Opening a pool

[CARROLL]

What steps do you take when you go to open your pool in the spring and what you see is a swamp , green with floating scum on top, frogs and dead lizards leaves on top and although the water is totally opaque and you can't even come close to seeing what is on the floor of the shallow end much less the deep end , you can feel much debris when you put your leaf net in and as you scoop up the first net full you see leaves mixed with mud and sticks. What is the step by step procedure for clearing this pool? I.E. do you try to clear the water so you can see what you are doing or do you work blindly to clear all the organic debris out first. Is there a more efficient way of sucking up the leaves rather than dipping them out? ( I had thought about rigging up a small trash pump with an inline filter cage to separate the debris out while returning the water to the pool.)
There seem to be some very knowledgeable folks on this forum . Please tell me what a good step by step procedure would be so i can have a solid base from which to build a good pool care regiment . Once i have a good procedure in place i can begin to add in the testing and pool chemistry . I have already started going through the pool school.

 

[Azgirl71]

Step 1 order a recommended test kit such as the TF 100 linked in my signature or the Taylor K2006. You get more bang for your buck with the TF 100.

Step 2 blindly scoop out as much debris as you can while you are waiting for your test kit to arrive

Step 3 read the following in pool school
The SLAM process
The ABC's of pool water chemistry
Recommended levels

Step 4
Familiarize yourself with Pool Math

Step 5
Update your signature with your pool and equipment.

Step 6
Test your water with your new test kit and post the numbers here and we can help you.

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We also love pictures. You can upload them to photobucket and copy the IMG code then paste it here.

 

[Yev]

Step 7

Figure out why your pool got so bad, and how you can avoid that in the future.

Do you need a better cover for example.

That type of mess should nto be expected, so there are steps to avoid having it.