SLAM with flow but no filter?

[NJPool.Newbie]

I wanted to start by voicing my appreciation to this forum and the community. I have been reading responses, and threads, and I look forward to reading more great ideas!

Question: Can I SLAM my pool without a functional filter or vacuum? If not, is it safe to bleach it until the pump comes next week? I currently have 2 sump pumps moving the water. 1 - 1/6 HP and 1 - 1/5HP.

Problem: When I opened the pool my ECOPump started and then ceased. I want to keep it stabilized while the new pump is shipping.

What I did on Saturday: 6 lbs of non-bleach sanitize (Namco brand I think) and 32oz of algaecide distributed around the pool in 23 x 4GAL buckets of water around the pool. This was recommended by the pool store. The water is pretty clear now and I removed most of the leaves/junk with the net.

Equipment:
- 18x33 AGP with a 22" sand filter connected to a single skimmer and eye traditionally connected to my 1HP/1.65HP ECOPump (should be back Monday).
- 2 x sump pumps with 5 foot hoses circulating the water (one surface level and one lower)
- Taylor FAS-DPD kit - 2006 I believe.

Thank you in advance!
Ben

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

As long as the water is moving, you can certainly start the SLAM. In fact, this way you can focus on maintaining the FC level and not cleaning the filter.

BUT, you have to stop listening to the pool store ... everything you added was not needed and not as effective as plain old bleach would have been.

 

[NJPool.Newbie]

Thank you Jason!

My wife still only trusts the pool stores, so that is going to take some convincing. She is already freaking about the "other" 94.x% of other ingredients in the bleach as it did not come from a pool store. Anyway, I started the SLAM this morning with regular off-brand ~<6% bleach.

FC, CC, and CYA were all showing as 0 before, but it was my first time using the FAS-DPD kit, so who knows maybe I messed something up. The CYA kit never turned cloudy as it was supposed to, but I just replaced 3/4 of the water when opening the pool.

After 2 jugs/252oz of bleach:

FC : 4
CC : 1
PH : 7.2 (before adding bleach)

The PoolMath reports ~408oz of bleach needed, so I going to to slowly bring it to FC 10 assuming that is the value for 0 CYA. Thank you again!

 

[RobbieH]

Buy bleach in bottles that have the easy to remove labels. Before you get home, tear the labels off so they are solid white. When you get home, tell her you went to the pool store and they had "commercial grade" chlorine in stock.

 

[jblizzle]

You are going to lose the FC very quickly to the sun with no CYA in the water.

You should likely add about 30ppm of CYA as soon as you can.

Many pool stores (and large hardware stores) even sell liquid chlorine ... it is 10% or 12.5% strength instead of the 6 or 8.25% that is commonly found as bleach in the grocery stores. The rest of the ingredients is just water and some salt.

My wife was the same way, took some convincing, but she will now added it for me if needed

BTW, make sure you add some chlorine after the sun is off the pool so that it can work without disappearing to the sun.

 

[NJPool.Newbie]

I stopped by the pool store for CYA, a pressure gauge, and some D.E. to consider spiking my sand filter.

The pool store had a significant different (lower) reading on the FC(2) and CC(1), so I probably lost a lot of chlorine today. I mentioned CYA and he stressed that it cannot be added until the pump/filter is put into play again. He said to dump in another gallon of shock and bring the FC to 4ppm.

I went against his recommendation and bought a gallon of liquid stabilizer (Instant Conditioner) with 30% cyanuric acid. It would only raise my CYA to ~15, but is it really safe to slowly add it into the sump flow? I can definitely see bugs, filament, etc moving under the water. The surface water is pretty much frozen (no flow) on 1/2 of the pool, but again I can see pretty good movement on the bottom. The center is somewhat of a dead zone.

The way I see it, I only have one return normally and in some cases the two sumps may be moving more water than my pump can usually force out of the single jet.

Thank you again!
Ben

 

[jblizzle]

I think it should be safe to add the liquid stabilizer ... the granules would have been more tricky to safely add.

 

[NJPool.Newbie]

Jason, others,

I wanted to quickly report back some status for other users and voice my appreciation.

1. I did add 1/2 a gallon of stabilizer, but it is not clear that it worked.
2. as of Tuesday I have a functional pump and boy does it blow away a single 1/6 and a single 1/5 HP sump on 5-10' hoses!

To hopefully help others.

Between posting and Sunday, I dumped in 9 gallons of store bleach (~6%) and I was never able to get above 1ppm of FC. However, it did look a little better, but small worms/bugs were still all over the place floating around. Then I bought a 5G jug of pool store bleach (~12-13%) and it brought it up to 2% as there was probably some minor organics skewing the numbers, but this killed all of the worms. I dumped the 5G over 3 intervals at approximately 2-3 hours apart.

Once I had a functional pump I started filtering (sand) strait for 24/7 and vacuuming daily. After the first vacuum (last night), I added in powered shock with stabilizer (3lbs @ 70% H.C) and then this morning the readings where:

FC: 7.0
CC: 1.0
PH: 7.4 (ups PH as well)
Alk: 80ppm
Ca: 90ppm
CYA: ~35

I gave it 6 hours to circulate and I dumped in the rest of the 5lbs of shock and then tonight I dumped ~1-2g of liquid pool store bleach (~12-13%). I gave it 3 hours and while still cloudy the readings are :

18 FC (a bit high given my FC)
CC: < 0.5

Is that too high given that my CYA @ ~35? It seems like that is more like the range for 45 CYA?

So, while the pool is a bit cloudy hopefully it will clear up nicely over the night.

The lesson learned here are:

1. it is really important to remove as much junk as possible from the pool. Even though I removed as much as I could, it took 6 skimmer fulls to clean up during the pool vacuuming. So, that was enough to skew the SLAM.
2. If you only have one return do not buy a Hayward hydrosweep. That increased my filter pressure by 7%, lowered the perceived return speed and reduced suction enough so that vacuum was severely impacted - enough that I could pull the connector out of the skimmer @ 1HP.

 

[Casey]

You're wife should not be scared of water and salt in the bleach. Just sayin.... if it's good enough to clean with, do laundry and scrub floors with, it's good enough to use in the pool!

You can follow the CYA/chlorine chart here. :lookhere: Chlorine CYA Chart

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

Welcome to the forum

How many gallons do you think your pool holds ?? You should add that to your signature info as it's the most important piece of the puzzle for adding the correct amount of chemicals.