Pretty black pool

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L

lconnors

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LifeTime Supporter
Apr 1, 2013
21
Davenport, IA
We held our breath and took the cover off the new-to-us pool that came with the house we purchased in January. Short story - divorce situation, previous owner had not touched the pool in 3 years. Honestly, it looks like a scene out of a horror movie.

Pool guy is coming in a week to check out mechanicals, so all free time between now and then will be spent with a leaf rake, fsihing out whatever lays at the bottom of this swamp. Hopefully, we'll be able to turn the pump on next week and start throwing bleach at it. The good news is, there is no place to go but up :)

Stay tuned for lots of pics and a million questions. I hope at some point this summer to see the word "sparkling" here in reference to anything except all the beverages I'll be drinking while tackling this thing.

Laura[attachment=0:1o2ypiys]pool before.jpg[/attachment:1o2ypiys]
 

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Keep those pictures coming!

See if you can't get one with him in it

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I have the TF100 test kit - there is no chlorine, no CYA and pH was 7.5 if I remember right. I'm basically starting from scratch.

I can see the liner down the walls maybe 4 inches - enough to see that there will be a significant increase in my arm size in the coming weeks :) Last night, I could BARELY make out a blue steak on the bottom of the shallow end (3.5 feet) after taking a swipe with the leaf rake. The bottom seems to be completely covered in dead leaves and debris, I'm guessing a couple inches thick. There's been a mesh cover on it for 3 years, but when we took it off, we noticed several 5 or 6 inch diameter holes in it, so it wasn't doing a great job of keeping stuff out. There is not a chance of seeing the bottom in the deep end any time soon.

I could see the rake through the water though, so maybe the water itself isn't completely ridiculous. I REALLY want to get started, but I am afraid to touch the pump or filter until they are checked out. I'll have to be satisfied with scooping for now!

I'm working on my signature, but the pump and filter appear to be old enough that there are no longer discernible maker or model identifiers on them. The heater is a Purex Triton Minimax Plus. Sand filter, but other than that I have no specifics at this point.

Laura
 
I can already tell you are on top of things. It'll be fun to watch your convert your pool into a fun place to spend some swim time.

We all love lot's of questions and pics when you can. Keep everything in this thread so everyone can see your whole "story".
 
Reminds me of a black pool I cleared 2 years ago. Foreclosure - pool not touched in years. Took 3 weeks. Hope you can vac to waste - that speeds up the process immensely. The water clarity will get worse before it gets better so don't get scared - once water starts circulating and everything gets stirred up it stays that way for a while... don't let that intimidate you. It's all about the color change. It will go from black/green to grey to blue grey to blue to clear. You can do it and we are here to help!
 
Scoop as much of the junk out as you possibly can! The more you scoop out, the better your chlorine will work at clearing the water! :goodjob:
 
:Well, the good news is I now know the pool's age. The bad news is the pump is approximately 30 years old lol. :p It's running, but not happy, so I need some suggestions for pump and we're probably going to do a new filter while we're at it.

This is an investment property that my daughter currently rents from us. Her hope is to buy it from us in the near future, so I want something that will last. Her budget is a little tight, so I think variable speed will be more efficient, correct?

If I can find a good pump locally, bleach dumping might begin this weekend. Is it wrong that I now look at this pool and the algae as a personal challenge?

Laura
 

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lconnors said:
:Well, the good news is I now know the pool's age. The bad news is the pump is approximately 30 years old lol. :p It's running, but not happy, so I need some suggestions for pump and we're probably going to do a new filter while we're at it.

This is an investment property that my daughter currently rents from us. Her hope is to buy it from us in the near future, so I want something that will last. Her budget is a little tight, so I think variable speed will be more efficient, correct?

If I can find a good pump locally, bleach dumping might begin this weekend. Is it wrong that I now look at this pool and the algae as a personal challenge?

Laura
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Not at all! Keep taking pictures at regular intervals. They work better than your memory in seeing your progress. Plus, we wanna watch.

I'm no help on pumps and filters, sorry. But use plenty of unions, because someday you might have to disconnect something and it sure beats cutting and splicing pipe! I'd look for a brand that is in stock locally, and that they have plenty of parts on hand. I've been down that obsolete orphan road with cars, and it isn't fun.
 
As I am still a newb, I feel I should offer this suggestion as it was once made to me...

No reason to wait to add bleach (liquid chlorine). Get those FC up to shock value when compared to your CYA now, should only take a few minutes to figure your levels and figure how much to add. Anyhoo, mine has been taking some time to clear up, but every extra bit of time counts. Chlorine can get you started now so more gets accomplished while you aren't diligently working at it.
 
Today's good news / bad news:

Bad news: old pump officially dead, so nothing is circulating until we can get a new one installed this week.

Good news: a few hours of sludge-scooping, a couple rounds of wall-scrubbing and 4 gallons of 12% bleach, and things are looking considerably better already. I'm totally impressed, given there has been very little filtering and no vacuuming at all.
 

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Sorry about the pump, as to your earlier question about type variable speed pumps can save you electricity, but cost much more than regular pumps, and are generally only worth it if you live in an area with high electrical cost or tax incentives (California), for many areas using a 2 speed pump is a better compromise, some have a switch built onto the back of the pump some require an external switch to be wired. These provide the low and high speed function of a variable speed (low for economic normal circulation, high for vacuum and backwash, etc.) and cost a fraction of the price of a variable speed pump.
 
We've been busy!

I wanted to thank everyone for all the great information here. It has been a rough trip, but we are almost there. A new pump, filter, gallons upon gallons of 12.5% bleach, hours of brushing and vacuuming and it may just be swim able soon. I think we might have been there, but we had over 8 inches of rain last week, which set us back.

As of today:

FC 14
CC .5
pH 7.5
TA 110
CH 90
CYA 30

The water is not completely clear yet, so I have not done an OCLT, but you can see the bottom in the shallow end clearly. Yesterday, the sun was shining and I believe I saw a hint of a sparkle :whoot:

Here's a progress picture. Next one will sparkle, I promise!
 

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It's absolutely amazing... the transformations some of these pools go through! That was some pretty black and nasty water! Awesome job! :cool:
 

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