Am I dealing with POP (Pool Owner Patience) at this point?

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PoorPoolOwner

Member
Apr 26, 2024
8
Alabama
Pool Size
33000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
Newbie here, but have read numerous threads.
Am I dealing with pool owner patience now or am I doing something wrong? I started out going and getting pool stored then I decided I would follow TFP method. Ordered the TFP Pro and got started. My water is “beautiful blue” as my wife says, but it is not crystal clear.

I have been SLAMing it nonstop, brushing and vacuuming twice a day at the very least but still have cloudy blue water. I have put at least 30 gallons of LC 10% in it to get it to the point it is now.

I have all levels on the app and I add the LC it recommended (sometimes a little more) for SLAM.

My question is, do I just keep SLAMing it (I know the process says until it’s crystal clear, 0.5 or less…)?

Thanks and I appreciate all of your advice.
 

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Hey PPO, and yes, you need P.O.P. :)

Once it's cloudy/milky you have either killed or mostly killed the alage. It shifts (or will very soon) from a chemical fight, to a mechanical fight filtering it all out.

FC will mostly hold and that aspect will be much easier. Maintain SLAM FC because brushing may expose new algae and you don't want to lose any ground. But it's easier.

Sand filters take the longest to polish the water. You can help it along by adding DE.

www.troublefreepool.com

Add DE to a Sand Filter

A clean pool filter will increase the efficiency of your pool! ... your filter are to backwash it, clean the manifolds and grids, and add new DE.
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
Stay the course. Given the swamp in the first pic you’ve come light years forward. As NewDude stated it’s either at the point or very close to the point where it just takes time to pass all that water through the filter to catch the debris.
 
PoorPoolOwner said:
I’ll keep using my patience.
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Keep using your commendable effort as well. :salut:

No matter how bad any of them are, they go quicker with more effort. We all have a life in the way, but hit it often when it's reasonably possible. You can also dose early at any time to buy the next X hours away. Then dose it again as soon as you're back. That'll buy you the time to cook dinner / put away groceries / etc.
 
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not a lot of change. Ran out of chlorine yesterday after I added more, but had graduation things to do, so I’m going to get more in a little while. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut! Water looks good, brushed and vacuumed daily, added DE to filter and still have a pretty blue color, but can’t see the bottom in the deep end. Any suggestions?
 

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Are you sure you added the DE to your sand filter correctly?

I had a light algae bloom last year, caught it early with SLAM. I kept SLAM going and my pool was nice and blue color, but was like 95% clear but not crystal sparkling clear as I was used to. I shined a flashlight into the water at night and there was still a bunch of very small microscopic debris in the water and this is what was causing my water to look slightly dull. I ran filter and kept at SLAM for probably another 48 hours and it did not improve. I then read the article of adding DE to sand filter. Was really afraid of doing it but ended up adding the DE to increase my PSI but 1 (took a lot more DE than I expected). But it really worked, and it worked fast. For the next 6 hours I noticed that PSI was steadily increasing as the water was being filtered. Probably raised a good 3-5 PSI during that time (and above my 25% limit for backwash). So I backwashed/rinsed the sand filter, added more DE up to 1PSI and ran the pump over night. Next morning water was back to being crystal clear. I used the flashlight method the following evening when it got darker, and there was significantly less microscopic particles floating around.

I am a true believer in adding DE to sand filter after this. Results should be fast but that also depends on amount of water you have, flow rate, and size of sand filter.
 
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Krulligo said:
Are you sure you added the DE to your sand filter correctly?

I had a light algae bloom last year, caught it early with SLAM. I kept SLAM going and my pool was nice and blue color, but was like 95% clear but not crystal sparkling clear as I was used to. I shined a flashlight into the water at night and there was still a bunch of very small microscopic debris in the water and this is what was causing my water to look slightly dull. I ran filter and kept at SLAM for probably another 48 hours and it did not improve. I then read the article of adding DE to sand filter. Was really afraid of doing it but ended up adding the DE to increase my PSI but 1 (took a lot more DE than I expected). But it really worked, and it worked fast. For the next 6 hours I noticed that PSI was steadily increasing as the water was being filtered. Probably raised a good 3-5 PSI during that time (and above my 25% limit for backwash). So I backwashed/rinsed the sand filter, added more DE up to 1PSI and ran the pump over night. Next morning water was back to being crystal clear. I used the flashlight method the following evening when it got darker, and there was significantly less microscopic particles floating around.

