Really high alkalinity (300)...

[mvbighead]

Well, it is definitely progressing. Seems I need to buy some DE as the filtering isn't the best, but the water is now more blue-green and at one point I did see all the muck at the bottom of the pool. Stirred it up some, and the water returned to its murkier green color. I suppose that is the whole point of keeping it stirred is to get that stuff suspended in water and eventually filtered out.

Next question, here in the Omaha area, I have no idea where to find a good price on bleach. Thus far, CostCo has been about the best ($8.5 for 3x121oz at 8.25% concentration). I've tried grocery stores, dollar stores, etc, but am running short of ideas. Figure I'll see if Big Lots or Aldi's has anything, but thus far, the going rate seems to be at least $3/121oz.

 

[linen]

I suppose that is the whole point of keeping it stirred is to get that stuff suspended in water and eventually filtered out.

Yep, if any of that can be scooped out with a leaf rake/net, I would.

$8.5 for 3x121oz at 8.25% concentration

8.5/3/(121*0.0825)= $0.28/oz NaClO...yeah that isn't great. Anything below 0.2 is considered pretty good, and above 0.3 is pretty high. You may want to check you local pool stores and see if they sell it (usually in the 12.5% NAClO concentration).

 

[mvbighead]

I suppose that is the whole point of keeping it stirred is to get that stuff suspended in water and eventually filtered out.

Yep, if any of that can be scooped out with a leaf rake/net, I would.

$8.5 for 3x121oz at 8.25% concentration

8.5/3/(121*0.0825)= $0.28/oz NaClO...yeah that isn't great. Anything below 0.2 is considered pretty good, and above 0.3 is pretty high. You may want to check you local pool stores and see if they sell it (usually in the 12.5% NAClO concentration).

I tried to scoop, but I was getting nothing in the net.

I kinda figured. I must've tried 5 different places, and the best I have yet to find is CostCo, but it just didn't feel like a great price. If I do find a good price somewhere, I'll be making special trips, that's for sure.

 

[mvbighead]

Well, as I am out of bleach, I grabbed some at Aldi's. Price seems to be much better according to my calculations:

1 jug, 96oz, 6% concentration, $1.29. $0.22 per oz NaClO Guess the pool store is necessary for my next calculation. I did also see dry stuff at good old Wally world. Something like 55% concentration, completely forgot the cost. Any reason not to use dried if the price is right?

 

[linen]

$0.22 per oz NaClO

decent price

Something like 55% concentration, completely forgot the cost. Any reason not to use dried if the price is right?

The dry stuff always adds something with it. I guess that stuff is dichlor (due to the 55% available chlorine). dichlor adds cya and lowers ph. This makes the pool chemistry more complex, since you are changing 3 things at once. In addition, you only want 30-50 ppm of cya in your water. Besides that, bleach/liquid chlorine is almost always cheaper the dichlor, trichlor, or calhypo ( the three forms of dry chlorine).

 

[mvbighead]

$0.22 per oz NaClO

decent price

Something like 55% concentration, completely forgot the cost. Any reason not to use dried if the price is right?

The dry stuff always adds something with it. I guess that stuff is dichlor (due to the 55% available chlorine). dichlor adds cya and lowers ph. This makes the pool chemistry more complex, since you are changing 3 things at once. In addition, you only want 30-50 ppm of cya in your water. Besides that, bleach/liquid chlorine is almost always cheaper the dichlor, trichlor, or calhypo ( the three forms of dry chlorine).

I was guessing that'd be what you'd say. Perfect, thanks for the tip!

Well, at this point, I suspect my CYA is still low. But I'll stick to adding CYA specifically to bring it up, and not using those other products. Great information to have!

 

[mvbighead]

Well, Leslie's was of no help on the liquid chlorine front. They did have DE, so I went ahead and bought a large bag (25lbs) that'll probably take me several years to use as I add the 1/2 cup to the sand filter as described here. $25/25lbs, but I didn't much feel like checking around everywhere to find a lower cost/smaller quantity.

Aldi is still my lowest price of liquid chlorine for the moment. Might try another pool store, but if that all fails, I guess I'll just buy it there unless someone runs a good deal in the near future.

BTW, the pool is cleaning up quite a bit, but I have not been aggressive about brushing. I am wondering if I'd be best served vacuuming as getting it mixed into the water just causes me to have a 3-4 day period of greener looking water. Or, perhaps I add the DE as described, get it stirred up, and see if that gets it resolved more quickly? Not sure at this point, but it seems every time I brush, I get greener water, and 3-4 days later it settles on the bottom.

 

[mvbighead]

I'm back.

