Greetings from Swampville!

[Jeniloohoo]

Oops double post

 

[Jeniloohoo]

I had to go away for a few days. FC was at 12, put in 2 pucks and was sure everything was groovy, except for the sand that was coming back in through the filter. We came back this evening to an entirely crystal clear pool, pucks were gone, and the entire bottom was covered in what I first thought was sand. My husband is finally here and we sent my son in and POOF! The "sand" evaporated in the pool water. We are pretty sure this is mustard algae after all. We do not have shade, nor lights. I just vacuumed and have brought the water back up to shock level. Heading to Wally world now for more bleach. UGH!!!!! I thought I was done, but I did not treat as mustard algae due to folks saying it was rare, etc. I wish it were sand, or pollen, or even green algae. I had crystal clear water, passed the OCLT and had .5 cc or less. How long do we need to keep the SLAM up if it is mustard algae? Any other suggestions? I read about the suits, immersing pole, etc during slam and leaving them in there overnight, pool toys, etc.

 

[Dmsattelberg]

I had the same problem last year with finding "stuff" on the bottom of my pool after changing over from cal-hypo to bleach. I eventually took a turkey baster to the bottom of the pool and sucked it out to see if I could figure out what it was. I let it sit overnight in a small glass to let the stuff settle out. In the morning I strained the particles a coffee filter. I too feared a cracked lateral. What I found was that it wasn't sand at all, but dead algae. I took it to work with me and verified this under a microscope. The pool was crystal clear, passed the OCLT, but must of been close to forming algae.

I did the deep cleaning of the filter, that can be found on this site. I was amazed the junk that came out of the filter. I didn't replace the sand in the filter because sand has been on the beaches for millions of years, so it hasn't gone bad in my filter in 6 short years?!?! Put the filter back together, turned it on, and away I went.

I did what I would call a "modified SLAM". I rose the pool to SLAM level, even though I had passed all 3 criteria to stop a SLAM. I kept it there for the better part of 5 days to insure there wasn't a nascent algae bloom starting. I can report that I haven't found sediment on the bottom since. Was it the filter needing cleaning, or was it nascent algae forming.....I don't know....but its done and over....Hope that helps you out....At the beginning of every pool season from now on, I will be doing the deep cleaning of my sand filter....Best of Luck...

 

[Jeniloohoo]

I had the same problem last year with finding "stuff" on the bottom of my pool after changing over from cal-hypo to bleach. I eventually took a turkey baster to the bottom of the pool and sucked it out to see if I could figure out what it was. I let it sit overnight in a small glass to let the stuff settle out. In the morning I strained the particles a coffee filter. I too feared a cracked lateral. What I found was that it wasn't sand at all, but dead algae. I took it to work with me and verified this under a microscope. The pool was crystal clear, passed the OCLT, but must of been close to forming algae.

I did the deep cleaning of the filter, that can be found on this site. I was amazed the junk that came out of the filter. I didn't replace the sand in the filter because sand has been on the beaches for millions of years, so it hasn't gone bad in my filter in 6 short years?!?! Put the filter back together, turned it on, and away I went.

I did what I would call a "modified SLAM". I rose the pool to SLAM level, even though I had passed all 3 criteria to stop a SLAM. I kept it there for the better part of 5 days to insure there wasn't a nascent algae bloom starting. I can report that I haven't found sediment on the bottom since. Was it the filter needing cleaning, or was it nascent algae forming.....I don't know....but its done and over....Hope that helps you out....At the beginning of every pool season from now on, I will be doing the deep cleaning of my sand filter....Best of Luck...

I LOVE your idea of the turkey baster. Very clever as there is no way to capture the stuff. Maybe it is dead algae, I suppose that is possible, but there was ALOT of it. I will try to post a picture in the morning.

We are definitely planning to clean the filter tomorrow. I needed my husband here to help (he is gone away for work alot) as we have to hacksaw some of the plastic pipes to the filter because they glued them together. I probably could have figured out what to do, but he will be a huge help.

I think keeping the SLAM up for that many days at the mustard shock level is my best option, and will make sure all the toys, suits, etc do not go back in until they are cleaned properly. I have checked under the ladders, but will scrub everything again in the morning.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and experience. Very encouraging!

