Helping a friend: This should be a good one

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Mr Bruce said:
I will see if the empty bag is still there at my lunch visit. It was the only Alum floc the pool store had. The pool store person said to ignore the directions on the back which included filtering immediately, instead to dissolve it in a bucket and pour directly into skimmer (on recirc) and let mix for 2 hours then stand for 2 days. By late Friday night (one day) it had all sunk to the bottom.

I'm not sure why that stuff is so frowned on around here. I understand why it's not your first move, but if you do a search there are tons of people who it helped greatly. If you go back in this thread as soon as one person mentioned it in amazingly people started popping up saying "me too" as if they were all afraid to be the first to say the "f" word.

If all you've got is a hammer every problem looks like a nail. Sometimes there is a screw.
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its frowned upon because pool stores will sell it to people to try and clear up a pool that is being caused by algae. 98% of the people that mention buying it is for that reason. for algae, all you need is the SLAM. that wasn't your problem. your problem wasn't chemistry related anymore (after you killed the algae). all the chlorine in the world isn't going to remove silt.

FLOC has its uses, like this case. its not the solution for clearing up cloudy water from algae.
 
I agree 100% with what DaninFLA said. Once it was determined that the water was balanced and the algae was gone, then the problem was different -- suspended solids and FLOC is ok for solving that problem.

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Mr Bruce said:
If you are ever in the upstate ping me. I'm very serious. I would like to buy you and a so/friend dinner. You saved us.

LJr9PgD.jpg
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Thank you very much, Mr Bruce but there's no need to buy me dinner! It is a very small payback for the wealth of information that I have gotten and been able to use from this site.

I am very glad that you were able to solve your problem with the pool. Please post some more shots post-vac so we can truly appreciate the clean-up and blue water.

Thanks,
Bill
 
Answer for Kimkats,

The alum was recommended to me in a similar situation. I had had a bad algae bloom. I was still using a pool store for all advice and water testing. We treated the algae with lots of cal-hypo 65% shock. That took a couple of weeks. I have no idea what my CYA was at the time. Water became clean (not green) but not clear. Looked cloudy like Mr Bruce's clean but cloudy pics. I kept going back to the pool store and complaining that my water was not clear. The numbers (pH, Alk, FC, CC, Calcium) all looked good. We tried DE in the sand filter and something called Proteam (a resin clarifier, I think). Nothing worked. Finally we tried the alum and it worked withing 24 hours. I also remember mentioning the alum solution to a few friends and one who had grown up with a pool said that their Dad always used alum as a flocculant in their pool growing up.

So alum is in my toolkit for flocculation. The important thing to note is that it is not a solution for clearing up algae blooms. You have to treat and kill the algae and get your water balanced first. Normally SLAM-ing should also get your water clear after a couple of days as well. When it doesn't like this time, then you need to see what else might be wrong, filtration, suspended fines, etc., and work on that problem.

I think we've beaten this topic down. All that remains is for Mr Bruce to post a few post-cleanup pics of the sparking, clear blue pool!

Thanks,
Bill
 
Mr Bruce on June 30th 2015 said:
Day 24 (9 days of constant filtering)
Are we sure there isn't anything we can add to the water to combine with the particles and help them either fall out or filter better?
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wbrober0 on July 16th 2015 said:
I've used both the liquid floc and alum and I always had better results with the alum.

You could give it one more try with alum if you want. I would give it 24-36 hours to settle. If it didn't settle by then, then I guess that's it -- drain and refill time.

As I recall, I would have begun to see settlement by 18 hours.
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I just so happened to be waiting on my friend to get home before I started draining the pool and saw that post on my phone MINUTES before draining. Seems like it could have been brought up a bit sooner, all I'm saying.

I have a quarter standing by in the pool area.
 
@MrBruce, I saw the thread back in June and read through it and thought this *WILL* be a nice story, I should check back on it. Then I lost track of it, it wasn't showing up in the new posts list and I could not remember how to get it back. I think I finally saw a recent post about it and then I saw where the progress was and made the first alum post. I'm sorry that the post was so late.

Even now when I want to check back on it, I go to TFP and search for "this should be a good one" and then hit last to find the latest post. There might be a way to bookmark thread and post but I don't know how to do it other than making bookmarks in my browser and I have way too many of those to manage already. Please let me know if there is a way to bookmark interesting threads easily within the forum.

Edit:
Ahh, I see now that under "Go Advanced" that you can subscribe to threads. Good to know.

Bill
 
Nah Bill, it's all good in the hood, let's just all put this one in the back of our mind for the next person that comes along with algae-less water that won't filter.

I am very appreciative of all the help and support, don't mean to come across otherwise.
 
Mr. Bruce -- No problem! :p

Sorry you had to wait so long to get the info but I am glad you didn't have to drain it. Looks like there were a lot of issues associated with that -- the neighbors yard, the V-shape, etc. I also thought that draining would not really help unless you could get all of the water out and since it is an IG pool I knew that you are not supposed to drain it all the way.

Hey -- I figured how how to subscribe to the thread so it was much easier to find this time! Look at me adding smileys and everything now.

Bill
 

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We are trying to clear up the last bit of cloudiness with some DE. You can see very, very clearly down to all but the last few inches of the deep end. I am expecting today or tomorrow to pass the quarter test. Will update with pictures at some point.
 
Ok, the last 10% takes 90% or the time, or something like that. We are facing a miniature version of the original problem.(Clean) Sand filter is not sufficient to clear the last of the "dust". DE clogs within hours. Pool robot with finest filter inserts is not enough to grab dust. Latest plan is to run pump 4 hrs/day, let settle, run robot and see what happens. If that doesn't work, run robot on settled pool with some DE in filters. If that doesn't work, let pool settle and vacuum. Vacuuming is hard, for previously stated reasons. We are getting there though.

Abandoning SLAM FC levels since it seems to be a waste of bleach, there has not been a hint of a CC in days, this pool is clean. We are just getting the last of the dust out. Shooting for Target++ levels until quarter test is passed.

Gigantic pics on purpose.

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It's hard to tell in the 2nd picture but if you look from right to left the vinyl pattern fades to cloudy. The cloudy bit represents the last 2-3 inches of the deep end.
 

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