Seems my pool is getting there, but I have a sneaky suspicion my filter is not doing a very good job. Generally speaking, I have been keeping the FC at about 10 with a very low CYA. I need to test CYA again, but earlier tests were minimal. I've had the pool clear up, and a green "muck" on the bottom after a few days. Per the suggestions, I brush it up and it gets "stirred" back into the water, and my water is again green. 4-5 days later, I have green muck on the bottom that again must be stirred up. I suspect that either:

a) My filter is doing a poor job at getting the muck out of the water.

b) I need to vacuum the stuff up and not stir it into the water.

I have tried adding DE, but the most I can add is about a few tablespoons before my water output turns to NIL. I've backwashed numerous times, re-added DE, and moments later the output is NIL. If I don't add DE, the output is fine.

As the weather here has been frequently quite cold, I have yet to do to much getting my hands in the water. But I should be able to vacuum sometime this weekend when the stuff settles out again. My only suspicion is that I may need to mess with my filter media if green stuff starts shooting through the outlet as I vacuum. However, if adding DE plugs it up, I would figure my (sand) filter is working up to its capabilities? It just shocks me that it is taking this long, as when I first installed the sand filter when I had brown water (when I first setup the pool), my water was clean and clear in a few days. I've been going for a couple weeks now, and this stuff keeps settling to the bottom of the pool.

I really appreciate all the help you folks have provided here, as it is clearly getting me in the right direction, and much faster than I was doing on my own. Now I simply need a bit of help in figuring out what is causing this stuff to stick around.

 

[linen]

What is your latest CC and OCLT measurements?

What size sand filter do you have? (or model if you do not know the size)

You may want to try: http://www.troublefreepool.com/my-sand-is-channeled-how-to-fix-it-t7626.html

Vacuuming to waste is fine, but don't stop the shocking process till you pass all three end of shocking criteria (in my sig).

 

[mvbighead]

Latest CC was less than 0.5 I believe. I need to run a check in the morning, but generally I add chlorine at 5:00pm, which is usually bringing it from 3-4 up to 10. The mornings I have checked, the FC was high enough that adding chlorine was not necessary, so I assume 1.0 or less. At this point, with the water remaining quite ugly (after agitation), I have simply been trying to keep the FC at 10 after a day at work.

The water is quite clear (when not stirred up), but immediately becomes cloudy and dirty when I agitate the bottom. This part has been going on for a week or two now.

The sand filter is the Intex 2650 found here: http://www.amazon.com/Intex-650-Gallon- ... and+filter

Next time it settles, I'll start with the vacuum on filter and see what the output looks like. If it looks bad, I'll switch it to waste and just send it out of the pool.

I did see that channeled thread, but I question whether mine is if I can stop/severely reduce the flow by adding DE. Essentially, if the DE can block up the filter, I would suspect this debris would end up in the sand media as well.

 

[linen]

How much cya have you put in? Assume that amount for your cya value and adjust up you shocking value. i.e. if you put enough in to get to 30 ppm cya, now your shocking value is 13 ppm. You want to stay at or slightly above that value as much as possible.

 

[mvbighead]

It's been a while since I added it, but it was at approximately 0-10 and I added about 30 oz, which filled the "foot" portion of my sock. Took about a week or more to dissolve, so I need to test and see how much more will be needed.

 

[linen]

So your cya is should be at ~17 ppm, so your shock value is 11 ppm FC. Are you having trouble staying at or slightly above that?

 

[mvbighead]

To be honest, during the week I generally only have time to check it in the afternoon. I have added bleach at 5pm, checked at 10pm, and none was needed. But from 5pm to 5pm, if the day is sunny, it has usually dropped to 3 or 4 if it has been especially sunny that day.

From what you're hinting at, I suspect I need to do more on the weekend to keep it as close to 10 as possible (at all hours) so that everything in the water dies out?

 

[linen]

If you are spending significant time below 11 then that is likely slowing down or potentially reversing the battle. Are you saying from 5 to 10 pm you are not loosing FC, or are you saying that you add enough at 5 that your are still above 11ppm FC at 10 pm?

If you have too, when you can not be at the pool I would overdose a little.

 

[mvbighead]

If you are spending significant time below 11 then that is likely slowing down or potentially reversing the battle. Are you saying from 5 to 10 pm you are not loosing FC, or are you saying that you add enough at 5 that your are still above 11ppm FC at 10 pm?

If you have too, when you can not be at the pool I would overdose a little.

I add at 5pm, and check at 10pm and it is at or above 10. I suppose it is possible I am not precisely at 15000 gallons, and when I add I am upping it beyond 10, and when I check it could drop 1 or so but still be above 10.

