Looks like ocean water, but I'm not at the beach...

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Keep at it! Pretty soon you'll be holding more FC and the dosing will lighten. Keep brushing as much as you can handle when dosing. The addition of the CYA didn't hurt anything. We usually recommend not adding until ammonia has been dealt with because there may still be bacteria present that can convert that CYA to more ammonia but you did great getting through the ammonia stage quickly, so no harm done.

Were you able to add bleach again this morning after that reading?
 
Thanks Joel! I'm glad things went pretty well yesterday! My husband laughed at me last night and said, "Are you gonna have to do that all night?!"

Added bleach and rechecked after 10 min.

FC- 9
CC- 1

I can see the bottom today! It's really cloudy still but, much better!
 
Great you are holding FC much better and the CC is stable. Now it's just more chlorine, time, brushing & running the pump. Once you pass OCLT if it's still cloudy then it is time to experiment with a little DE powder in your sand filter to filter out the smaller particles.

On another note, as you are unsure of your pool volume use Pool math and your current testing to try to narrow it down. by using the section at the bottom of Pool math "Effects of adding chemicals" and testing you can get very close to your correct volume.
 
Great info! Thanks! For some reason I knew it was closer to 24,000 gallons but the measurements were not adding up. Well, I took the tape measure out there and it's bigger than I thought it was! It is actually an 18 x 36 rectangle. But what is kinda throwing me off is the deep end. It is 8' deep in the deepest part, however it slopes from the shallow end as well as from the walls. If I add the shallow end depth of 3' (measured it too!) and the deep end of 8' it gives an average of 5.5' deep. But to me that just doesn't sound right due to the slopes. Here are a couple pictures from last year to show what I mean.

Last year in the day time:
image.png


Last year at night:
image_1.png


One more question. I know that after adding the CYA that I'm not supposed to back wash for a week. Is that the case during SLAM as well? My pressure hasn't gone up enough yet to justify needing to backwash just want to know if the need arises. My original reading on the gauge was 10 psi, right now it's at 10.5.
 
If you add the CYA using the sock in front of the return you can back wash as needed. IF you put the CYA in the filter through the skimmer is when you should not back wash. So best to put in sock and hang it from a chair or such in front of the return.

Kim:cat:
 
I added the CYA yesterday in front of the return jet, so that's good. But I only added 4 pounds, which calculated to bringing the CYA up to 20. I remember reading that the CYA will not show in the test for a week. Or was that only if added to the skimmer? If not then I need to go ahead and do another reading on it, I'm thinking I need to add more. I can also see crud on the bottom of the pool now, where I couldn't before! Can I vacuum on waste to get it out or do I need to just stick with brushing it?

Had to run the oldest to the dr so I was gone for a few hours. Here are the numbers after 5 hours. Going to hit it with more bleach. On a side note, I stopped by Walmart and they had a fresh shipment of their Liquid Chlorine 10% still marked down to the clearance price of $2.50. I figure since I've used so much already and I'm still in the middle of SLAM it wouldn't hurt anything for me to buy 25 gallons. All but 6 gallons are in the basement in a dark room at 60*. Hopefully I will use it up before it looses the value.

Numbers for this evening:
FC - 2.5
CC - 0.0 yay!!
 
Jamie, We just did an experiment with the CYA........I was the one that got to squeeze all of my CYA into the pool in one go (oh my poor hands LOL). My target was 30 and that is how much I added. I let the pump run for 30 mins after the last bit was out of the sock before I tested. It tested AT 30 that fast! We are going to update the CYA testing page after the other "experiments" are done.

SO you can and should vacuum to waste to get rid of the stuff on the bottom. You will lose some of everything in the water when you backwash and refill but that is no big deal to get your pool clear.

So neat you could see the yucky stuff! NICE JOB!

Kim:cat:
 
Yeah, I got a wild hair yesterday after I added the CYA (and I did the same as you, squeezed it all in) and it measured between 20-30. But when I tried earlier today I filled it all the way without it completely disappearing. It was close but not quite. Guess I'll get more tomorrow. I'm so mad at myself that I could spit nails! I decided to go ahead and vacuum what I could see. I went to shut off the valve for the main drain and realized it has been closed the entire time! Gah,
I can only imagine how nice this pool might look had I not been so darn careless! Oh well, in goes more bleach!
 

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Just did my last test for the night. Going to go out and add bleach to bring FC up to 10 for the night.

FC - 7
CC - 0.5
CYA - I filled the vial completely full and could still see the dot. Barely, but it was still there. Guess I will be adding another 4# of it tomorrow after I run to Lowe's.

Thanks for all the help! I'm hoping that in the morning the pool will look awesome now that I have both the skimmer and main drain going! Jeez.
 
Oh I have SO been there done that! I wondered why my pool was not looking like a jewel. It took me a while to figure out my main drain was closed so it was just sitting there with water not moving. Opened it, pushed the FC up to SLAM level over two days and I had a jewel of a pool again!

Kim:cat:
 
Ok, so I tested the CYA this morning and I filled the tube before the dot disappeared. I added more CYA a couple hours ago. I just tested the CYA again and it is now at 30. Hopefully this will help keep my FC numbers up. It's been a few hours since I added the CYA and more bleach. My numbers after 3 hours are:

FC - 10.5
CC - 0.5
CYA - 30

I'm going to go add enough bleach to bring the FC back up to 12 now that I have a CYA of 30. Thanks for everyones help and words of encouragement! New picture tonight!
 
fanov8 said:
I went to shut off the valve for the main drain and realized it has been closed the entire time! Gah,
I can only imagine how nice this pool might look had I not been so darn careless! Oh well, in goes more bleach!
Click to expand...

Ah, that explains a lot.

I know when I did my slam if the main drain was open all the way it definitely cleared the pool faster.

Mine went from a milky cloud to crystal clear in 3 days, running 24/7 (sand filter). I had considered using some DE (food grade DE which would have been a disaster, always use DE for pool filters) but just decided to be patient instead.
 
I just realized that I never posted an actual before picture of our pool. When we uncovered it, it was black. Which is why I bought the algaecide, before I knew the right thing to do. So, here she is in all her glory! As you can see we have come a long way! And here is a picture that I just took!

image_4.jpeg


image_5.jpeg
 

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