First time pool owner. Just bought a home with a 25k gallon in ground pool which previous owners neglected for the past 2 years and left closed since 2020.
When I took cover off it was basically a swamp. Piles of leaves covered the floor, algae everywhere, frogs, tad pools, etc.
I finally got it cleaned out to the best of my ability and fired up the pump once i got the water level up. To my surprise everything seems to work fine.
The only issue I have is that after the filter runs for a few hours, it seems the filter cant keep up and i lose pressure out of my returns. Usually after I backwash its good for a few hours but it will do it again. I have to backwash like 3 times a day to keep this filter running optimally (running it 24/7 right now as I’m trying to shock it).
My question is, is this normal? With a pool this dirty and running filter continuously, is it normal to have to backwash that much? Or does sand possibly need replaced? I took filter head off to check out sand and besides some gray matter on top, the sand seems fine(then again i dont know what its really supposed to look or feel like.) Doesnt look like theres any tunneling in the sand. I’ve attached some photos.

Another success story
Thanks to @Telemachus for your detailed procedure for upgrading the ET firmware. Also, thank you to @ogdento ,@jerryt and all other contributors.
I have an EasyTouch Lite PSL system, which had a v1.0 firmware, before the firmwares were combined. I snipped the main board's jumper, installed a couple of new relays and, using the USBDM, I successfully updated my ET PS Lite V1.0 to ET PS 4 V2.16. I now have more schedules available, an Aux Ex relay circuit, and 8 feature circuits! I may pull the board and solder in the missing resistor to further upgrade to ET 8, but for now I'm satisfied with the upgrade. I also have the 2.19 firmware file if I want to further upgrade later.
Here's a pic of my handiwork with the USBDM. Thank you to all the folks that posted the pinouts and other hints in the previous thread.
TFP has been a great resource - thanks again

Hi all,

Got an old 1960s-era concrete pool with a fiberglass shell in Austin TX. There is a 3 foot concrete patio + coping around the perimeter, which is bordered by thick ground cover where squirrels love to bury their seeds. We are constantly tearing out volunteer trees out of fear that the roots will damage the concrete shell but in recent years we’ve started to wonder whether this is really necessary—especially with the ungodly heat and a desire to retain some shade around the pool where possible. So here’s my question. We have a 10’ pecan tree growing 7’6” from the pool edge (and 4’6” from the concrete patio). Is this too close? I have no idea how thick the concrete shell is underneath the concrete patio, or whether I should be concerned about damage to the pool structure. The plumbing on this pool is very simple—one line from the skimmer to pump and one line out to two nearby return jets; all the underground plumbing seems far enough away from the tree so I think it’s really a structural question. Would love any and all advice. Photos attached. Thanks!

Daniel
Austin, TX

Hi,

I recently (3 years ago) bought a new house with a 16x25 fiberglass pool (10 000 gallons) and I am having recurring Iron Stains issue which comes back at least once or twice every season. It covers the entire submerged fiberglass which becomes yellowish.

Before I start my acid ascorbic treatment:

FC: 0 (I did let it go to for the ascorbic treatment, previously was 4-6)
CH: 400
TA: 80
PH: 7.2
CYA: 50

I followed the directions as per the following link: Ascorbic Acid Treatment - Further Reading

Filter on recirculate, about 1 pound of ascorbic acid, add enough sequestering agent, etc.

Within minutes, all stains are gone and submerged fiberglass is pristine white... YAY! After 24-48 hours, I balance water again with PH between 6.8 and 7.2 and start pouring liquid chlorine VERY SLOW until all of it is eaten by the ascorbic acid... After my first poured gallon of liquid chlorine, I slowly saw a few stains come back... i continued to pour liquid chlorine very slow (half a gallon and then wait 30 minutes and check for FC... Result is always 0... continue to pour.... but after 3-4 gallons, FC was still 0 but ALL stains are back covering the entire pool..

