3 questions, a) dumping water b) how to fc c) green algae

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Pemolis

0
Oct 14, 2015
167
Dallas
Pool Size
30000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
Hello. New pool owner here. Decided to try to address three separate questions because this whole process has been bugging me for a week.

Question 1:

I ran the FC test but I get a parts per million of 18. The trouble free pool calculator has a FC of 5/5. I know I'm just missing something completely here. The 2 numbers I can change are both. Pools 30,000 gallons. The Goal is inbetween 10 to 16. Should I be aiming at like 13 or 14?

Question 2:

My CYA is somewhere in the realm of like 150 or something. I understand I need to dump some water (calculator says somewhere around 69% of it). How do I do that? I just got everything labelled. For reference I put a few imgur images up Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet. Two of the levers in the ground or kind of at half, vs full (why I have no clue).

Question 3:

There is some light green algae on the side of the pool. I know about the pitting and intend to replaster the pool next year, but would Like to try to get rid of the algae in the next week. Whats the best method for getting rid of it.

I'm sorry I'm asking alot in one thread, just quite lost on where to go with this.

The numbers I have so far.

fc is 18
ph is 7.6
ta (alkalinity) 90
ch 110
cya (off chart).

I understand that probably the first step would be to dump about half the pool water. with the listed levers, what should I turn off, turn on, move left, move right, shut off, etc?
 
Welcome to TFP!!

My first question is what are you testing with?

The pipes are labeled nicely, but how about a wide shot showing the pump & filter - that is where we will find your way to dump water if you have one.

And while 150 CYA s off the chart, you can deal with it. I started with over 250 when I bought my house.....
 
Thanks sorry was a bit in panic mode past few days (joys of contractors). Had some pool people come out to repipe some of the old twist locks to the pull down ones. They labelled everything once they finished. Also had two lights put in (old ones were done for). I can take a few wide angle photos once its light outside again.
 
DanielJ said:
The hole in the side looks to me like a return that is missing the eyeball. The one in the bottom is the main drain.
Click to expand...

So its a swiming pool return. Looking up the eyeballs and there are a bunch but they all seem standard. Probably had a old water effect going.

I'll see about uploading to photobucket soon. lack of home internet isn't helping.
 
Back to the original question, how to drain the pool to get the CYA down. It appears you have a Crystal Clear DE filter. To clean this filter you "backwash" it and doing this removes water from the pool. The pipe labeled backwash is going to dump that water wherever the pipe ends. If your valves allow you to turn off the skimmers so the pump is only drawing from the main drain at the bottom you can drain as much as you need through the backwash. But, if you can't shut off the skimmers as soon as the water level gets down to the skimmers and they start pulling in air your pump will loose prime and stop pumping.

The photos also show why the CYA is as high as it is, the pool has a 3" puck feeder. Please don't add pucks to that feeder or your CYA will always be high.
 
I just read about the pucks and they were the original cause of the cya levels. the tube is empty currently.

Regarding where it dumps, there is an external hose that dumps straight into the septic/sewer of the home. From what I've been told the pool installer did a amazing job with the pool.

Guess im just trying to figure out what each hose does and what happens if I open/close it.

so I have three that feed into the ground. Spa water feature, spa return and pool return. This is the water that goes into the pool after it's been filtered? If so, should I have them just completely open vs the partial open that the two spa valves are currently?

on the other end. I have the main drain, spa drain and skimmer. This is the intake from the pool that goes to the pump?

So the pool water comes into the system through the drains and skimmer, gets pumped through the pump, goes to the filter, then out to the returns back into the pool?

so I'm guessing the procedure I need to do for a drain I s to open up the spa drain, close the skimmer, open the main drain. Close the returns, flip the backwash to open and the water should start draining?

To to dump water out the spa only, turn on the spa drain, close the spa return, and it should drain out without back washing?

general pool schedule should be keep the three drains open, have the returns open, and the backwash on normal?

guess my confusion is that they closed the spa drain and only partially opened both spa returns.

On a 30,000 gallon pool I'm expecting to go get somewhere around 30 gallons of bleach to get it to slam levels for a week once get the cya levels to normal.

ill also be cleaning out the filter once the pool begins draining (have to look up if I can clean out the de filter while the pool is on full drain mode).

lots of questions I know. I'm trying to mentally work through the pool learning curve.
 
Lots of stuff going on here... :D

Caps below are for emphasis, not yelling. ;)

A quick word of caution: DO NOT move your push/pull valve (backwash valve) while the pump is running. This can (and, more often than not, does) damage seals which cause leaks and/or pool drainage.

You can make adjustments to the other valves while the pump is running, but ALWAYS make sure at least one 'SUCTION' valve and one 'RETURN' valve is open while the pump is running.

With that out of the way, here's how I'd go about it:

To drain:

1. TURN PUMP OFF.
2. Push/pull (not familiar with these types of valves) your backwash valve to, well, backwash the filter.
3. 'POOL SKIMMER' valve to OFF. 'POOL MAIN DRAIN' valve wide open. 'SPA SUCTION' valve open any amount, but only if you can keep an eye on it until the spa is empty, then turn it back to OFF. Otherwise, leave it OFF.
4. 'POOL RETURN' valve makes no difference at this point, so leave it OPEN for now.
5. Turn pump back on.
6. Run until water reaches desired level.
7. TURN PUMP OFF.
8. Push/pull (again, whatever is required) your backwash valve to restore correct flow to the filter.

