Well I am now 16 days in. Filter running 24/7. I have crystal clear water with no goo on the pool floor or walls but I still have a 5-6 ppm FC loss overnight. (I even tried one night with the filter off to see if that was the culprit) Do I just keep going??
OK. So the TFP Shamans sacrificed a young goat and read it's entrails (then
pooldv put it in his Primo smoker to read the emerging smoke signals...) and we've come a to a decision .... you must be banished from TFP and all traces of your posts purged from the public record :silent:
Ok, just kidding.
We've come to the conclusion that your only course of action is to proceed with changing the sand in your filter and then going on to SLAM the pool as the Baquacil conversion instructions state. I do believe that, after a sand change, your filter will be in a much better position than it is now as all of the remaining organic load from the baquacil will be gone. What you are fighting with right now is the CDX product that you used - it contains a chemical called dimethylhydantoin (DMH) as well as some polyether diols (kind of like anti-freeze, but not deadly). The DMH's original function is to help make the peroxide oxidizer last longer. In a chlorine pool, DMH has absolutely no function except to cause an excess chlorine demand. I believe you are fighting that now. With time the DMX will continue to oxidize and with backwashing and dilutions from rain, the CDX chemical will dilute (slowly) and you'll get better stability out of your chlorine use. But initially I see you continuing to fight with chlorine loss in the near term.
This is always the problem with a Baquacil conversion when CDX was used in the pool - it turns what should be a week long process in a multi week nightmare of chlorine loss. Since most folks don't really keep good records of their CDX additions, it's next-to-impossible to know what concentrations are present (unlike other pool chemicals, there are no simple tests for DMH). We know that a total water replacement would just be a faster route for most Baquacil-to-chlorine conversions BUT telling people that off the bat is daunting and not what they really want to hear. Under normal circumstances with Baqaucil and no CDX, a conversion with chlorine is a reasonable process. There are also other processes for destroying Baquacil (using sodium percarbonate which raises pH and adds lots of peroxide to the water) BUT TFP does not advocate them because they involve buying chemicals in bulk that have no other purpose and again, most folks want a simple process and not to be told to go buy a few hundred dollars worth of specialty chemicals.
Bleach works 95% of the time; unfortunately you are in that 5% group of pools where bleach just takes a really long time.
Keep us posted on how it goes and we'll keep offering as much advice and support as you need.
Good luck.
Fingers crossed. Good luck!
Congrats. You're over the hump. Lots of folks here happy for you. Now you can press-on with the last few steps. Quite an ordeal.