I am getting very discouraged and I do not know what to do next.. I live in the city, I don't believe water has that much iron in it. I have a 2019 Hayward heat pump and a very old pool pump that I believe is rusted.. I had to get it repaired two years ago and I remember it was pretty rusty.. Could my water pump be the cultpit ?

I just do not know what to do anymore and before I start the process again, I was hoping you fine folks can provide some guidance on how to permanently resolve my issue.

If you are still reading, thank you VERY VERY much!

Peter

Hi all! So we are building our first pool and having the hardest time trying to pick out a waterline tile. Our house is all brick with some white stone and we will have a cabana that is also brick so there’s a lot going on. We will be doing a white ledger stone around our spa so our builder suggested a white 6x6 or rectangle porcelain tile for the waterline so that the water color pops. We will also have 6-7 lights in the pool which can provide that pop of color too. Will white still be too plain? We both love the look of 1x1s or even an hourglass 2x2 tile, but we’re told the grout is hard maintenance wise. Is that true even with a very nice dolphin robot? Has anyone gotten porcelain 1x1s and regretted it? Thanks for the advice!

Trying to figure out what is appearing on the bottom of my pool. This is new this year, pool was opened a few weeks ago, chemical levels normal, first appeared without solar cover, and continues after putting that on. The water is clear and I havent had and CC, or overnight test issues.
Hopefully the pictures are good enough, but it looks like dust balls floating around the bottom of the pool, kinda greyish in the water. I can get them out with a net, and they flatten to like a snot like substance, smaller ones have disappeared through the net. I have vacuumed to waste a few times, so the bottom was clean, and it still comes back. 2 pictures are the balls in pool (top half shows a few) and the stuff when grabbed by my net. Bonus pic, I have a skimmer sock on this is what it looks like.

Any ideas what it is, how to stop / remove it?

Hello,
My pool was built back in June, 22 by A&S. It came with the house we purchased. It is a gunite pool. I observed white stains a couple months back, and they are expanding. I have a high Ph problem due, not sure because it is a new pool or just swg. I am really note sure if these stains can be removed or prevented or common. I honestly have no idea what to do. I really appreciate your help and time in advance.

Hi all!! So the pool had been doing fine then we got some rain and it got a little ill looking. Got it back to beautiful again and now it is a light green, hazy color. You can see some stuff on the bottom of the pool. The readings are:

Alkalinity 100ppm
pH 8.0
Free chlorine 6.5ppm
Combined 0.5ppm
Hardness 120ppm
CYA 60ppm

Origins Story:
Never maintained a pool before.
My spouse and I met in an apartment building with a pool (very well maintained pool I've come to understand in hindsight).
We had good memories about that pool, so when we found a home that checked all the boxes AND had an in-ground gunite pool, we bought it.
The pool is not leaking. The plaster is old (and the inspector says problematic). It's suffering from no chemical maintenance for at least a month. We don't really know how to address this out-of-control pool.

Hello everyone. I am an owner of a new In-ground salt water pool from NY. We choose to install the Pentair IntelliCenter and boy is there a steep learning curve. I’m hoping this forum will help me out.

So I have a Taylor test kit and I also take my water for testing at our local pool store. I have my chlorinator set at 75% and at times turn on my super chlorinator because we have very little FC. I notice on my tanning ledge and steps that I have the little black spots of algae. They are not big and the don't cover the whole surface. So I do but some algaecide in and extra chlorine tabs. Anyone have suggestions to help? My pool gets tons of sun all day long.

Any advice from pool builders would be greatly appreciated. Attached is an image of our pool design - what it was supposed to be. We are supposed to have room at the end of our pool for an 8 ft hot tub. It appears that the pool should have been about four feet more into the yard to allow room for the hot tub. Of course the other end can be dug out to extend the length of the pool on the other end, but is it possible to fill a portion back in and get it compact enough for the tanning ledge if moved in four feet? We don’t want to have settling issues, etc? View attachment 504311

This is our first summer with our pool and we love it so far.

Hey everyone! First time here.

