Past the point of no return! Help!

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Is your equipment pad below the pool water level?

- - - Updated - - -

Are you sure you are to the point in the conversion you want to replace your sand in the filter? Read the conversion process article again. I think you are doing it too soon.
 
Yes, the equipment pad is below the water’s surface. So I guess the obvious answer is it’s just gravity. We did get the valve plumbed in and it appears to be working!

We are not ready to change the sand but we wanted to look and see if there’s anything obvious that might be causing our filter to not work properly, and perhaps deep clean the sand. We are seeing sand and debris intermittently come out the return lines. I’m worried that the filter won’t be able to filter out all the baquagoo in the current state.
 
We got the filter open and discovered that it is definitely not working properly. I'm at my limit for uploads, so I'm including a link to a photo of what's inside. There's a giant tunnel in the sand where water just passes straight through. The sand feels like concrete in places, it is almost solidified into clumps. My husband is just replacing the sand now. We realize this is going to mean twice the work for us, but we anticipated having to do this before we started the conversion. The pool store our home's previous owner used has a record of them changing the sand out in 2014. I don't think it's been cleaned or changed since then. I keep telling myself this will all be worth it in the end.

image1.jpeg - Google Drive
 
Sand should never need to be changed. Deep cleaning each year is a good idea.

Pool store potions (floc, clarifier, phos-free) gum up the sand. Never use them.
 
We got to the bottom and found three broken laterals. I can’t get replacements until tomorrow and my husband has duty for 24 hours so I don’t anticipate that I can actually replace them and get the filter back together and running until Monday afternoon.

Is it an okay idea to just basically bypass the filter altogether and just attach pipes to have the pump running to recirculate the water until then? Or is that not worth doing at this point and I should just wait?
 
I assume you do not have a Multi valve such that you can recirculate? Otherwise connect the pipes as you state and bypass the filter. Keep the system moving and chlorine being added.
 
We got the filter reassembled last night and we are just using the multiport on recirculate since we couldn't replace the laterals and add the sand. Now that we know what we're doing, the whole process should go a lot faster the next time around.

I was able to test the water right after we got the pump turned back on, and I'd accidentally overdosed the pool a little and got it to a FC = 19 and CC = 9. This morning, I woke up and tested it again and we are ate a FC = 16.5 and CC = 4.5. These numbers give me hope that we're on the right track. The water honestly doesn't look too bad considering the fact that we basically haven't had a functioning filter this entire time. I can see through the water well enough to see areas where "goo" has fallen to the bottom of the pool. Is it okay to set the multiport to waste and manually vacuum today to get some of it out of the pool? Or should I wait until we have the sand back in the filter to do this?

Here's a photo of what the water looks like this morning
image1.jpeg - Google Drive
 
Is it okay to set the multiport to waste and manually vacuum today to get some of it out of the pool?
Click to expand...
The faster you can get the goo out the better. So if you have the ability to pull junk to waste now, go ahead and do it. It will make things easier on the filter later.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Are skimmer socks okay to use right now while I’m still without a working filter? I found a bag of them in the garage and tested one out, and it trapped a ton of goo in just an hour or two.

I ended up ordering a new lateral assembly online after being given the run around by my pool store. It will arrive Tuesday. I also managed to break the head of the manual vacuum so it’s currently lost on the bottom of the deep end. This conversion has been a comedy of errors.
 
The most important thing to do now is brush and dose to 15ppm. The more you do that the better. Items such as skimmer socks can be used but don’t use them as a the main method of removeing the Goo, let the chlorine do that.
 
Oh, I think I misunderstood that part of the process. I thought I had to physically remove all the goo that was created. I didn’t realize that the bleach alone would get rid of it. Still scrubbing away at it and adding chlorine on the hour. I can see the bottom clearly now, and my anxiety that I had ruined my pool is now gone.
 
For two days in a row, our FC loss overnight has been very low. It was -1.5 yesterday with a CC of 1. and -1 today and CC is .5.

From what I’m reading, I am at the point where normally I can change my filter sand. I don’t have any in there and have just been on recirculate since Saturday. We are replacing the lateral assembly today when it arrives and adding new sand. Now I’m not certain that I will need to replace the sand twice.

My pool is so blue this morning but still has a little haze in the deep end. I imagine this has something to do with us not having a filter. The pool still looks better than it has since we bought the house in April!
 
We cleaned out the filter tank and felt pretty confident that we got all the remnants of baquacil out of it. The new lateral assembly arrived and we got the pump up and running a few hours ago. When we compared the new lateral assembly to the old one, we realized that changing the entire thing was a good call. The laterals on the old one were pretty brittle and some were warped.

The little bit of haze in the water is now completely gone! I added our pool floats and toys to the water right after getting the FC to 15, and that still didn't raise my CC over 0.5 when I did my next hourly test. I'm feeling pretty confident, so I went ahead and added a sock of CYA and that's dissolving now.

Current water: image1.jpeg - Google Drive

New vs old laterals: image2.jpeg - Google Drive
 
Holding steady at .5 CC or less, lost .5 FC overnight. I checked my CYA this morning and it’s somewhere in the 30-40 range. We tested some other levels last night while the FC was in a “normal” range and we got pH = 7.4, TA = 70 and CH = 50. I think those normals look okay for a vinyl pool, so I think my conversion is complete as long as my CC stays in check today. Thanks everyone for the help!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply