Helping a friend: This should be a good one

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Her vacuum head is old and she needs a new one. She ordered a Dolphin Nautilus so I recommended holding off on the vacuum head but she was going to get one anyway. I don't know where mine is. I haven't vacuumed in over a year.

FC is holding, CC dropping. Something like 11FC and 2-3.5 CC on afternoon cleaning. Pool was milky white-gray. My experiment didn't work so instead I just ran the filter, did a lap with the brush, checked the gauge, repeat. Backwashing is moving to more like once every 20 minutes so it is clearing. I couldn't get it nearly as dirty as when I started, pretty sure there is very little left in there. She took over at 6p with the same plan. One more test should be in shortly. I am expecting first test of morning to be something like FC 10 CC 3. I also predict the bottom stair will be visible.

For those that suggested the "glass test" the glass by the pool was still there 24 hr later and it was still uniformly cloudy.

Everybody is still on board and committed to diligence and consistency.
 
So it is not sediment if it is still not settled at the bottom after 24 hours.

That would be so much easier but at least you are making progress with the bleach.

Tell her thanks for doing the test. That is one more question answered.

I can't wait for you to see the bottom step! That will be a wonderful day!

Kim
 
Sorry I didn't respond sooner about the glass test. Somehow I unsubscribed to your thread so I wasn't getting email updates and didn't manually check until today.

The primary reason I wanted you to do the glass test was like Kim surmised. If you had seen settling, it would have been worth shutting off the pump and allowing the "sediment" to settle, and then vacuum or use a cleaner to get up the gunk off the bottom.

I also was curious about the true color and turbidity of the water itself as it looks so grey.

UPDATE:

With all that backwashing and vacuuming to waste, you must be refilling a bunch.
Do you have the same fill water as your neighbor?
Has it been tested?
How is its turbidity?
 
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MarianParoo said:
Sorry I didn't respond sooner about the glass test. Somehow I unsubscribed to your thread so I wasn't getting email updates and didn't manually check until today.

The primary reason I wanted you to do the glass test was like Kim surmised. If you had seen settling, it would have been worth shutting off the pump and allowing the "sediment" to settle, and then vacuum or use a cleaner to get up the gunk off the bottom.

I also was curious about the true color and turbidity of the water itself as it looks so grey.

UPDATE:

With all that backwashing and vacuuming to waste, you must be refilling a bunch.
Do you have the same fill water as your neighbor?
Has it been tested?
How is its turbidity?
Click to expand...

It's cool, I actually had a moment of clarity yesterday, as I was doing a filter/backwash/rinse cycle, "Man, it be easier if we could just vacuum this off the floor" ... :looks at glass by the side of the pool: "ohhh".

I assume fill water is the same.
I tested CH of the fill water as I didn't believe the CH could be <50. It is in both the pool and the tap.
I don't remember it being that cloudy.

I think we're good. We both imagine a bit of blue in there now. I got a report last evening it was clearer than my lunch picture from earlier in the day (below). As soon as we can get to a 4 hour cycle on the filter I have a feeling it will be over quickly. The main sticking point now is you have to watch the gauge like a hawk because it goes to 25% in about 15-20 minutes.

Mj4hZHE.jpg
 
Swampwoman said:
You're not filtering 24/7? That will really really slow you down. Is anyone avail today to babysit the filter if you keep it running?
Click to expand...
We can't. We run it in recirc all night. She tries to get a filter cycle in before work, then back to recirc. I go at lunch, test, add brush and try to get a couple of cycles, then back on recirc until she can get home. I can't imagine who we would ask to sit by the pool and babysit the filter for 8 hours.

If we haven't gotten to 4 hour windows by Saturday I am going to sit by it all day and baby-sit.

- - - Updated - - -

kimkats said:
It is getting lighter! Keep it up! This is one of the long ones. How much bleach has been added to the pool so far? (just curious)

Kim
Click to expand...

I'm not sure as she is the one buying. If I had to guess 20-30 gal.
 

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:brickwall::brickwall::brickwall:Well now I feel stupid. I put a knee high over the basket and ran the filter. 15min and it was up 25% right on schedule. Thought to myself "Well that didn't work". Backwash/Rinse, tried it one more time. After 15 minutes the needle didn't move. "Fortunately" my friend is home sick today, so she is going to try to keep an eye on it this afternoon until the roommate comes home.

