Nasty Black Pool Inherited from Home Purchase

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If you are talking about shutting off the pump and letting it settle, it shouldn't make a lot of difference whether the pump is on or not. Use your leaf rake and hold it vertically against the inside of the pool in the shallow end and estimate how much of the pole you can see. You may be able to make out the shadow of the rake net on bottom. If you want to keep the filter on recirculate there isn't any reason to do that. You have to run the pump anyway, may as well filter out as much as you can.
 
How much DE are you getting in a box? My pool store sells a 25lb bag for around $21.00. The woman there suggested I use less than I was and it has worked just as well. I was using 3 scoops per backwash and went down to 1 scoop for a regular backwash on her recommendation. If I rinse the filter, I add back 2 scoops. As of today I'd say the pool is officially clean and I went through about 75-100lbs of DE. I used 3 full 25lb bags and the previous owner had left half a bucket full.

Beens mentioned me above about the canister (I'm a she, BTW...;). This is what I bought (you need the extra hose too for a manual vacuum) http://www.amazon.com/W530-Capacity...r=1-1&keywords=hayward+canister+with+mesh+bag
It has done a great job at reducing the backwashes while vacuuming. I brushed the pool everyday while I was SLAMing, but waiting till I had scooped out all I could with the leaf rake before trying to vacuum. It does a nice job of catching all of the small stuff so it doesn't clog up the filter so fast.
 
^i think I saw someone earlier in this thread who worked in water treatment mention an independent filter. But I suspect the rental would cost as much as another bag of DE...

At least with a leaf canister, there's future utility for the expense...eg come autumn ;)
 
Where does the leaf canister go? Inline with the vacuum hose? Also so far I have used 75lbs of DE and feel like I probably have 75-100lbs more.
What I would rather do is vacuum to waste. That is the reason I was asking if I would eventually be able to see the bottom without filtering. It would be nice to see a pile of stuff and then suck it up and out to the street.
The boxes of DE I am getting are 25lbs a piece. Clorox brand. My filter takes 7.5lbs when it's clean though. So I'm using about 5-6 when I refill it after a backwashing.
I may hit it hard again with the DE this weekend and see what happens.
Depending on the amount I use I could end up spending 300-350 dollars in DE. that's what bothers me is not knowing how much. I'll figure it out. Whatever I do. :)
 

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The canister connects with another hose just after the vacuum head. I was going to try vacuuming to waste but decided I didn't want to lose that much water and there was still a risk of getting a clog in the pump or line since there was so much in there along with broken tiles. We have a lot of trees so I figured in the future I'll use it too.
I had a quote of $1000 to have a drain and clean only, so I figured if I could get it clean for less (or avoid the cost of a refill if I drained it myself), I'd give it a go. That helped with having to buy so much DE and stuff (all the previous owners tools were in bad shape). I'm still way under that number.
Hopefully you'll start seeing some big changes soon.
 
AWT...given your stated DE cost, you might consider a sparing use of renting a trash pump for the day...using it on the bottom, would be like vacuuming to waste...I know we're worried because you have a vinyl liner and we suspect your water table is high but if you added water continuously and only let it get down a foot or so at a time, and use both hoses to refill (front and back...which from the back might add iron but you'll likely have to deal with that anyway after you're clear)...that might help you need less DE.

If there's still sludge down there that you can't effectively get by hand, that sludge is eating up both your chlorine and your DE.

Might be worth a call to a local equipment rental place to find out rental cost.

If your FC is holding well and with the increasing clarity, I still suspect you can get there from here without mechanicl intervention, but I think the filtering issue is slowing you down and the sooner you're done this slam, the less you'll b spending on DE ;).
 
So in trying to stay honest and keep everyone up to date I have decided to try out the flocc that I have. It wasn't cheap and is just going to sit in my pool shed.
I have a few reasons for doing it, besides the fact that I have already paid for it, and I will try to keep it brief. I know I will catch heck for this but I'm just trying to stay honest.
As you all know I have a problem with the cost of DE. I don't mind buying it when I don't need to use 100's of lbs of it.
My main thoughts right now are that the flocc, while it may not work, will settle the stuff I need to filter out. I will be able to see it on the bottom. Then I can vacuum it out to waste.
Worst case scenario it doesn't work, and I continue to SLAM. Then find out how to afford DE and do it that way.
I am at this stage of cloudiness to where I can see about 2-3' down in the deep end and can see the leaf rake on the bottom of the shallow end. I don't think it will get clear by me just SLAMing and not filtering. I am no longer getting live algae in any of my skimmer baskets and raking doesn't come up with tons of stuff anymore. That is how I came up with this grand plan. Pfffttt.
I will take all negative criticism or comments. I know this isn't TFP and have learned as such but I am trying to figure out a way to do this with what I have.
 
