green pea soup at start-up

[delfargo]

oh pool gurus, i am not a happy man this morning. i got the pool put together last weekend, added enough water to get it going and last night started her up. the water is so awful i can't see the bottom. actually, i can't see anything at all except green pea soup. my plan was to add floc last night & then vacume to waste tonight after work, then start the shocking process. well, this morning i looked at it and the floc did nothing. how am i going to vacume up the Crud i know is lingering at the bottom when i can't even SEE IT ! this sucks.
should i just start running the filter & adding bleach till i can sort of see the bottom and then vacume or should i just vacume in a "hit or miss" sort of fashion now? i didn't want to add all the bleach before i vacumed to waste cuz then i'd have wasted the bleach, ya know? also, when i was reciculating the water last night to get the floc distributed, i noticed all this stuff coming to the surface that looked like a million little jelly fish? wierd looking stuff. any ideas as to what this stuff is? it's not solid, cuz when i tried to scoop it out with the net it just "fell apart" like a liquid or a thin "goo". i don't have a good feeling about this pool season, but with the help of all you great pool minds here, i hope i'll get it to all work out. - and, one more question- is it bad to leave my multi-port valve on the filter in the "recirculate" setting when the pump is not running? here's why i'm asking. when i put it to "close" last night after i shut 'er down, i had water running out of the air bleeder valve. i turned it back to "recirculate" and the water stopped coming out. i inspected the bleeder valve and noticed the "o-ring" on it was all cracked & falling apart. i am going to try to find a replacement "o-ring" a.s.a.p., but in till i do, i figured i'd just leave it in "reciculate" while the pump is off. any problem with that idea? i thank y'all for your help.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

I see no reason why you can't leave it in recirculate while the pump is off.

After circulating for a while, can you get a full set of results and post them here?

I agree, if you plan to vacume to waste it seems sort of silly to put a ton of bleach in, but if you can't see, you can't see...so it is hit and miss, that's entirely up to you. If it were me, I'd get some bleach in there to begin killing the algae and start giving it some clarity so that you can see a bit better for vacuming.

I've never used floc. But from what I understand, floc works better when the bulk of the thick gross stuff is already gone...it works by bonding the smaller particles together so they can be filtered/vacumed out. Like the greyish dead algae that is too small for the sand filter to catch, sort of the "end stage" of defeating algae blooms....I don't think it works well for the start of the process. The jellyfish thingys...perhaps somekind of bacteria/algae? Who knows, but the chlorine should rid it from your pool.

Test results!

 

[spishex]

Added any chemicals other than floc? Some filter aids and non-chlorine shocks get a gelatinous quality to them when they hit the water. Otherwise I'd assume something was trying to breed.

No problem leaving the MPV in recirculate with the pump off.

Kill all the algae before you start trying to vacuum. If the algae are alive, they're reproducing, so you're fighting an uphill battle trying to physically remove them. And it takes the same chlorine level to kill a little algae as it does to kill a lot, so you're not going to save yourself much work. Go ahead and get to killin', and get the filter back on 'filter' asap.

 

[savdoc2]

I could be wrong, but when you add the floc as it collects the small particles, it will form little gel things - your "jelly fish".

 

[spishex]

I could be wrong, but when you add the floc as it collects the small particles, it will form little gel things - your "jelly fish".

I've never seen a floc form anything that substantial, except maybe the baquacil filter aid / floc. What kind are you using Delfargo? Usually (if it works) it just forms little dustball looking clumps, and they sink instead of floating. Were your jellyfish clear or more brown-green?

 

[JasonLion]

There is no point in using floc when you have living algae in the pool. The algae will usually grow more quickly than it falls to the bottom.

Yes, it is worth doing some vacuuming blind. But it probably isn't worth vacuuming blind to waste, vacuuming blind is not very efficient and you will lose a fair bit of water.

At this point you might as well get the pump running and start adding bleach, while working on getting the filter fixed. You might want to read Turning Your Green Swamp Back into a Sparking Oasis for lots of detail on the process of recovering for major algae problems.

 

[delfargo]

thank you all for your quick response!!! i printed out the "green swamp / sparkling oasis" article this morning and will take it home tonight and get at it. thanx 'lion! i just picked up 20 gallons of bleach @ walmart and i think i'm gonna shock the heck out of it till i can at least see the bottom. i agree that vacuming to waste blind will be a "waste" of time. as for my "jelly fish", they varied in size from small "pea sized" globs to "worm shaped" blobs up to an inch and a half long. they were all translucent. wierd stuff. looked like stuff you'd see under a microscope.
anyway, i gotta go, but thank you all again for the insight. y'all ROCK here at TFP !!! i'll keep ya posted.

 

[delfargo]

an up-date. got home from work last night, checked cya. it was at 20. i'll be picking up some stabalizer today to get that back up to where it needs to be. i added about 10 gallons of bleach, waited about an hour & checked my clorine level. fc was then at 20 (twice shock level if i read my chart right) cc at .5 - so this morning the water was no longer deep green, it was more of a battleship gray, so that's good news. checked fc again and it was down to 2, so i dumped another 5 gallons of bleach in and had to head off to work. thanx again for your help. guess we'll see what it looks like this afternoon when i get home.