Generally speaking though, I've had days where I add at 5pm to get it to 10ppm, check at 5 the next day and am sitting at 7ppm. But if it is sunny, it is usually closer to 3 or 4ppm, and I have to bump it up to 10 from those much lower numbers.

Also, if the estimate is that I must add 180oz, I'll just add two full 96 oz jugs (192oz) for a slight over dose. It would seem then that my CYA is still pretty low, but I've been waiting for that to fully dissolve before I test and add more. I am likely to that point now, but I have yet to actually do it.

 

[mvbighead]

Ugh, after a long weekend away, and coming home about afternoon yesterday, the weather seemed nice enough to allow me to work a bit at the pool.

My TA is slowly coming down. Started at 300, now down to 225. Outlet is pointed up bubbling at the surface, PH is going up and I am bringing it down with MA. Some days PH measures at 8.0 or thereabouts, and I add 128 oz of MA (31.45) to bring it down to 7.0. At the slow and steady rate I am going, it seems I could get through 9 jugs or more of MA before my TA sees 100.

My CYA is at about 30-40, so I suppose I should up that a touch more.

Lastly, and most importantly, with the time I had yesterday, I was going to take the time to do a good job of vacuuming the muck off the bottom. I hadn't even gone 5 minutes when the inlet plugged up. Upon disconnecting the hose, I found that the muck consists of a mixture of bug remains, grass clippings, and a few other things. I used the outlet to force water through the hose and drained the waste out of the pool. It was a solid green muck.

I can't really progress that much with the inlet plugging every 5 minutes, so I am trying to come up with a plan to either:

1) Rig up the hose to the other size of the PVC fitting with a reducer/bushing/whatever to get a seal and bypass the inlet screen, shooting the contents straight to waist using the existing pump.

2) Take one of the two other pumps (I have a much older one that may or may not work) and try to prime it with the outlet from the other pump, and use it to vacuum bypassing the inlet screen.

3) Fill the hose with water, and attempt to create a vacuum using gravity and slowly vacuum all the gunk not using any pump whatsoever.

I'm leaning towards starting with 3, and then 2, and then 1 depending on how things work. 3 would put the lowest amount of risk on my equipment. The only challenge is getting the hose to stay below the pool level to draw the water out. Most of the gunk is to one side of the pool, but it would be best if it was sitting toward the back of the pool, closest to the downhill slope.

Guess one question is whether there is a big risk running that kind of gunk in a pump. Or does the pump not care? Using the net or screen just seems to agitate the stuff and not necessarily get it out of there. The pump idea started to work, but the inlet screen has hole that trap the gunk and stop the flow. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.

 

[mvbighead]

Any opinions on bypassing the inlet screen and running this stuff straight through the pump and out to waste? I believe I can do it with a 1 1/2 to 1 1/4 reducer on the other side of my T-d off PVC. Just not sure if the chunks in that sediment will pass through the pump freely without damaging it or affecting it in some way.

 

[mvbighead]

Well, as an update, I went ahead and attempted to vacuum without the pump using only the suction provided by gravity of the water running downhill. WORKED BEAUTIFULLY!!! I got what I could but visibility was cloudy so I stopped when I stopped seeing the green muck popping up (I had a PVC pipe with a 90 degree bend pointed up at the bottom of the hill that the water was running through so I could see what was coming out). When all was said and done, I found a pile of grass, tarp remnants, and bug pieces where the water was landing. I still will need to do this a few more times, but this seems like the best method for getting that stuff out of the water.

Since my vacuum head is not the greatest, I went ahead and ordered:
http://www.amazon.com/Hydro-8151-Weight ... acuum+head

Some guy on youtube mentioned that, without brushes and with bigger wheels, it does a better job of vacuuming and not stirring the stuff up into the water. My other one kept angling into the floor wrong and getting caught, and I assume the brushes are stirring some of the stuff up before it gets vacuumed.

Also, I went ahead and ordered:
http://www.amazon.com/Hayward-SP1091LX- ... ds=skimmer

I am a bit leary of cutting into the side of the pool, but at this point, the other skimmer basket is just plugging up frequently, skimmer sock or not. This seems to be a highly regarded product, with a very good success rate. And, I already have PVC run where I want to install it. As I'll have two entry points for water, I figure I ought to have less trouble with flow getting to the pump. Whether that is true, who knows, but it is worth a shot.

All in all, as swim season approaches, I am getting closer to having a clean pool. My alkalinity is still up there (200 now down from 300), and the water is still pretty cloudy, but it's coming along. Any ideas on why the water is persistently cloudy?

 

[mvbighead]

Attached image to show what I am dealing with.

Water is starting to clear up, but there is a lot of this stuff on the bottom of the pool.

EDIT: This pic was taken several days ago, so some of the muck is gone, but I'd guess about half remains.