I'm fairly new to pool ownership and this board as well, but here's my two cents.
Regardless of if the more knowledgeable members agree with you using the flock, the honesty and transparency is the right thing to do. Because there would be nothing worse than people giving suggestions without having all the information. It's like adding chemicals blindly without testing the water. (Pool store, anyone?)

So, I say, +1 for honesty.

Good luck, and I am rooting for you, but understand your frustration. I hope my first slam goes better than yours (no offense) once I finish all the draining and filling I'm doing to lower my CYA right now.


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To be completely honest with you the SLAM isn't going too bad. It hasn't been hard to keep the FC levels up and much easier as time goes on. I'm losing about 1-2ppm a day right now and CC is .5. I know that I would probably be much closer to completing this if I had used the DE this whole time. I am not the smartest man but I feel that the only thing keeping my pool from being clean is the suspended particles in the water that the filter is supposed to get out. I have kept my FC at 18 for the past week. Pretty sure that killed a lot of stuff that's just floating around in the pool.
 
Phib - I'm pretty sure the sludge volume plus DE filter is what has cause some of AWTs problems so don't worry about your own slam, just hit it hard the first few days, eg checking every 2 hours at first and filter 24/7 with your sand filter ;)

AWT, floc *might* work in this case, but just remember that if it doesn't, eg if you can't get it out vacuuming to waste, that it will quite possibly clog your DE filter. Floc causes particles to clump. The same stuff that is in most brands of floc is also in a filter aid product I looked into once for iron and the mfg sez not to use with DE filters for this reason.

So if you've already added it, just be sure to get it all out or your DE use could conceivably increase or remain problematic for a bit. If you have trouble vacuuming to waste after, you may need to get the trash pump to get it out and clean the filter again.

And just so you know, its not that TFP is just hatin on floc. Its that
a) its usually unnecessary if following a slam and filtering 24/7, which is part of the slam rx ;)
B) you have to turn off all circ for it to work and when you're slamming to a high level water should be circulating to be mixing in the chlorine
And
c) it just doesn't reliably work all the time, especially in extreme conditions.

If you are above slam level and your FC is holding b) isn't as much of an issue in your case, but to tell someone who comes to TFP to stop and floc, knowing that in warm water algae growth can far outstrip sanitation levels in a few hours, would be kinda irresponsible.

That's my take on why floc is not recommended here.

Let us know how it goes if you do it/ have done it. Our recommendations are based on avoiding unforeseen consequences and efficacy but at this point I think we're all pretty clear you need one way or the other to get the particulate out ;)
 
Yeah to be honest I did lose a little faith. Not in the SLAM process or whether or not it would work. I've seen enough proof to know that it works.
The pool came with the house. It was a good deal on a big house so we took it. I don't have the kind of money that it takes to get the pool right. Everything is so expensive for repairs.
I have seen some holes in the filter grids and think that was part of my reason for going through so much DE and not seeing lots of results. I never did a chemical cleaning on the grids like I should have. I know that now but didn't at the time. I just hosed them off.
I have given recent thought to getting some new grids ordered. It's been raining as well and I hate the rain. So that has deterred me from going outside.
All in all I just get upset when things are so expensive. I don't have a lot of money to begin with (darn kids) so the more I have to spend on the pool the more it keeps me awake at night.
Hopefully this rain will let up and I can get out there and assess the situation. Also there hasn't been much update because of the flocc process. Having to wait for everything to settle. I'll try to give an update soon.
Btw this wasn't meant to be a pity party for me. I'm just saying.
 
Swampwoman said:
^i think I saw someone earlier in this thread who worked in water treatment mention an independent filter. But I suspect the rental would cost as much as another bag of DE...
Click to expand...

That was me... I am not sure what it would cost for a homeowner to rent one.

bag filter.jpg

I think our cost is about $70 a day... It does a 20,000 gallons tank in about 4 hours. I bet this could be built out of PVC for home use as well, and the 1 micron filter bags are only $5-10 each.
 

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