I am a true believer in adding DE to sand filter after this. Results should be fast but that also depends on amount of water you have, flow rate, and size of sand filter.
Click to expand...
I raised my psi by 2 with maybe 1/4 of a cup. I followed the tfp DE procedure.
 

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Krulligo said:
Hmm that doesn't seem like much. I have a very small sand filter and I used a lot more than that to raise 1PSI. I'd have to take a look at my notes from last year but I think it was around 2-4 cups.
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That’s what I thought as well, but I mixed it and poured it in the skimmer slowly and watched psi, and it went up 2psi and I waited 20-25 minutes and it was / is still up 2psi.
 
PoorPoolOwner said:
That’s what I thought as well, but I mixed it and poured it in the skimmer slowly and watched psi, and it went up 2psi and I waited 20-25 minutes and it was / is still up 2psi.
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Did your psi keep rising throughout the next few hours. My pool looked clearer than yours when I added DE and my PSI kept rising about 0.5psi per half hour as it was filtering the debris. You should be capturing the debris slot faster so I would expect a quick rise in PSI as your filtering. If your PSI was steady at 2PSI over in the next couple of hours after filtering, something went wrong as you were not capturing the debris.
 
Krulligo said:
Did your psi keep rising throughout the next few hours. My pool looked clearer than yours when I added DE and my PSI kept rising about 0.5psi per half hour as it was filtering the debris. You should be capturing the debris slot faster so I would expect a quick rise in PSI as your filtering. If your PSI was steady at 2PSI over in the next couple of hours after filtering, something went wrong as you were not capturing the debris.
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No, it raised 2 and leveled off. I did it yesterday. I’ll backwash, rinse and try again tomorrow. I almost feel like I need to add sand. I did deep clean it last week, but the filter (st244t) holds 300lbs and it was halfway full maybe.
 
PoorPoolOwner said:
No, it raised 2 and leveled off. I did it yesterday. I’ll backwash, rinse and try again tomorrow. I almost feel like I need to add sand. I did deep clean it last week, but the filter (st244t) holds 300lbs and it was halfway full maybe.
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Is your filter a Hayward S244T? If so it needs a freeboard (the space between the top of the filter and the sand bed) of a minimum of 10 inches. If yours is only half full, you’re low on sand and should top it up with #20 silica sand. This would explain why you’re struggling to clear your pool.

See page 6. https://hayward.com/media/akeneo_connector/asset_files/I/S/IS210TS_RevA_61ed.pdf
 
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If your filter is indeed low the question is how are you losing the sand? What kind of pump do you have? Is it a VSP and does it run in priming mode during backwash?
 
Lake Placid said:
If your filter is indeed low the question is how are you losing the sand? What kind of pump do you have? Is it a VSP and does it run in priming mode during backwash?
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Doesn't a pump run in priming mode for at least part of a backwash? Priming mode is for a certain length of time you set in the pump. You need to turn the pump off to put the filter into backwash mode. So the beginning of the backwash is in priming mode unless you override the priming mode once the water is flowing through the pump.
 
Homebrewale said:
Doesn't a pump run in priming mode for at least part of a backwash? Priming mode is for a certain length of time you set in the pump. You need to turn the pump off to put the filter into backwash mode. So the beginning of the backwash is in priming mode unless you override the priming mode once the water is flowing through the pump.
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Exactly…..you reprogram the pump to reduce the prime rpm or quickly reduce the rpm so as not to blow sand out of the filter.
 
Lake Placid said:
Exactly…..you reprogram the pump to reduce the prime rpm or quickly reduce the rpm so as not to blow sand out of the filter.
Click to expand...

It's not something I need to be too concerned about now since it takes my pump was 4 minutes and 30 seconds out a 5 minute prime cycle to fully prime.
 

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