A few questions while pondering a conversion

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Thank you, Felipe, and thank you for your previous words of encouragement. I just got to a spot that I didn't comprehend.

I dosed back up to 15 at 2:30

fc down to 7.5 at 4:30
cc is 2

I have good return pressure, and I have done a thorough backwash and rinse 3 times in 36 hours, And the walls and floor now are scum-free.

off to add 1 more gallon.

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Also, at this point(clear, no visible goo or residue) would there be any point to run on recirculate to eliminate the possible goo in the filter as the culprit for robbing the FC?
 
FC was at 2 this morning around 8:00 AM and CC Has been hovering around 1.5

FC was at 2 again this afternoon at 3:00...not what I was hoping for

FC was at 10 this evening at around 5:30. CC still hovering at 1.5

I am going to be a guinea pig here...I turned the filter to recirculate at about 6:00 PM, and dosed up to about 17 FC

at 8:00 pm the FC had actually climbed to 18

at 10:30 pm the FC was holding tight at 18

I am hoping that the high FC demand is coming from the filter media (sand). There is no goo, residue, floaters, scum, film, or any other signs of the baquacil leftovers, and the water simply cannot be any clearer. Return pressure is as strong as I have had over the life of the pool. I am 4 backwash and rinse cycles in, and the last one was a marathon. Nothing but clear by the end of the last backwash cycle.

I am in the mechanical field, and one of the first diagnostic methods that a good mechanic uses is isolation, and the filter media is the first logical place to start. I will get an overnight loss figured in the morning and report back.

I should also report that I took apart my staircase style ladder and emptied all of the ballast sand, and intend to power wash it all tomorrow evening. The inside of the ladder sides where the handrails attach was absolutely nasty. I am hoping to swish some chlorine around inside the areas where the sand rests before I wash it out. The sand actually looked very clean to my surprise.
 
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Woke up to a fc reading of 16, had my son add 1 gallon. tested at 19FC 3 hours later at 9:30 am

checked again at 4:00 PM and FC is down to 2. CC is also at 2. PH is at 7.5

Is a 2ppm FC loss overnight and a 17ppm fc loss in the daytime a concern? Seems awfully radical.

I actually thought that I had isolated the high FC demand to the filter sand, but it appears that my theory may be way off base.

Pool is totally clear. We did have a storm blow through today, but I don't know how much rain we got.

Any thoughts?
 
It appears you've turned the corner on the conversion and you're in the home stretch. Most of your FC today was lost to the sun due to having zero CYA. At this point it maybe worth your time (and pocketbook) to only add Chlorine after sunset or very early in the morning before the sun rises.
 
Patti,

Short answer is recirculate is great for the first hour or so, but let the filter do it's job. It will become apparent to you as soon as the chemical reactions start to produce the baqua-goo floaters. I am on recirc. at the moment because I was trying to isolate the filter to see if the sand was my source of FC loss. I am contemplating going back to filter overnight since am now about .5 ppm away from my overnight goal. This part of the process has been my experiment, and not really a recommend step by those who have been here before you and I have started.


When I added the first 2 gallons of chlorine, I had the pump on "filter" about 1/2 hour in I remembered someone saying recirculate would help, so I went to recirculate for about the next 2 hours. At that point, I got A LOT of floating yellow slimy foam floating to the top. (If you look into the water at this point, you can see the particulates rising through the water.) I figured that I should let the filter do it's job from there on out., so I went back to filter. I spent probably a good hour and a half standing on my deck pulling the surface scum towards the skimmer with my pole mounted floor/wall brush. My net was not fine enough to scoop up the foamy scum. A big tan colored wads of foam had accumulated at the top of my skimmer I just scooped them off with the skimmer lid turned upside down. The floaters are about like trying to scoop whipped cream off of the water with your net if you can imagine that.

By about 4:00 pm (7 hours from start) I had very little return pressure, so I decided to backwash. It probably took 3-4 minutes to get semi-clear water from the backwash hose. I backwashed at about 10:00 PM again with the same results. I left it on filter overnight, and backwashed early Sunday morning. My water was showing signs of clearing at this point enough to where I could see a granular looking pile in the center of the pool. By 4:00 PM on day 2 my water was back to clear, and I was able to see the film on the sides that needed to be brushed. I did one more backwash after this, and then on Monday evening I went to recirculate again. I don't know if it will be possible, but I am hoping to be able to get the FC overnight loss and CC within range before I would have to go back to filter. I am hoping a sand exchange is coming in the next few days.

Use visibility as a gauge on how the green water is progressing. At first I could see the blue of my brush about 12" down, and it progressed to about 30" by late the first night. Early on the second day, I had 30" plus of visibility, and by the 36 hour mark it was clear again.

Just stay with it the first day and it kind of seems to run it's course after that.
 
Double posted, sorry.

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I have been wanting to ask this, but had forgotten until now. I have a pair of Sun Pirate solar panels that have been with us since our first season. Does anyone have any ideas on a de-Baquacil process for them? I thought about trying to make some kind of a closed loop system that would circulate shock-level chlorinated water thru them in the opposite flow direction as normal. I hate to dump the contents back into the clean non-baqua pool.