I have posted a picture of our numbers according to our local pool place. They say our numbers are great but the water is still cloudy. We have new filter sand, laterals with pipe, multi-valve installed this year. Pump seems to be flowing well. Pump and filter both Hayward. Pool is about 18,000 gallons. Not sure what gives! Thanks for your advice in advance!!

I can’t figure out why my pool won’t hold chlorine, the rest of my numbers are correct? Any ideas? I’ve added 2 gallons of liquid chlorine (10%) and then tested the next day, still at 0…. Then I SLAMMED the pool with Clorox shock, still zero! 32,000 gallon pool

32K gallon, gunite, DE filter. Hayward omni Tristar 950 pump
recently replaced hayward 1 hp single speed pump. Refurbished Tristar 950 moves little water at lower speeds 1725, 2200+. Minimal skimmimg, or water movement from returns at these rpms after a while. . PSI to 20`s even after backwashing. decreased water movement Gets worse when on for several hours. No leaks noted. High rpms trippimg breaker continuously, 20 amp breaker. ?? Filter clogged leading to high pressures even after backwashing? PSI to 30 at 3450, then trips breaker. What to do?

Hi TFPers,

Wondering if any other folks in the Southern Ontario region are experiencing unusually cloudy water this opening?

I've got my pool at SLAM+ levels, passed OCLT, TA and PH are within preferred range (70 & 7.5), CYA upped to 30ish, pump running 24/7-- but there's a constant milky haze in my pool where i can't see below 5 feet. Been robot vacuuming my pool 2-3x daily, and the robot filter just has the usual sediment and an occasional worm. Removed the ladder, pulled the light out of nook. No green to be found. Using a filter sock in my skimmer basket and it's coming out reasonably clean.

I'm experiencing minimal FC loss through the day since the sky is so overcast, with occasional torrential rainpour. Could this be micro particles of fallout made worse with random the rain showers? I'm about to go out and buy some chitosan-based clarifier for the first time, as nothing else is adding up.

I've bought a new intex 16' sand filter which holds 120lb of sand. It will arrive on Saturday.

Now I've managed to get two 50lb bags of hth sand from my local Ace but that was the only bags that they have until delivery next week. Our local pool store has other brands of sand for the filter but I'm unsure if it's OK to mix the two brands or not.

I'm guessing as long as it's the same type of sand it should be OK to mix brands?

I had my pool light replaced by a small pool company in 2018. It is a wet niche Hayward 120v light. It has recently started leaking. I removed the light to see what is going on and I see an insulated green wire inside the niche attached to a lug. But it's cut off clean and not attached to anything on the other end. Is this a secondary ground? Is my light unsafe ?? Thanks in advance

Hello! We bought a house a year ago with a small pool. I’ve been trying to figure out what equipment we have and how to maintain it. This has been very difficult due to sun faded/ peeling labels and no information left by the previous owner but I’m learning.

A few days ago I noticed our flow was very slow when I hooked up the manual vacuum and had very minimal suction. When I checked the pressure it was hovering between 0-5. We took the filter apart, sprayed out the cartridges, cleaned the pump basket, checked & lubed all o-rings, and restarted. In-line chlorinator is off. After sealing up the filter the pressure still reads incredibly low and if I release the pressure valve on top I get a ton of air out again. Bleed the air, close the valve, no pressure. Open the valve and out comes a ton of air (very slowly)… and this cycle continues.

There has to be air getting in somewhere but I can’t figure it out. Any ideas of other things I should check?

-Carolyn

I've got a 10x20x4ft above ground pool. We are still leveling the ground but we are almost there. We are doing a salt water system. What do I need for testers. What is good salt? what is good sand? What do I need to know? What do you wish you knew when you started?

Hello. After finally finishing a diy oval pool install. Some of the sand base looks too have been pushed away away from one of the pressure plates and now the end of it is visible through the liner. Guessing just not packed enough under the plates. Is the only solution to completely drain the pool and remove liner to relevel the base? Or should i just not worry about it?