While refilling:
1. Leave all SPA valves in their respective positions until the spa is full. You will then have to play with the 'SPA SUCTION', 'SPA RETURN', and 'SPA WATER FEATURE' valves to reach equilibrium (i.e., not overfilling spa and not slowly draining it, either). If spa is overfilling, either open 'SPA SUCTION' valve more, or close 'SPA RETURN' or 'SPA WATER FEATURE' valves slightly. If it is losing water, do exactly the opposite.

2. Make sure 'POOL RETURN' valve is fully OPEN. Leave POOL valves in their respective positions until your water level is about halfway up your skimmer. Then you can turn the 'POOL SKIMMER' valve back on (open).

NOTE: I don't have a DE filter, but this is what I've gleaned from TFP: With a DE filter, once you backwash it, you will have to add more DE quite soon (minutes? Again, I don't know for sure...) after completing your backwash and starting the pump back up in FILTER mode. Damage can result if filter is allowed to run without DE.

FINAL NOTE: This is just how I'd go about it. If someone with more experience with DE, spas, etc. chimes in with a better way, go for it! :D
 

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Just wanted to say "thank you" for all of the help. I've managed to drain out 80% of the pool and it is virtually full now. Also managed to take apart, wash out the de filter in total (had some algae in it, de looked old and didn't look like it had enough). I've replaced the backwash valve (stiff and leaking), repaired the Polaris 280 poolbot (missing wheel).

Next step top is to recharge the filter with 9 pounds of de (have a 1 pound scoop). Followed by chemical test, balancing chemicals, then a week long pool slam with what I expect to amount to 40 gallons of bleach to kill off the algae on the side of the pool.
 
Following up a bit on what happened and what I learned.

1) The amount of bleach to get my pool at proper FC.. is 1 and a half bottles. i was somewhat expecting 10 to 20 of them.

2) The drain did the trick on removing all the CYA from the pool. Levels are just below 20. (Yea I have to add a little now).

3) Filling this pool takes about a day and a half.

4) The algae's gone atm, but suspect a vicious return this weekend. I'm going to start a slam but the following just happened and wanted to ask.

Currently its raining, and expecting to rain probably the next 3 days. Expecting about 5 inches or so. Now I am pretty sure my pool will flood. Is this ok to do? Do I have to do this hose suck on and pull water through trick to reduce the amount of water in the pool? It is a inground pool (the threads I read were all about above ground ones). Do I just switch my valve to backwash, leave the pump off while it rains (I doubt it'll drain). Do I worry about it once the rains done?

Its alot of little things people don't talk about.

There's not alot of dirt around my yard so I don't expect contamination. Just curious is the first step once rain stops is to start draining the pool through backwashing? My valve is a simple twist and pull and not the multiport unfortunately.

... oh and should I turn off the power in the pool house area? The pumps and electrical are all under a roof in a enclosed building with a small drain nearby.

I know I just asked the same thing about 11 times.

Thank you again.
 
First, you can SLAM in the rain. Not fun brushing, but it can be done.

Don't bother turning off anything unless your equipment pad is in a very low spot and may flood to a level above the equipment. If water gets where it shouldn't it should trip the GFCI or breaker.

If the pool level gets too high just backwash some out. The worst that can happen if the pool gets too full is that your skimmer is less effective because it can't let things float in as the watr is above the top.

As you probably saw in the news, my area just had a little rain. I was lucky, no flooding or damage in my area but I did get about 18" of rain. The pool flooded. I was out of town at the time and came home to: My skimmer lids popped off, water up to the top of the pool. I drained it back down and tested my water. pH was low, FC was fine (my Stenner pump kept adding it), CYA dropped 10 points.

Relax and try to enjoy the pool
 
It is a de filter. Hayward 72 inch or something of that sort. Takes 9 pounds of de (12 scoops of the Leslie's blue cup as its about 12 oz).

probably will have to backwash maybe 30 minutes to an hour to get the water down, then will add in 80% back de, about 9 scoops as it'll be a pretty significant backwash).

im mulling over replastering the pool next year, at that time will replace the pump with a silent variable speed and will make a determination on the booster pump (if there are quieter versions out there). I will see about getting a multi port valve so I can do straight water dumps without inadvertently flushing the de out the de filter. If it's only 200 bucks I'll make that call.
 
In my experience doing a re-plaster is usually more of an aesthetic (how it looks) thing, but man if you ever have to do a slam
it's a royal pain because the algae LOVES to bury itself in the rough areas and really hard to scrub out completely.
 
Well its rough but no cracks. Some wear but the issue isn't really the plaster, its the tile around the outside (decorative that is about 6 inches into the pool), and all the flagstone which has separated from its foundation. That's more likely to mess with my pool than the plaster, but if were redoing those, might as well replaster.
 
tim5055 said:
If the pool level gets too high just backwash some out. The worst that can happen if the pool gets too full is that your skimmer is less effective because it can't let things float in as the watr is above the top.

Relax and try to enjoy the pool
Click to expand...

If you look at the back of your skimmers you may see a hole in back of one of them, if plumed correctly it is an overflow drain and will drain water when it rises to and above that hole, of course during a major down pour it probably won't drain fast enough and your pump would lower level much faster. FYI
 

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