Convert or drain and start fresh?

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golfinglenn

golfinglenn

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Jul 4, 2013
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Springfield, OR
I have an above ground 6000 gal metal sided, vinyl lined pool with 200lb sand filter and jacuzzi brand pump (can't read specs). Pool is over 10 years old, but I am new owner of the house. Pool has always been baqua, but when I bought the house pool was somewhat cloudy white with pink slime on strainer. That was last fall. Dumped a gal of oxidizer in and covered pool after draining below water return nozzle. This spring I shocked again and put in product pool place recommended for the slime. Used a solar panel until recently to heat pool and quickly raised temp to 90.

Well, within 2 days of removing heater pool turned cloudy and pink slime was back. I have shocked and sanitized and that has helped but still cloudy and can't get slime treatment for a couple of days.

Finally my question lol. I have been reading up on here re: conversion to chlorine. Based on experiences should I completely drain pool and clean sand filter with new sand, start with fresh water and go from there with chlorine, or buy 50-100 gallons of bleach and go the conversion route?

I live in Oregon, and with the solar heater I could probably warm pool up fairly quickly.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

Glenn
 
Welcome to TFP!

The quickest approach would be to completely drain the pool, fill with fresh water, perform a baquacil conversion to get any baqua in the plumbing, then replace sand. The baqua conversion should go very quickly if you replace the water first.
 
Richard320 said:
6000 gallons - drain it. The water's cheaper than the bleach. Plus it will go faster, and your swim season is probably short enough as it is. My two cents.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the confirmation of what I was thinking lol. I have grown to loath baqua and I have a 1" dedicated water line for fill so it goes pretty fast. First step, donate to site :), order test kit, and then proceed with drain and refill, convert, then warm pool back up!!. I had crystal clear water for a couple of weeks lol. Looking forward to that again soon.

Glenn
 
I have another question after reading several threads in here. I have a tarp that I use to cover the pool in the winter as well as a bubble cover. Should I leave the bubble cover off and cover pool with the tarp during the conversion to keep the sun from chewing up the chlorine, or am I missing the whole sun/chlorine relationship? Just figured if it is best to add bleach at night, why not make it night as much as possible for the pool water??

Glenn
 
I am excited. Ordered the test kit and hopefully here beginning of next week. Going to drain and fill pool tomorrow and get ph right and have bleach on hand so when the test kit arrives I can start that night with the first dose of baquakillouttamylifeforever bleach :).
 
golfinglenn said:
I have another question after reading several threads in here. I have a tarp that I use to cover the pool in the winter as well as a bubble cover. Should I leave the bubble cover off and cover pool with the tarp during the conversion to keep the sun from chewing up the chlorine, or am I missing the whole sun/chlorine relationship? Just figured if it is best to add bleach at night, why not make it night as much as possible for the pool water??

Glenn
Click to expand...
Leave it off. But scrub it good because there may be traces of baquagoo on it.
 
I haven't done the conversion yet due to waiting on test kit (holidays delayed shipping), heat, and people wanting to use the pool lol (another $15 on oxidizer gone!!). I have stocked up on 30 gal. of bleach from Costco and hope to do the conversion next week. If I completely drain the pool and flush the sand filter and solar heater with fresh water prior to adding bleach and starting the conversion process, will I need to replace sand after the conversion? Not a big deal to do that (cheap at local hardware store for 100lb bags of #20 sand), but digging out 200lbs from the filter is a chore I would rather skip till next year when I start pool up again lol. Thoughts??

Thanks,

Glenn
 

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golfinglenn said:
I haven't done the conversion yet due to waiting on test kit (holidays delayed shipping), heat, and people wanting to use the pool lol (another $15 on oxidizer gone!!). I have stocked up on 30 gal. of bleach from Costco and hope to do the conversion next week. If I completely drain the pool and flush the sand filter and solar heater with fresh water prior to adding bleach and starting the conversion process, will I need to replace sand after the conversion? Not a big deal to do that (cheap at local hardware store for 100lb bags of #20 sand), but digging out 200lbs from the filter is a chore I would rather skip till next year when I start pool up again lol. Thoughts??

Thanks,

Glenn
Click to expand...
I'd use a shop vac to empty the filter. And I think there will still be enough residual stuff stuck in the lines and whatnot that you should treat it as a full conversion - just a very quick one - and replace the sand at the end.
 
Well, two days ago I completely drained pool, scrubbed sides, seams, and ladder as well as skimmer (pink slime in that). Refilled pool with city water (7500 gallons according to water meter) and was amazed at how clear the water was lol. So I adjusted PH with half a box of borax (called for a full box plus some) since ph was at top of scale. Checked after the first dose and was right at 7.5???? So this morning I put in about 180 oz of bleach (7.85% from costco) and to my amazement the clarity of pool didn't change a bit lol. I also ran sand filter to rinse for a couple minutes after filling pool to try to flush as much baqua out of sand as possible. Here are the readings after one hour:

FC: 23
CC: .5
TC 23.5

Is anyone jealous lol? The water to fill the pool cost about $12. I will admit I also dumped about a quarter gallon right in skimmer as filter was running to try to shock the sand filter, so I think that is why FC is a little high.

I also hooked up solar heater that did not get rinsed so I was expecting some cloudy water but I got nothing...Shouldn't it be the worst right after first addition of bleach?

Glenn
 
Just converted

Merged by Mod. We can keep it together. Thanks, jblizzle

I added to a post I had in the Baqua conversion section but didn't get a response so thought I would post here;

I opted to empty and scrub my pool and just start fresh using the bbb system (formerly used baqua). I was expecting to do a conversion even though I emptied and scrubbed, but looks like I skated through it. So I filled the pool 2 days ago with city water and raised the adjusted ph to 7.5.

This morning at 8:30 I started with 200 oz of 7.85 bleach to get fc to 15. Here are my numbers about every hour. It is full sun and warm today, close to 90.

First hour after initial shock: FC 23, CC .5
An hour later FC 12, CC .5. Added 36 oz bleach
An hour later FC 6, CC 0. Added 100 oz bleach
An hour later FC 4, CC 0. Added 121 oz. bleach.

Just prior to the last reading and shock I put 40 oz. cyanuric Acid per the calculator.

Am I doing this right? It looks like the sun is just chewing up the bleach as the pool seems pretty sterile with CC of 0 last 2 tests. Water is crystal clear!!

Ideas, comments?

Thanks,

Glenn
 
With zero CYA in the pool, you should lose around 50% of the FC every hour to the sun ... looks like you just proved that. It also looks like the loss increased as the sun got more intense.

Now that you have started adding CYA, you should not lose nearly as much to the sun.
 
Your first step should be to do an OCLT to see just what's eating your FC's. If you lose 1ppm FC or less then go ahead with the CYA. Tonight, shock again to 15 and preform the OCLT. See the results in the morning.
 
Sweet!! Left for 3 hours after fc of 4 I added 121 oz bleach. CYA must be working as I came home 3 hours later and FC is 17 and CC is still 0. A lot of the CYA is on the bottom of the pool so I am going to vacuum that into the sand filter and let it disolve there. Will post more numbers tomorrow to see how it does overnight.

Thanks for all the help!!
 
Umm ... definitely vacuum up the CYA before it fades the liner ... that is NOT the recommended method of adding it to your pool.

Realize now that after you vacuum it up you should not backwash for a week.
 

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