 

[Jeniloohoo]

Richard or someone mentioned DE early on. I forgot to try that. I am getting that in the morning. I am worried that perhaps they used the wrong kind of sand in our filter. Very curious to open that puppy up tomorrow and clean it and inspect the internal state of things.

I have tried panty hose on the skimmer, and had issues with them, but I am going to put one on the skimmer now and try it again to see if the filter is just struggling with the dead algae removal.

 

[Jeniloohoo]

Awoke this morning to more of the dang algae. It looked brownish. I had thought it was sand/dirt from the filter the last week or two. My husband helped me discern that it was ALGAE.

We took the ladders out, even though I had inspected and washed them, many times. Well one of them had an old honeycomb style underneath and had algae, as did the plastic bottoms on the ladder arms. CUPRIT found.

So you folks were right again. Not mustard algae, just another case of hidden algae, sneaking into our otherwise sparkly pool!

I am struggling with flicker at the moment, so I have no pics to share. But we are pretty sure we got the suckers, and that we can be done slamming tomorrow.

PHEW! I hope this is it!

 

[jmbradwell]

If you have a light, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pop it out and clean behind it also. Every little nook and cranny need to be clean.

Good luck.

 

[Jeniloohoo]

If you have a light, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pop it out and clean behind it also. Every little nook and cranny need to be clean.

Good luck.

Thank you so much. Sadly no lights, but the "pool experts" "opened" our pool for $300. This included throwing in shock to our swamp and installing the ladders. WHY WOULD YOU INSTALL LADDERS INTO A SWAMP?????????? We took them completely apart and they are sitting at the bottom of the shallow end in the slammed water. We had hardly any today grow back. I am convinced we have one more day of slam and we will have truly defeated the green monsters and the stupid pool store. Thank goodness I found you folks.

 

[Abigail K]

We had hardly any today grow back. I am convinced we have one more day of slam and we will have truly defeated the green monsters and the stupid pool store.

I'm sorry to break this to you, but it doesn't sound like you're fulfilling all 3 criteria to end the SLAM.
You end SLAM when 1) the water is clear 2) you lose less than 1PPM FC overnight at SLAM levels 3) CC<0.5.

Also, I'd advise you to remove the ladders from the pool and scrub them down with a 1:1 mixture household bleach and water. Ladders tend to be good hiding spots for algae and it's easier to scrub them down out of the water.

 

[nedchavez]

Hey Jeni,

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I did see something I wanted to point out.

In post #29 you listed FC as 14.2 and later talked about running out of reagent.

Read the extended instructions for the Taylor 2006. You can use a 10ml sample, then divide total drops by .5 for FC. This will save on reagent.

 

[Jeniloohoo]

I am assuming I keep posting questions to my same thread. We continue to get a small amount of "dust, dirt, pollen, sand or algae" at the bottom of our sunny pool in some spots within an hour of vacuuming it up. We have been slamming since Monday morning. Numbers are

Ph-7.4
TA-150
CH-250
CYA- 42
FC- 22+
CC- .5

We lose no more than 1 on the overnight. We are keeping chlorine very well. I vacuumed every hour yesterday. There is no pollen sitting on the top. We cleaned out the ladders, equipment, etc, and no one has been swimming. We also super shocked it for Mustard Algae, although it has survived shock and super shock, so we feel we do not have algae.

We finally opened the filter. It is only half full of sand, and it does not look like the right sand based on pictures I have seen. We have decided to vacuum it out (it could be 30+ years old, and replace it with what we know will be the proper sized sand). Is it normal to only have 1/2 the filter full of sand?????????? The filter says 300 lbs, but surely we do not have that much in there. We are thinking perhaps the filter is letting fine particles back in, or etc. We did not open the filter earlier this week, as we did not want to stop the SLAM, but clearly the SLAM is not solving the issue. I am going in this aft with the turkey baster to grab some of the matter and do the tests people have recommended in the past to try to determine what the heck this stuff is. Thoughts, please?