We took a spa a few nights ago with no problem. This morning set it to Spa mode with the heater on, then a few minutes later I noticed a strong overflow from the spa to the pool (pool mode had kicked in, but at a much higher gmp/rpm than usual for pool mode). I turned off pool mode and spa mode continued to have this strong overflow to the pool. I gave up and just now took a look at it.

My set up is that actuator 1 and 3 should be pointing north when in spa mode and both pointed south for pool mode. Though currently when in spa mode actuator 1 is pointing north and actuator 3 is pointing south.

I thought the small pin on the front side of #3 may somehow have been knocked out of position, so I went to move it, and it literally fell off in my fingers. Attached photo shows a spring sort thing that slides out of the pin.

Question one:
Is there anything I can do to manually set actuator 3 to point in the correct position so we can heat the spa, then return to to its current position to filter the pool?

Question two:
Is this a repair I might consider to do myself?

Thanks!
York

I was having a problem with my Polaris 380. It is 20 years old and I was replacing the belts. I changed them out with no problem, but this one part on the drive shaft keeps sliding out of its pocket. The little blue piece in the middle of the pic is loose and slips out, along with the white piece it holds in place. Both are on the drive shaft. I can't find the part number on the schematic I have, I think I have an older model. I also don't see it on any of the rebuild kits on Amazon or Inyo or other pool sites. Any idea how to keep it in place? or the part number to order to replace it? Thanks.

I’ve struggled to get my 18 foot round above ground pool clear. I have finally gotten the ph down to 7.6. The chlorine is above 3. The alkalinity is over 250 ppm. Each site I go to has different vocabulary for the levels, tests, results, chemicals, etc. I downloaded the app and it asked what I wanted to track. An entire new set of acronyms appeared. Would it be so hard to unify the terminology? All I want is to figure out how to get my pool clear.

okay my frustrated rant is over.

I live in a rural area and have an hour drive to get anywhere to buy anything. I need definitive information about what I need. Can anyone here help me? Please.

FWIW, I’ve done several AA treatments over the last 2 years and have gotten pretty good at them where it’s become something I can do with my eyes closed.

In the past, I followed all the usual procedures and also waited until there was really heavy staining on my plaster, then bring FC to 0, add in about 6-8 pounds of Absorbic Acid (36,000 gallons roughly) because I found the .5 to 1 pound recommend dose per 10,000 gallons doesn’t come close to cutting it for my pool/staining (YMMV obviously), adding a sequester, and going through all the usual processes of circulating water and waiting 24 hours before adding any chlorine back in, and then, only adding it very slowly over a 3 day period before the chlorine starts to hold again (and with Polyquat 60 in the process to help protect against algae blooms) as the AA and chlorine react and neutralize each other over those several days. It’s very time consuming and drawn out as anyone knows who has been through this process.

I’m admittedly impatient at times so wanted to try something different this time around, and because the weather in the next few days is 80+ all week and I just don’t like doing AA treatments in the warmer weather. Furthermore, I can’t use Polyquat-60 during an AA treatment right now because I’m also dosing a mixture of Jack’s Purple and Jack’s Magenta (known at Jack’s at “PurGenta”), and if I were to add Polyquat-60 to the mix it will cause severe clouding because of the interaction with the Magenta sequestrant. So, I wanted to see if I could do an entire AA treatment in < 24 hours and get ALL chemical levels back to their normal amounts in that timeframe, -before- any chance of algae kicking in. So, I decided to give this AA treatment “speed run” a shot!

My process was the following… (started at roughly 8am)

