Past the point of no return! Help!

[jla]

I am converting an 11000 gallon in ground pool that has had Baquacil in it for most of its ~20 year life. We purchased this home in April and have had issues with water cloudiness, white water mold, and stubborn algae that the Baquacil products won’t take care of. I attempted to keep the pool open for this season with the Baquacil but I have spent around $200 on sanitizer, algistats, flocculant, line clean, and filter cleaner. My sand filter most likely has a cracked lateral or maybe channeling (I get sand in the returns after backwashing even if I run the filter on rinse afterward) but I don’t want to change the sand before we start the conversion process.

I got my Taylor test kit, did all the tests, used the Pool Math calculator, and per the Pool Math calculations I just dumped 343 oz of 6% bleach into my pool. My water changed colors, and now my pool is filled with white foam. I just retested the chlorine after maybe 20 minutes had passed, and my FC is at 2 and my TC is at 5. I need to get the FC to 15.

So now do I just keep adding bleach and re testing until I get the FC up to 15? Is the reason the Pool math calculation’s prescribed amount of bleach to get the pool up to 15 didn’t work because the biguanides are consuming it? I just want to make sure I am on the right track!

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum! :handshake:

Pool School - Convert Your Baqua Pool to Chlorine

Keep the FC at 15 ppm. It will disappear quickly at first.


Good luck!

 

[Texas Splash]

So it sounds like you're somewhat familiar with our Pool School - Convert Your Baqua Pool to Chlorine page. Yes, the key is to maintain that FC of 15 until you get to step #7. That process must be adhered to and cannot be rushed. The better you maintain an FC of 15, the better the conversion. The only unknown variable (to us) is if anything else has been added to the water. Sometimes owners don't realize that CDX or stabilizer products can interfere with the conversion process making the FC of 15 too weak to breakdown the baqua goo. If you know of any such products that may have been added, you should let us know.

As for the foam, it could be part of the process. I'm hoping the bleach you added was absolutely regular/plain and had no scented, splashless, or fabric (polymer) additives? Yes, continue to use PoolMath to help you bump the FC back to 15. It's a great tool, and the better you stay at 15 the better the conversion. Let us know if you have more question and how it goes.

 

[jla]

Thanks for the help, I just added another couple of gallons and will see what that does to my FC level. I just had a moment of panic that I wasn’t doing something correctly.

I purchased the plain Great Value brand bleach at walmart, nothing fancy. The previous owner had an arsenal of random chemicals laying around, including several clarifiers. I wonder if that might be contributing to the foam situation. I believe the previous owner added CDX at opening, and my husband may have added some in May before I took over the pool maintenance.

 

[jla]

Here are photos of the process. My water was the cloudiest it has been all season when I started. We had a week and a half of heavy rain and lots of debris in the pool, and then a ton of algae that the Baquacil algicides were not able to completely get rid of. The water turned a yellow/green color and then the foam started - it almost looked like it was coming out of the returns. I backwashed the filter and the water was bright yellow for about the first minute or two.

 

[Leebo]

First and foremost, WELCOME TO TFP!

If I may ask, how much is your water in VA? You’ve likely got high levels of Baquacil Sanitizer in your pools, unknown issues with your filter, unknown water “history”, notmich time left in the swim season, and a pool that’s on the smaller side. My gut says you’ll come close to spending more money trying to convert than you would just dumping the water (just make sure to leave some in for the liner) and starting over. You’ll still need to preform the process some, but my gut says you’ll cut the conversion time down greatly and you’ll likely save money........depending on your rates.

Just something to ponder and think about.

 

[jla]

Thanks, Leebo. I think our water rates are reasonable and this might be what I do. Honestly, just in the past two hours I’ve been brushing/vacuuming to waste and testing every half hour and have had the pool consume about 14 gallons of bleach. It still looks like a brown cloudy/foamy puddle. How far down can I drain the pool before worrying about the liner floating? Is there anything I need to know about draining my pool? I’ve never used the main drain before. I’ll go look in the pool school articles for guidance as well.

 

[jla]

I woke up to some pretty disgusting looking water. FC is down to basically a 1. I think this brown chunky stuff floating around must be the Baquagoo I’ve read about. I skimmed a good portion of the goo off the surface of the water but I don’t think my net is fine enough to catch it all.

I decided to go ahead and drain the pool. I turned the pool pump off for now. I am using a submersible pump to drain the pool because my pool pump is on the opposite side of the house of the sewer clean out drain. Based on what I’ve read, I plan to leave around a foot of water in the shallow end to help weigh down the liner and then immediately refill the pool. I hope this will dilute the baquacil and speed up the process.

 

[Leebo]

Remind me again, is this your first Baquacil conversion?? I ask cause you’re NAILING the process. Leave a foot of water, refill ASAP, add enough FC to get to 15ppm as soon as you can. There will still be some Baquacil to destroy but it will be greatly reduced. If you keep on the pace you’re going I suspect you’ll be swimming in no time.

