What is this in the bottom of my pool (with pics)

May 26, 2007
144
Benton, La
The last few years I have this stuff settling on the bottom of my pool. I can let the water settle, vacuum slowly & the next day more of it is on the bottom of the pool...What does it look like to you? (all numbers are in line)

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I used to get stuff that looked like that in the bottom of my pool and I thought it was just the normal accumulation of dirt that needed to be vacuumed up. When I got my Mars HP cleaner and emptied it out for the first time I discovered it was droppings from the trees that had gotten through the screenroom. Not sure if it was pollon or seeds or what but it was always on the bottom and collected in the same kind of little clumps. I would put money it's from all the trees you have back there.
 
I wouldn't really consider it a windy area, no pets ever in the pool.

I am on a community water service.

Some sort of algae is kind of what I have been thinking. It does kind of POOF up when hit with a brush.

I will have to get a pic of the Pool Rover bag after vacuuming. There never is really much solid material in it which has made me always think it wasn't the trees causing this, although I do have woods all around & a couple of trees over the pool so I would not be surprised if that is what it is from.
 
I have the same thing in my pool, it is probably dirt and pollen from the air.

I determined it was dirt when my kids were swimming one night and stirred it up, and in the morning it appeared to be gone.

But it had just been mixed and then had settled evenly on the bottom. When the filter came on, I could see it slowly accumulating in the low spots as the water circulated.
 
I would really get a sample and set it in a glass jar...let it settle and take a look at what you have. It will also help if you take pictures of the sample once it has settled in the jar (this will help others better identify what it is that they're fighting).


You can have the best treatment methods around, but good care starts with proper assessment and identification.

let us know what it looks and feels like.

dan
 
gonefishin said:
I would really get a sample and set it in a glass jar...let it settle and take a look at what you have. It will also help if you take pictures of the sample once it has settled in the jar (this will help others better identify what it is that they're fighting).


You can have the best treatment methods around, but good care starts with proper assessment and identification.

let us know what it looks and feels like.

dan

I will try to do that this evening when I get off.

I haven't tested all the numbers in about a week, but yesterday evening, the numbers that I tested were...

FC...7.5 coming down from a shock a couple days ago to about 16ppm
CC...0
CYA... about 50

I posted the other numbers last week, alk, cal, etc...all are in the proper range.

Will test & post again tonight if it will help
 

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Well, the sample jar thing will have to wait a couple of days. I got home & my wife had already put the Pool Rover into the pool earlier today. Now some of it go stirred up & the pool is now cloudy with a bit of a green tint.

Here are todays numbers...
FC...6.5
CC...0
Alk...70
Cal...120
pH...7.4
CYA...50

You can't really tell in the pics but here are a couple of the cloudy pool with a greenish tint after it got stirred up. Also there are a couple of pics of the bag out of the Pool Rover. The bag is green but there are also quite a bit of stuff from the trees in the bag also. My wife said the water was crystal clear before vacuuming. I cannot wait to try the Borate thing to see if it helps.

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You can have zero CC and still have algae and chlorine. The CC level is an intermediate product -- chlorine combined with some organic (or ammonia) but it gets broken down by more chlorine and sped up in the breakdown by sunlight. So depending on whether the CC is getting created faster than it is getting broken down, there may or may not be measured CC. The only thing you know for sure is that measuring significant (> 0.5 ppm) CCs means you've got combined chlorine that still needs to be broken down. It could be algae, or it could be other organics (e.g. suntan lotion, pollen, etc.).

The way to know that algae is definitely gone is when the water is crystal clear, there is minimal FC loss overnight (usually < 0.5 ppm FC) and there is minimal measured CC (< 0.5 ppm). This not only tells you there is no algae, but also that there are no organics that can be easily broken down (algae are easy to break down, compared to leaves and other large objects).

Richard
 
Something new with the pool...we went about a week without vacuuming & yesterday as usual, lots of buildup in the center of the pool that wasn't getting stirred up. We REALLY had to scrub to get the yellow tint off the bottom. All the loose stuff came up easily but there was like a stain that had to be brushed with the vacuum to get it off. Now as usual, the pool is really cloudy.

I am fed up with it...I have two choices, either rent a dozer & do away with the pool or go ahead & do my annual Phosfloc treatment that I have to do every year. It usually alleviates our problems for the remaining of the season.

I haven't had the money to buy the Borax & acid that I am wanting to try & I sure can't afford the dozer so I guess the floc is it. I have two tubs that I have had for about a month so I will now spend a week cleaning up that nasty stuff.
 
After a little thought & some digging around on the net, I read alot about having to regenerate the filter media when using Zeobrite. Ours is 2 years old & this has never been done so I ran to the pool store & bought some Filter-Renu & to Wally World for some salt.

I shutdown the filter, drained it & removed the top of it & the valve. I decided to dump everything out & remove all the finger things & check them for cracks & other damage. They all looked good! Put them back in, put the Zeo sand back in & mixed up the saltwater/filter cleaner mixture & dumped it into the filter. The plan is to let it sit for about 5 hours, put it all back together & run the pump on backwash then rinse a couple of times before cranking it back up & starting the filter again.

I am hoping this will help as it just does not seem that my filter is doing a very good job of cleaning the water.

Next step?? Not sure! We will see how this works out.
 

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