• Let my FC drift down to about 4, then dumped in enough Absorbic Acid to neutralize any remaining chlorine to drop it to 0 instantly.
• Normally I take my pH down to 7.0-7.2 during an AA treatment but I left it up around 7.4-7.6 because I was planning on dosing with MORE Absorbic Acid than usual (again because staining was bad, and because I wanted it to work FAST so I could get chemicals back to normal in <24 hours)
• I skipped Polyquat-60 (because of the cloudy reaction it would create with my Jack’s Magenta).
• Turned off my 2-SWGs and my Stenner pump that normally doses my MA
• Added in 2 quarts of Jack’s purple and 2 quarts of Jack’s magenta (this is my MINIMUM starting dosage for -my- pool with sequestrants, validating by Jack’s sales rep, who are awesome btw) and mixed.
• Switched -ON- my heater bypass mode (as I expected pH to temporarily drop to 6.4 or 6.6 roughly) once the AA was added.
• Added in roughly 12 pounds of Absorbic Acid into the pool (again, previously I -needed- 6-8 pounds for this to work over a 3 day period) --- and circulated water with 4 of my 6 pumps running.
• Within 30-60 minutes the heaviest stains on the floors and walls were 85% lifted and looking great.
• From that point on, over the next 8 hours, ON the hour, EVERY hour, I measured, pH and FC, and dosed accordingly to get them back into normal spec.
  • PH
    • pH dropped to roughly 6.4 to 6.6 initially so I had to use a substantial amount of Mule 20 Borax to get pH back in spec.
    • Every hour, I added in the necessary Mule 20 Borax, to keep bringing pH back up.
    • I ran my beach bubbler jets, my disappearing edge, and my slide, all the help create aeration to assist in bringing pH back up (I left both my waterfalls OFF, because they are made up of 4 vinyl later basins and I don’t need them to be part of the AA treatment).
  • FC
    • FC kept disappearing back down to 0-1 because the AA neutralizes the chlorine (and chlorine in turn neutralizes the AA)
    • Every hour, I needed to add appx .75 gallon to 1 gallon of chlorine

Within 6-8 hours of the extra-heavy AA treatment, I was starting to see FC levels start to stabilize a bit, and pH was back up to 7.0. Stains were 98% removed, and water was extremely clear and looking incredible. During hours 8-12 of the initial treatment, I continued to monitor pH and FC and dose accordingly, but was confident everything was going in the right direction. By the time I went to bed at about 16 hours in, my FC was holding around 2-4 FC when measured every hour with much less topping off with liquid chlorine.

I went to bed and woke up the next morning, testing pH and FC again, making some slight adjustments, but within 24 hours of the HEAVY AA treatment, everything was about as perfect as I could have hoped.

I’m sharing this because while I don’t recommend this this Speed Run for an AA treatment, for those of you who with the time and attention to detail, and who may not want to drag an AA treatment out over 24-72 hours, it seemed to work perfectly for me, and that’s WITHOUT using Polyquat-60 in the process (again, I didn’t want to deal with the water clouding from the reaction to Jack’s Magenta which might takes 1-2 weeks to filter out). The process DID work for me, but I think you really need to stay on top of it and be able to really dedicate the time/effort to it HOURLY.

Anyways, just wanted to share because I’ve talked to so many people who skip doing AA treatment because they know the side effects, etc. with pool chemicals and testing could drag on for up to 72 hours afterwards. Thought maybe someone out there could find some value in this if you’re willing to take the risk.

Caveat --- I would never recommend this method for someone who hasn’t ever completed an AA treatment before. But for those who are more experienced with it, it might be worth doing and I can at least say it does work. HTH !

Hello all,
I just changed out my SWG with an off brand from my Jandy 1400 that died. New SWG is working very well and was easy to install but I noticed that the control box is quite hot now. I don't remember that from before but I could have missed it. Any idea what might cause that? When the unit is off it is not hot. I got the SWG from the saltpoolstore.

Any advice or insight is appreciated,

Adam

What protective respirator and measuring cup do you use to handle muriatic acid?

Currently waiting for permitting and doing an OB. 18x36 rectangle with an autocover is the plan and I want to finalize materials soon.

Do I need a specific type of coping to work with an autocover or will any do? One PB suggested I couldn't just select any coping but I don't know if that's accurate. If that is correct what exactly am I looking for?

Hi all- I have an OmniLogic PL. Our remote is broke and Hayward is claiming we can't get another one until late August. However, there is supposed to be an internal router in our main board... does anyone know how to manually set up the system without the display on my laptop? I just need to connect the internal router to our internet somehow...