Boyfriends busy fishing. Please help me save my pool before something mutates in it.

[xscarletxphoenix]

Heck, we all wanna be fishing on a beautiful day, but this pool is a basically a breeding ground for mosquitos right now.
The pool is above ground 18 foot round. We have a Hayward sand filter. We had a problem last year with it not filtering the fine particles in the pool. The boys idea is always just to shock the **** out of it, and somehow I don't think thats gunna solve our problems.
We just uncovered the other day and the water looks crystal clear!…except for the layer of leaves, dirt and miscellaneous debris on the bottom. Last year he just shocked it and all the leaves crumbled to white dust pretty much and the pool was cloudy the rest of the year.
I would love some advice on how to actually get it clean this year. Do I try and scoop out as much stuff as possible first, or chemicals first. And I've read about using the sand filter in waste mode to get the stuff on the bottom? And if thats where I should start, whats the best vacuum to use. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Stephanie

 

[woodyp]

Welcome to the forum. Get out all the gunk debris out as soon as you can. Do you already HAVE a vacuum you've used before? I would imagine at the very least you need some chlorine in there--but you've posted no test results. Until you can get a good test kit that we recommend.. At the very least get some pool store results to start with. Spend some time in Pool School to familiarize yourself with terminology and procedures until you can.

 

[Defgufman]

Welcome, you will find a lot of help here to turn your pool into a crystal clear pool once again. To start you need an accurate test kit and get reading The Pool School. Both are linked in my signature.

 

[xscarletxphoenix]

I'm going to try after work tomorrow to use our skimmer yet to get the bulk of junk from the bottom. And hopefully get a sample to the local pool store to get a reading for now. At least some of the terminology I know from owning fish tanks, so I'm not completely helpless lol

 

[woodyp]

Do I understand you are interested in just stirring all that stuff up to get it in circulation so the skimmer will suck in whatever it will? You'll be much better served to put a net on a pool pole and scoop/dip the majority out and then vacuum to waste the remainder of the small stuff.

 

[xscarletxphoenix]

Sorry, thats what I meant… taking a net to the bottom to get what I can out first. The filter hasn't even been turned on yet, so its all settled at the bottom..

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

Drag the compost out. The savings on bleach to oxidize it all will more than pay for a proper test kit.

Once the big stuff is caught up in the leaf rake

then you'll want to vacuum to waste. To do that, first you add a couple inches of water. You want it higher than normal because you'll lose some. I'm assuming you have a vacuum head and a hose

You connect that stuff all together and gently set the head into the pool. Don't let it slip away and drag the pole into the sludge! Then slowly feed the hose down into the water keeping the upper end out of the water so all the air can escape. Then plug it into your skimmer. Go turn the multiport

to "waste" and then turn the pump on. Water's gonna pour out the waste pipe. Hopefully, it has a hose or a pipe to direct it off somewhere. And then it's just like vacuuming the house, back and forth. Move slowly so the suction pulls the sludge in before the brushes push it away. All the crud will end up out of the pool. You'll lose a fair bit of water doing it, too. Then you just shut off the pump and put everything back the way it was.

Once the worst of the stuff is gone, then you worry about chemistry and shock levels and all that. But it will go faster if you remove the stuff.

Check out this recent swamp adventure: http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/92527-My-user-name-says-it-all! Look at the difference between the picture on page one and the picture on page 15. He only joined this month!! You can do it, too. Just do what he did, starting with a test kit.

 

[xscarletxphoenix]

Well we finally got to work on the pool a little bit. We used the vacuum and hose to go along the bottom and get the bottom as clean as possible. We definitely lost some water but are slowing trying to fill it up. We have well water and fill it up for 20-30 minutes at a time, so its getting there. We went to our local pool store and they used a dipstick to test the water. This is what they got..
Total Hardness- 250
Chlorine- 0
Free Chlorine- 0
pH- 7.2
Alkalinity- 180
Cyanuric Acid- 0

So far from what we heard from them was to continue filling up the pool so the water will reach the filter. (We still have a way to go) And once its there to put some shock in, which till bring up the Chlorine and add in Algeacide(?) to clear up the algae that is growing and test the water again to see where were at...

 

[woodyp]

With that post-------------you just hit a crossroads. Decision time. We here at TFP would not have you use any algaecide or just "some" shock.

Have you considered ordering one of our recommended test kits yet? The price of the algaecide we'd advise you NOT to use will cover that!