almost crystal clear!
I got my SWCG system installed (but not plugged in) then went to the pool store.
I returned the leftover baqua product to the pool store and they gave me credit for them which got promptly used on the 25# bucket of dichlor and container of stabilizer he said I would need for the conversion. He said to put 3-4 pounds of the dichlor in the pool every other day for about two weeks and everything would be fine. When I got home my neighbor said I shouldn't throw a bunch of unnecessary chemicals in the pool, just add the salt, stabilizer, plug in the SWCG and everything would be fine. After a couple of days of running the SWCG on super-chlorinate I observed that it was making the deep end a little dark but the test strips were showing basically no FC in the pool.
Doubting my neighbor I tossed a couple of pounds of the dichlor in the pool, and of course watched it turn a pretty green! The water is not cloudy, just green. I can still see the 8' bottom in the deep end just fine through the green color. Since then my test strips have been reading 10+ for TC and FC. I now have a TF-100 test kit on the way so I can actually tell what is going on with my pool! My question is what should I do now? Should I sit and wait for my test kit or keep plugging ahead with the conversion? If I keep plugging ahead should I keep using the dichlor since I already have it or should I switch to bleach? Any advice will be appreciated, as I am sure it will be better than the advice I have received so far!
We bought a home this spring that has a 26,000 gal. in ground vinyl pool. We have never had a pool before so this is all new to us. A previous neighbor had a salt water pool and it sounded like a good idea to convert, especially after we heard how much the baquacil cost that the previous owners had been using. Unfortunately, instead of finding you guys I got advice from the pool store and from a neighbor who has salt water and said he has helped a number of people install them. (including a couple of baqua conversions) My pool looked very cloudy and nasty so my neighbor recommended draining half of the pool and re filling it (our water is very cheap) before converting, as that would make the process easier. After re-filling the pool looked great, almost crystal clear!
I got my SWCG system installed (but not plugged in) then went to the pool store.
I returned the leftover baqua product to the pool store and they gave me credit for them which got promptly used on the 25# bucket of dichlor and container of stabilizer he said I would need for the conversion. He said to put 3-4 pounds of the dichlor in the pool every other day for about two weeks and everything would be fine. When I got home my neighbor said I shouldn't throw a bunch of unnecessary chemicals in the pool, just add the salt, stabilizer, plug in the SWCG and everything would be fine. After a couple of days of running the SWCG on super-chlorinate I observed that it was making the deep end a little dark but the test strips were showing basically no FC in the pool.
Doubting my neighbor I tossed a couple of pounds of the dichlor in the pool, and of course watched it turn a pretty green! The water is not cloudy, just green. I can still see the 8' bottom in the deep end just fine through the green color. Since then my test strips have been reading 10+ for TC and FC. I now have a TF-100 test kit on the way so I can actually tell what is going on with my pool! My question is what should I do now? Should I sit and wait for my test kit or keep plugging ahead with the conversion? If I keep plugging ahead should I keep using the dichlor since I already have it or should I switch to bleach? Any advice will be appreciated, as I am sure it will be better than the advice I have received so far!
We also LOVEEE photo's of the swap!