We are the "84 plus degree or we don't get in" type of people, and we really love these panels. With the natural sunlight, and the solar panels, I have raised my water temp 9-12 degrees in a single day, and they have had us in the water earlier in the season and allowed us to swim later several times.
 
You can try to connect a hose and flush with clean tap water and waste to drain for a few minutes, then you can reconnect to the pool and let the Slam levels take care of the remaining baqua left in the panels. Also if no one else objects i think its time to add some CYA to the pool.

Felipe
 
Great information! I didn't see this --- didn't know to see page 2!!! We have had that floating stuff since 5pm ...going out now 11:20pm to check PSI on filter, backwash, clean skimmer and test. I started this morning about 11am and put into high gear and tested every hour through the day, then at 6, every couple hours since my only source of testing goes up to 10ppm....and had staying been above that. It has been overcast all day here, so I think that was of some help.

Will update tomorrow! Thanks for all your work and help! Just understanding what you are doing and been through has helped me understand the process better...only if I had gotten the correct test kit. Ordered one tonight, but probably will not see until weekend!
 

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Seeing a FC loss of 2ppm overnight still shows you've got some Baqua in the water still somewhere. I would NOT add any CYA just yet however I would only dose at night. Your FC will be lost to the sun however adding CYA at this point is rushing the process. You've came 95% of the way.........finish it all off. Give your pool a good brush making sure to hit every crack and crevice you can. Steps, ladders, returns, lights all should be scrubbed. Additionally you're going to want to run some chlorinated water through the solar panels as they too could contain some Baqua traces.
 
Great Job passing the OCLT!!!! Now change out the sand and add the CYA. Also, continue to maintain 15ppm FC. Odds say you'll see a drop in CC's once the sand is changed.
 
Congrats Byebye ..... Almost done! We are getting toward the home stretch as well. My kit should come in mail tomorrow. We haven't lowered below 10 (since that is the highest I can test to). Will vacuum again today after it settles from brushing this morning. We spent 2 hours vacuuming the 8' diameter pile in the center......and must have backwashed 8 times!
 
Got the sand exchange performed today, and I have the CYA filled socks in the pool. One is at the return jet and it is dissolving quicly, the other is about 180 degrees away, and it is not dissolving very fast at all. When the one by the jet dissolves, I will move the other one over there. My CC level dropped from 1.5 to 1.0 about 45 min. after restarting after the sand exchange. Hoping for more positive results in that department as Leebo mentioned.

I poured about 1/2 gallon of chlorine into my solar panels and hooked them to the pump hoses just like they would be hooked to the skimmer and return of the pool. In other words, the solar panels took the place of the pool for a few minutes. I left the shock-level water in them, and I will rinse them out with the garden hose tomorrow when I tackle the steps.

FC is dosed up to over 15...will have to wait a couple of hours to get a good reading, I didnt have time to wait long enough last night to get a good mix and my fc actually went up overnight (false test results last night I believe).

For those keeping score, I am at 5 days, 29 gallons and $105. in product (not counting test kit)
 
Way to go Dallas! Oppss, watch to many movies! Those 105 would have been spent on your first trip to the pool $tore! So you are way ahead of the game. Picutres, pictures and more pictures!

Felipe
 
Just checking in and have a question. I finally received my TFP testing kit......when doing the FC.....it was pink when I started, then added drops....up to about 34 and the sample had a ting of yellow, wasn't totally 'clear'. Is that how you would describe what you experienced? We added the ladder in tonight and topped off chlorine to get 15....I'm thinking that happened since I'm not sure how to read the sample!

Argh.....always learning.

Patti
 
Thanks for all of the support and information during the conversion! I would have been at a loss without all of your input. I have a few questions going forward regarding chemicals, and I hope that the questions would be answered here in this forum rather than in the chemistry forum so that others doing the conversion can benefit from the info.

1. I am having trouble with the CYA test in my TF100 kit, I don't understand the direction that reads" until you can no longer see the black dot".Is this to mean that the black dot is obscured so that you can only see a darker spot, or does it mean 'all I see is cloudy liquid". My son reads the CYA level at a shade over 30 ppm.

2. I see conflicting info on the CYA level. Some sources say 30 ppm and some say 40 ppm. Which is preferred?

3. My FC level was 4.5 on Saturday evening, and .5 on Monday morning. We have had partly cloudy to sunny days with about 3/4" of rain on Saturday evening. Is this a normal loss with a CYA level of 30 PPM? PH PH is up to 7.8 from a pretty steady 7.5 over the last few days.

4. I am thinking about an automatic chlorinator, specifically the Pentair Rainbow 320. I also understand that using the tablets will raise CYA over time. If I would keep my fc at around 3 ppm with the tablets in a chlorinator, how much of an increase in CYA could I expect over the next 3 months. Also, does CYA go away over the winter? My pool is generally covered for the winter from mid-September to mid-may.

Again, I realize these questions may be more in line with pool chemistry, but I am hoping this info can be kept in this thread for future conversions.
 

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