- - - Updated - - -

Hey Jeni,

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I did see something I wanted to point out.

In post #29 you listed FC as 14.2 and later talked about running out of reagent.

Read the extended instructions for the Taylor 2006. You can use a 10ml sample, then divide total drops by .5 for FC. This will save on reagent.

Thank you so much for replying! I did figure that out after the first couple tests. I just bought a huge bottle of the reagent. I wish I had bought the TF100, but I could not find out where to buy it on here at first. It should be sold in the store on this website! Anyway, I bought the 2006 thinking I would have too much leftover with the big tf100 kit. LOL, now that I have been reading more and more, I see where I could have bought the kit and that I need 100 tests! I sometimes tested 6-8 times a day this week. Grrrrr. Pretty frustrated. Thanks again!

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sorry to break this to you, but it doesn't sound like you're fulfilling all 3 criteria to end the SLAM.
You end SLAM when 1) the water is clear 2) you lose less than 1PPM FC overnight at SLAM levels 3) CC<0.5.

Also, I'd advise you to remove the ladders from the pool and scrub them down with a 1:1 mixture household bleach and water. Ladders tend to be good hiding spots for algae and it's easier to scrub them down out of the water.

Abigail, I realize this. We do have clear water, we are not losing more than 1 per night and our CC is .5 or below. We also removed the ladders super scrubbed them and only returned one after we fully bleached it and left it in the MA slam for 36 hours. We have not stopped the SLAM yet, but it is getting incredibly frustrating.

 

[Jeniloohoo]

So glad my husband is here. Took out all the sand, which is the WRONG kind of sand, and there are holes in the upright pvc pipe (the stand pipe?) that holds the laterals. Sand and junk is entering there and going back into the pool. It was very easy to vacuum up out the old sand. He is headed to the pool store now to see if we can get a new lateral unit. The gunk in the filter was unbelievable. Really looks like green vile gunk all over the sand. Trying to decide if we should put some pea gravel at the bottom under the sand. May just do that as they are $3.50 a bag, and I had to pay $12 at the hardware store for the sand. Nobody has silica sand here (not lowes, HD, Wallyworld, etc). It's a process this pool thing!

 

[Dmsattelberg]

So glad my husband is here. Took out all the sand, which is the WRONG kind of sand, and there are holes in the upright pvc pipe (the stand pipe?) that holds the laterals. Sand and junk is entering there and going back into the pool. It was very easy to vacuum up out the old sand. He is headed to the pool store now to see if we can get a new lateral unit. The gunk in the filter was unbelievable. Really looks like green vile gunk all over the sand. Trying to decide if we should put some pea gravel at the bottom under the sand. May just do that as they are $3.50 a bag, and I had to pay $12 at the hardware store for the sand. Nobody has silica sand here (not lowes, HD, Wallyworld, etc). It's a process this pool thing!

It stinks that you are going through all this now, but don't let that get you down. Without finding your broken pipe, you could have been chasing your tail for a while before discovering this problem.

I cannot comment on the pea gravel, but I would do what the filter recommends.

Once you get that filtering issue fixed, it should be smooth sailing. You seem to have the "chemistry" end figured out, which is usually the hardest thing for people.

I had the same thing last year with my ladder. Its a heavy plastic with tons of small holes in it. Water must have got in there. I yanked it out after issues with passing my OCLT. I found a one inch drain hole in the ladder, and booooom, nasty green water drained out. Mixed a 1:1 mix of water to bleach and poured in the drain hole....no more issues...

Let us know what you come up with for your filter fix and sand.... Best of luck....don't let it defeat you....playing in a pool is too much fun....soon you will be bored because the only thing you will be doing is a five minute test of pH and chlorine

 

[Jeniloohoo]

It stinks that you are going through all this now, but don't let that get you down. Without finding your broken pipe, you could have been chasing your tail for a while before discovering this problem.

I cannot comment on the pea gravel, but I would do what the filter recommends.

Once you get that filtering issue fixed, it should be smooth sailing. You seem to have the "chemistry" end figured out, which is usually the hardest thing for people.

