Dark Green Pool

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primaeq

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Apr 19, 2014
36
Charlotte, NC
Ok, to start, a little background. I moved into a new place and now have a pool. The place was owned by my brother and his wife kept the pool up. It's a year old above ground 18' X 18' X 4' vinyl pool with a sand filter and SWCG. I don't have any idea about how she was maintaining it or anything. Over the winter I don't believe anything was done to it it. I think they just turned off the pump and SWCG and called it good. I have ordered and tested the pool with a TFTestKits T100 (I believe). The results are as follows

Salt : 2,000 ppm
Chlorine : 0
pH : > 8.2
TA : 90
CYA : 0 (assuming zero, filled the tube to full and could still see the dot)

I didn't test the CH due to vinyl pool. The pool is dark green. If you were to stick your arm in up to your elbow you wouldn't be able to see your hand. I have spent two or three days fishing leaves out and think I have it completely empty of (floating) leaves.

I have never taken care of a pool before. I have read (at least a majority of) the pool school topics.

My question is this. I am on a well and as such am not paying for water. Would it be better to drain and refill the pool or attempt to SLAM it? I'm assuming it will take at least a couple of weeks of SLAMing and an additional couple of weeks to clear it up.

Thanks for any and all advice!


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A couple questions before I offer my advice.
1) Do you have metals in the water? You'll know because you'll have iron stains in the toilet tank and maybe the sinks.
2) You describe the pool as 18*18*4. Is it rectangular or round?
3) Does the filter have a multiport valve? Most sand filters do. It will be a sort of rotary dial that says filter-backwash-waste-recirculate.
4) Do you have a vacuum that connects somehow to the filter?

Know upfront that you will not be emptying the whole pool. You will have to leave about a foot of water in the shallowest part to avoid the liner shifting and wrinkling.
 
1) No rings, it's clean water, though it's never been tested that I know of.

2) Round

3) Yes

4) No, there wasn't one left behind, but there is a "robot" that you put in the pool.

Ok. I have also looked at having a company come full the pool, which the last estimate I got was $350 for 7,000 gallons and mine is under 7,000. I'm not opposed to that either if it is needed.


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Okay, based on answers, I'd suggest using that robot to vacuum to waste. You'll lose a bunch of water, but you'll get most of the sludge out of the pool. That is, the pump sucks the stuff off the bottom and ejects the water from the waste port. When you refill it, that green color will be much lighter from dilution and then you can begin the SLAM process.
 
Does it look like there's a way to connect a vacuum hose into a skimmer port? The pool is small enough that draining is viable, yet you don't want to overtax the well, either. You might end up filling all your pipes with silt. Since the pool was left wide open, it's probably full of junk you need to get out. That's why I would try vacuuming to waste. Minimal water loss, minimize chlorine expense.

If vacuuming to waste isn't viable, then it's your call. A whole lot depends on the well's capacity. I'd bite the bullet and spend the money on bleach before I'd have muddy water coming out the taps.
 
I had thought of that concern (overtaxing the well, more specifically burning up the pump). Would you have a rough "guesstimate" as to how long I would need to SLAM for? I just don't know how far is too far gone when it comes to algae. Also if I go the SLAM route do I need to get all of the levels right before I begin (TA, pH, CA)?


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Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, we don't know. The SLAM takes as long as it takes. Some take days, some take weeks. The closer you can watch it and the more time you can spend on it, especially in the beginning, the faster it will progress.

With a vinyl pool, the other parameters aren't as critical. You're going to want to get CYA and pH adjusted first, then start the SLAM. At that point, you'll only test FC and CC until it's complete. Once complete, you can work on the other numbers.
 
Ok, thank you for the help. I think I will at least attempt to SLAM it before considering draining. I'm thinking about giving it a week of SLAMing and if I don't see any improvement, then start thinking about draining. Thanks again for all of the advice!


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Attached are some pictures. Had a storm last night so more leaves.


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I know you'll see improvement quickly. That first change to a cloudy bluish color rather than the green comes pretty quickly after starting the SLAM. The long wait is when you've gotten it back to blue and your FC consumption has sort of stabilized and you have to continue to keep it at SLAM levels while you wait for the sand filter to finish filtering.

By that point you're usually not using as much chlorine but it's the point when you always see people posting "Am I ever going to finish??" followed by a lot of responses telling them that now is when the POP (Pool Owner Patience) is needed most.

FYI This is what mine looked like last year and I managed to do it without a drain. I couldn't see anything on the bottom and there were tons of leaves and other random debris down there. So much so that when I started shocking (yeah this was before I knew about the SLAM process and right about the time I found out there was another way) I would have big chunks of leaves floating up to the surface as the chlorine started to kill the algae and I guess loosen the stuff from the bottom. It was a lot of scooping and skimming but in the end it worked and I wasn't even doing it right at that point. I've seen the threads here with people following the SLAM process properly and that's definitely faster and gets better results than what I did!

Good luck with everything which ever method you choose! (Drain and refil vs. SLAM)
 
^^^ that's exactly what I was thinking!

Hey look, this is what my pool looked like last year,





and here's one I took from the bedroom window when my crazy husband went out and got in that nasty thing with his wetsuit on to try and scoop more out of the bottom...I was inside because it was COLD!!

(This was all before I found this site...getting in was not necessary but he wanted to? lol he was bored or something..)



Not trying to hijack the thread or anything, just wanted to show you it can be done. And like I said, I started it completely wrong (throwing bags of "shock" in having no idea what I was doing) so if you do it right, it's gonna be great! :)

My pool now....
THANK YOU TFP!!!

 
So it is possible! Haha

Quick question. As I said before my pH was greater than 8.2. I added 20 oz of the 20 degree muriatic acid as suggested by the calculator. Ran the pump continuously, then rechecked after about 2 hours. pH test was still showing greater than 8.2, so I added another 20oz. That was about an hour or two ago, I just checked again, and it appears to be getting darker red (i.e. increasing pH). Am I doing something wrong?
 
primaeq said:
So it is possible! Haha

Quick question. As I said before my pH was greater than 8.2. I added 20 oz of the 20 degree muriatic acid as suggested by the calculator. Ran the pump continuously, then rechecked after about 2 hours. pH test was still showing greater than 8.2, so I added another 20oz. That was about an hour or two ago, I just checked again, and it appears to be getting darker red (i.e. increasing pH). Am I doing something wrong?
Click to expand...
If the FC level is above 10, the pH test is invalid. That's why we say adjust pH before the SLAM and forget about it until the water is clear.
 
Just to keep you updated. I'm still trying to get the pH right. Added another 20oz of muriatic acid (up to 80oz in so far), still reading > 8.2 pH. A friend suggested that I may need to start vacuuming the pool first, that the muriatic acid is attacking the solids that may be in the bottom of the pool instead of effecting the pH. My plan was to start vacuuming and scrubbing once I started SLAMing because from what I've read, the algae will just grow back if I'm not at shock level. Should I vacuum and try to get it completely clean before the muriatic acid will start working? Also, I will need a vacuum, I guess I will search the forum to see what the "recomendation" is in that area.


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