Coming back from sludge

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alten78

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Jun 8, 2016
14
Sheffield Lake, OH
Good evening all! I am new to the forum, not to pools as I have had my 7.6k AG pool for the past 5 years, but apparently very new to keeping care of it correctly, so very thankful for this site!

My story starts off the same as most, pool wasn't properly closed and upon opening found it to be amazingly full of leaves/sludge. I ended up draining most of it, removed all bigger junk but was unable to remove the fine algae. Filled it back up, at the pool stores advice dumped a bunch of chemicals (shock, algaecide, stabilizer) and at least got to a cloudy blue water, of which they sold me more garbage "to clear it up".

While I waited for my test kit to arrive (k-2006) I read as much as i could from the site and have a much better understanding of real pool maintenance. Also in the meantime, I added a few gallons of liquid chlorine (10%) and left the filter and pump running (which it has been for the past week.)

I haven't gone through all of the testing yet as the wife and family was over but i will be heading out there shortly. What i have now is this:

CYA - 50. Found it hard to see the dot fully disappear but im pretty sure this was it.
PH 7.4. Starting a SLAM I will be bringing this down to 7.2
FC 17.5 Under shock level so I assume its ok to drop the PH now
CC 1.5 Which I believe since there is a very strong chlorine smell. I would have never had known if it were for this site.

More results to follow....
 
Last night, I added the appropriate amount of liquid chlorine per the pool calc to bring it up to 20. I didn't realize I still had a few remnants of pucks in the floater, but this morning the FC was 21 and CC at 1. The pool is still so cloudy that I cannot see more than a foot down, let alone the bottom. I picked up a new brush yesterday but didn't use it till today, WELL a bunch of debris got stirred up, I was so sure that everything had been taken out. I am definitely learning to read and pay attention to details!

Plan on running home for lunch and will test then.
 
Shouldn't I be seeing SOME progress daily? I've been adding and keeping my FC level around 20-24, pulling out small amounts of levels/debris, and cleaning off the cartridge (cottonwoods are absolutely killing me this year) but I'm seeing zero progress in the cloudiness of the water, still can only see down several inches. I rechecked CYA this morning and FC (was getting frustrated so instead of dumping in 1/2 gallon chlorine I dumped in the whole thing) and CYA was 65/60ish, which is higher than i originally tested it at, FC at 24.

Looks like I will be draining close to 1/2 of the pool to get the CYA down to where I want it....I dont have a sump pump and just have to use the hose to back siphon which takes FOREVER....uggghhhh, suppose to be hot this weekend so frustrating!
 
Welcome, alten.
The trick to progress in terms of color change is to be sure to maintain at/slightly above the slam level for your cya per [fc/cya][/FC/cya]

So in theory has a bit easier to do with lower cya, and takes less bleach/chlorine...but you can also accomplish it at higher cya levels as well if you just use the FC:cya chart as your guide.

Any time you dip under, you're letting the algae outpace you as you're not in the kill zone. Once you break the back on this thing, you'll find you need to dose less frequently. But on the front end, it takes a bit of "pool owner patience" (POP) so I'm sendin ya th mojo.
Cheers to clear ;)
 
Do you have a vacuum hose? Like this

cIh7PSa.jpg


It will siphon much faster than a garden hose.
 
I bet if you take a picture a day and share it here you will see the slight difference in color your eyes cannot see day to day.

Also if you do still have stuff on the bottom the FC is working on clearing that up. I know you cannot see the bottom but try to do a blind vacuum to see if you can get more of it up and out of the pool.

Foreclosure swamp and errant pool service?

Look at this ^^^^ thread. You will see one picture where she thought she had all of the stuff up BUT once it cleared enough to see kind of down to the bottom she still had some yuck in the pool.

Kim:cat:
 
Thanks all, I thought something was amiss which prompted me to retest CYA, since I thought I was already at/above SLAM level for the past several days. Trying to keep the patience!

I do have a vacuum hose like the one pictured, but unfortunately, I dont have a place to drain it other than straight into the back yard which would flood pretty quickly. I have to connect two hoses to run to the front yard and into a drain. BUT, I'll start it anyways and just not let too much out :)
 

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I can't find it it anywhere, but is there a calculator somewhere or a chart that says what the psi should be for a particular pump, filter, hose size? Should they all be the same? I keep getting low pressure at times, but not always. It seems like the psi on the filter is 20, no matter what. This is before and after i clean the filter so it doesn't seem to be dependant just on whether or not is dirty...which it does get often while trying to clear the pool.

The filter is a replacement and brand new but it seems like the pressure was never as high with the new one than with the old filter. Now, the new filter is supposed to be better so I'm assuming if there is more filter ability that the pairs will be less?

On a side note, i did drain 1/3 and got the cya down to 40, fc at the moment is steady at 20, and i can at least see a faint shadow of leaves to vacuum/ scoop so things are getting better!
 
Good morning, Alten. Every filter is a bit different in terms of where it normally runs due to unique site factors such as distance, pump, skimers/dain etc. The rule of thumb for filter pressure in terms of when to backwash is 25% above clean pressure.
 
Thanks, I was just surprised at how quickly it would get clogged and the pressure gauge barely move above 20psi. Its a new gauge but was a cheap replacement, maybe I just got what I paid for!

Either way, I am finally seeing real progress and can see the bottom fairly clear! Still some work to do, more vacuuming but as of last night my cc registered at .5, haven't tested yet this morning.

Hard to see from the morning reflection...
 
Things have progressed nicely, although much slower than I would have wanted and missed several hot days, go figure the next several will cooler and rain! I can finally see clearly the entire bottom of the pool from every angle, still need to do some vacuuming and filtering so I wouldn't call it crystal clear but its far better than what it was. Unfortunately, I ran out of the 0871 regent last night (more coming hopefully tomorrow) and don't know my FC but I've been keeping it at or above 16.

How it was looking this morning from the ladder. Because I don't know my FC and on average for this past week I've been needing to add about 3 FC, I went ahead and added another 16 ounces this morning just to be safe and keep it elevated until I get the regent in. I'm hoping that this SLAM is done and its fine tuning/filtering going forward.

 
Thanks! For whatever reason, the filter hangs around 20psi almost exclusively, if its at 21-22psi then I know its full but by that time there is a giant drop off of pressure from the return which can easily be seen. At this point, I don't bother looking at the gauge and just look at the return flow. Its looking about as clear as its been in a long time but with my natural luck, we had a huge storm come through last night and a massive amount of mayflies along with cottonwood blooming...time to put my 12 year old to work :)
 
Next time I will be going for the gel filled gauge, its actually what I normally use on my RODI units for my reef tank/Drinking water (DI bypass of course).

My regent came in and was finally able to do an overnight test, started at 9 (using 10ml) last night and was still 9 this morning. CC turned a very slight pink but went clear after the first drop of 0871. Going forward I will be using 25ml samples.

Much thanks to this site, my water is by far the clearest its ever been for sooo much less money and garbage chemicals!

 
I am sorry to hear your "good" gauge did not last. Mine has lasted quite awhile already. Not sure how long but far longer than the cheap ones as they only lasted about 2 months and it has been a LOT longer than that already for this one.

Alten! That is some fine looking water you have there! That is like a jewel :sun: for sure! Nice job!

Kim:cat:
 

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