I had the same thing last year with my ladder. Its a heavy plastic with tons of small holes in it. Water must have got in there. I yanked it out after issues with passing my OCLT. I found a one inch drain hole in the ladder, and booooom, nasty green water drained out. Mixed a 1:1 mix of water to bleach and poured in the drain hole....no more issues...

Let us know what you come up with for your filter fix and sand.... Best of luck....don't let it defeat you....playing in a pool is too much fun....soon you will be bored because the only thing you will be doing is a five minute test of pH and chlorine

Thanks DM. We could not get the part for our old filter (new standpipe) so my husband got underwater epoxy putter to patch the holes. This was clearly the issue. It was so hard to tell if it was sand, algae, pollen, MA, etc. I just could not attempt the filter clean out without the help of my dear husband. The filter has the proper sand in it. They had used some type of coarse playground sand. Much coarser than the #20 recommended.

I would definitely recommend that if you take over an existing home, open the filter and inspect the sand. Make sure it is the right kind, check the laterals, standpipe, etc. We would not have realized the holes were a problem if we did this 2 months ago, as it looked like they were part of the design, but it let sand into the standpipe and back to the pool. This meant small particles that would typically not get into the laterals were going back into the pool.

We passed all three tests now, and we are finally through this 7 week ordeal, LOL. We have a rainy 4th here, but will post pics soon.

Thanks to all!

 

[golfinglenn]

Those parts can be found on Amazon or eBay.

 

[Jeniloohoo]

Those parts can be found on Amazon or eBay.

Yes, thanks, I should have clarified, that we could not find them locally and did not want to wait as it is a long weekend. We were afraid not to have the filter running for 4-7 days. Thanks so much though!

 

[Jeniloohoo]

Please put me out of my misery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The sand at the bottom is back. It is not there when the filter is off. It was off for 24 hours while we rebuilt it. The sand is a brownish color, we just put in new white sand. Our numbers are good, we have passed the 3 prong test. Could this be dirt coming from an underground pipe returning to the pool? This is VERY discouraging. Our whole vacation week has been spent trying to get this issue resolved. I keep thinking I figured it out, and then it is not. Ugh.

I will try to capture it in a knee high after I vacuum for the 1,000th time. But where the heck is this coming from??

 

[kimkats]

I hate to say it but maybe one of the holes opened back up? BUT that does not explain why it is brown when you sand is white. What a pain!

I wish I were closer so I could vacuum for you a time or two!

Kim

 

[Jeniloohoo]

I hate to say it but maybe one of the holes opened back up? BUT that does not explain why it is brown when you sand is white. What a pain!

I wish I were closer so I could vacuum for you a time or two!

Kim

Thanks kimkats! My poor husband thought perhaps he broke the laterals or the standpipe fix did not hold up, but correct it is not the nice white sand we now have. Definitely not.

I just started vacuuming to waste. Perhaps it is just tiny particles getting through the filter. I sent my son down with the turkey baster. It is not really sand. (It had been, but since we fixed it, obviously something else was mixed with it. It looks like silt, really. Kind of a grayish color. Maybe dead algae? We have not done the knee high to the return, nor have we tried the DE. Here are our numbers after the Hurricane Arthur came through yesterday.

FC -15
CC- 0.0
CYA- 38
TA-125
PH -7.8
CH -300

I realize ph shows high when FC is over 10. I have not added chlorine in at least 3 days. Yesterday our FC was 21, and we got massive amounts of rain, like 4 inches or more. So I am completely perplexed why this stuff keeps reappearing. It cannot be Mustard, as it is present even with high algae levels. Maybe it is just dead algae not getting filtered out? In any event I will keep vacuuming to waste, try the knee high and go out to the store AGAIN and get DE for the filter. I suppose I will keep the FC at SLAM level too, since we've been there since Monday morning steady. Does anyone have other thoughts?

 

[kimkats]

My guess/hope is that it is dead algae. I like the idea of making it go to waste as in out of the pool and filter. Just remember that removing/adding water will mess with your numbers. Keep an eye on your tests.

Now go enjoy your clear pool! Float on a raft with a drink in your hand. Do not worry about vacuuming except for maybe once a day to get out the dead stuff you find.

Kim