That probably cost 2 days. :hammer::hammer: I'm not sure why we gave up on that so quickly.
 
Here's the latest. The knee high on the skimmer sock got us up to an hour of filtering between backwashes. I suggested one on the pump basket as well and that got us up to 1.5 hr. Prescribed one more run as best as possible then back to recirc for the evening. Test and add in the morning and I will visit at lunch tomorrow to [the word I picked was apparently banned. Re-evaluate then] . I got some stair pictures with the opinion that clarity quickly improved with filtering. I believe it, this pump is maybe too strong for the volume even though that seems foreign.
 
Mr Bruce said:
Here's the latest. The knee high on the skimmer sock got us up to an hour of filtering between backwashes. I suggested one on the pump basket as well and that got us up to 1.5 hr. Prescribed one more run as best as possible then back to recirc for the evening. Test and add in the morning and I will visit at lunch tomorrow to [the word I picked was apparently banned. Re-evaluate then] . I got some stair pictures with the opinion that clarity quickly improved with filtering. I believe it, this pump is maybe too strong for the volume even though that seems foreign.
Click to expand...

what size pump is it?
 
I don't know. I will note when I return mid afternoon and resume monitored filtering.

FC is holding from morning add to lunch when I got there. Here's the last 3 days of stairs. It's important to take these pictures because without them I wouldn't believe we were improving. In fact the big picture I usually take looks identical.

NV276Nq.jpg


The 2nd stair is not visible even though it looks like it is. I use that bar to see how deep I can see, and it's not to the stair.

For fun I tested CYA and got 40. I tested pool water only and got 20. I know it's not accurate, but at least that tells me there is some CYA in there. (Well I know there is cause the socks were empty) Saturday will be 1 week and I'll get a test again. I'm thinking 1 more pound in socks will be a good idea. Not quite to 30 via pool math if it is actually 20. Like I said, I will wait until Saturday for hopefully full reading and slightly clearer water for more accurate test.

One more day of tag teaming tomorrow then they are going to filter while monitoring all day Saturday. The forecast is brutal I feel for them.
 
MarianParoo said:
I don't understand this. It's been a long day; maybe I'm just missing something.
Click to expand...

It's cool. The pool water is very cloudy. Just pouring straight up pool water in the CYA tube makes it disappear at 20. I was trying to see if there was a difference between 50/50 pool water/CYA reagent and straight up pool water.

Ok. This is slightly frustrating. I feel we are at a standstill because we cannot run the filter very long at all. We're doing the best we can between lunch and after work but even today with a sock on the skimmer basket and a sock on the pump basket I was getting to 30-40 minutes until gauge was +25%. I know this goes against every SLAM thread I've ever read, but we are going to switch to no brushing or otherwise agitating the water until we can get to 4 hour filter windows. Otherwise we're never going to get there, brushing riles up the pool and clogs the filter in 10-15 minutes. We can stretch it out by leaving the water alone. If someone wants to talk me out of that I'm all ears. FWIW we are cleaning the pump basket sock anytime the pressure starts to drop, and backwashing when the filter rises from 12-13 (post back wash pressure) to 15-16. Otherwise it's recirculate with skimmer basket sock only when no one can babysit the gauge. Both socks accumulate what appears to be sand. Also the backwash area is sandy. Not alarmingly so, what could be expected of a very very cloudy pool over 40 backwashes.

I noticed an interesting thing. After running the filter for a while, a blue ring is visible near the walls of the pool. I am pretty sure this is the filtered water swirling around the outside and the cloudiest water on the inside. I may be imagining, but the blue bit gets bigger as filtering goes on. It is easier to see with polarized sunglasses. I may be hallucinating in the SC June sun.

Speaking of, the pool is losing 3ppm chlorine during the day in SCORCHING SC summer sun. I actually have a feeling we will pass OCLT before seeing the bottom step. I'm serious.

Oh, I did note the pump. It's a 1hp Hayword SUPER PUMP. I took a picture but I am feeling lazy/tired.

Last test.

FC 9.5 (add 1 bottle 8.25%)
CC 1.5
Water appearance: milky aqua dirty
 

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