 

[jla]

Thanks, Leebo! It’s good to know that I’m on the right track.

 

[Texas Splash]

In addition, be mindful of the bleach you grab. If their pool section's "Pool Essentials" (10%) chlorinating liquid is sold out, Walmart's Great Value is usually fine, although I believe they reduced the percentage strength to about 6%. It's still fine as long as there are no additives like fabric softeners, polymers, splashless, or scented. Just the regular plain stuff. Things should improve for the better after your water exchange. Good luck!

 

[jla]

Our Walmart doesn’t carry the pool stuff, so I’ve been using the regular Great Value stuff. I might venture out to look for that 10% liquid today while I wait on the pool to drain. I severely underestimated the amount I will need!

 

[jla]

I turned the pump back on for a little bit so I could circulate the water and give it one last dose of chlorine and get the FC up to 15 before the water level dropped below the skimmer. In about a two hour period, I had a FC loss of just 3, which is amazing compared to was happening last night when I was seeing a FC loss of around 10 every 30 minutes. Mother Nature is on my side today - it is grey and overcast now while I’m watching the pool drain and we should get some rain this afternoon while I am filling it back up.

The foam/goo in the pool has turned an orange brown color. I’m a little nervous that it’s staining my steps. I’m scrubbing them with a brush but they look a little orange

 

[jla]

I've had the pump off since about 9AM yesterday while the pool drained to a foot deep in the shallow end. While the pool was draining, I continued to brush the sides and bottom and took the opportunity to really scrub the exposed steps and ladder. After each brushing, I'd wait an hour and then check the chlorine level again and dose it back to FC = 15 by estimating the amount of water that was remaining in the pool. It didn't consume as much chlorine as I imagined. I think this might be due to the fact that the water isn't passing through the filter. The sky was also overcast for most of the day.

I started filling the pool up right away, but didn't get back up to the skimmer before I called it a night. This morning, I woke up to so many floating clumps of baquagoo. I improvised a giant ladle by duct taping a plastic bowl to the end of a pole, and I was able to scoop out most of the clumps. There is a still a good portion of powdery stuff suspended in the water, but it looks like the majority of it has settled to the bottom. Yesterday, I was very confused at the idea of being able to vacuum any of this out of the pool, but now I can see how it is possible. If anyone reading this is contemplating a conversion, know that the first day will probably be filled with doubt and regret. I definitely feel less panicked about the situation this morning, but having a gross and cloudy pool is still not a great feeling. I'm hoping to see some improvement once I can turn the pump back on.

I can't seem to find any posts here from users who have done a partial drain/refill. I'm on city water, and we are also experiencing a good bit of rain in the next few days. I don't know how this will affect my water chemistry in other ways. Do I just focus on the chlorine for now and then wait to balance everything else after the conversion is complete? I have read that tests for things like pH are pretty useless right now. Any guidance on this will be appreciated.

 

[Texas Splash]

You're doing fine. Stick with the Baqua conversion page (link) above and maintain that FC of 15 as best as you can. Let the chlorine and time do its work. You'll do a fair amount of backwashing as any remaining goo gets captured, so each backwash is a type of cleansing if you will. You'll get it.

 

[jla]

The chlorine demand is much lower now, even after turning the pump back on. I attempted to vacuum some of the settled goo off the bottom of the pool and was successful in the shallow end. Unfortunately, just the movement from me scooting the vacuum head around once i got to the deep end disturbed it a great deal and made the process seem pretty useless. The water still looks cloudy but it’s definitely an improvement over yesterday. I’m going to dose it back to 15 tonight and see how our first overnight chlorine loss test goes!

Does anyone have advice about when to reintroduce my robot to the pool? Do I try to clean him with chlorinated water and add him at the end, or can he roam around during the conversion process?

 

[mknauss]

I do not believe it would be wise to add the robot to your conversion.

At the end of the conversion you will have to change the sand in your filters. I hope you can just clean your filters but you may have to consider changing them too.

 

[jla]

We are trying to figure out how to both clean and change the sand now. We read the post and watched the videos in the pool equipment section about cleaning a sand filter. We just realized we don’t know if there’s a way to completely cut off the pump and filter without disconnecting the plumbing. I’m nervous about doing this.

 

[mknauss]

Post a picture of your equipment pad. Members of the forum will provide you some guidance/suggestions.

 

[jla]

We tried putting a plug in the pipe under the skimmer basket but we can’t seem to get the water to stop flowing to the filter. My guess is that the main drain must also be open and pulling water? We can’t figure out exactly what’s going on and we also can’t see through the cloudy water in the skimmer box to properly assess what’s going on with that pipe/valve. My husband decided to go ahead and add in a valve in the existing pipe leading from the pool to the pump so we can just stop the flow there.

He’s working on it now, hopefully we are successful and can avoid a costly visit from our local pool store’s crew. They quoted us $200 for the labor to change the sand in the filter for us. We have had some intermittent issues with sand and debris coming through the return lines, so I think we may have a cracked lateral or channeling.