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debicod

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Aug 8, 2007
4
Hi everyone,

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for all the information on this forum! I've learned a lot!

I have a 15x30 AG since July of 2006. The pool supplier started us on Baq and the water looked great last year. Since June, I've been battling a red slime which they tell me is a fungus/mold. I've spent lots of money trying to battle this and finally gave up!

Two days ago, Sunday, August 12th, the conversion began. We used the pool Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening the first "dose" of bleach was poured in! Wow, what pretty colors (ha ha). I'm adding bleach at 11am, 5pm and 11pm. Obviously, we are not even close to having clear water yet. Oh, I received my TF Test Kit yesterday!!! This morning, before adding bleach, I tested and show 3ppm Chlorine. I guess that's better than 0.

I have some questions:
1. I'm having electrical issues with my pump this morning and probably will not leave the filter running while I'm gone. My electrician will be here around 4pm today. How bad will this be for the conversion process? Will it cause other issues? I live near Austin, Texas and the temperature has been right at 100 degrees the last few days including today so my water temperature is about 92 degrees.

2. During the conversion process, does the water have a bad odor to it? I figured it might smell like bleach but it's more of a swampy bad smell.

3. A few weeks ago when I first found this forum, I saw pictures of someone's conversion process. I've been looking for those pictures so I can compare my "muddy water look" to others who converted but can't seem to find those pictures. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, could you please let me know where I saw them?

4. At this time, I'm only testing for chlorine, correct? If I should be testing for anything else before the chlorine holds the 15ppm overnight, please let me know.

I've been taking pictures of the water throughout each day since Sunday afternoon before the bleach was entered into the pool so I can compare and watch my progress.

Thanks again for all the help!
Debbie
Leander, Texas (nw of Austin)
 
Hi Debbie, Welcome to the club! I had the red slime too. Nasty!!!!

I am on the last leg of my conversion, and just added new pictures which you can see here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sue.chastai ... ToChlorine

The other pictures you saw were probably on poolforum.com

As far as the odor, I really only noticed a strong chlorine smell like what you typically smell in a public pool.

Now that you have your test kit, I think you could test and top up the chlorine more often than the times you stated. Several times I was at 1 FC even with less than 3 hours since the last dose. Just pay attention to the amount of reagent in your bottle of the R-0871. I went through a whole bottle in 5 days and now I am having to wing it until I can get more. (luckily the folks in this forum have been very helpful!)

Good luck and I hope it goes faster for you than it has been for me! Ha!
 
Leaving the pump off for a few hours is not a problem. Leaving the pump off for a couple of days would be a serious problem. You don't want to add chlorine unless the pump is running.

Mostly you only test chlorine, but you also want to make sure that the PH doesn't get way out of range. The one challenge is that the PH test is not very accurate if the FC level is above 10. So test PH now and then when FC is low and try to keep it between 7.0 and 7.6 (which usually it will be anyway so not normally all that important).
 
Thanks for all the help. The pump is off until this evening when I take my dinner break around 5pm (I work 1-10pm). Hopefully the electrician will figure out what's tripping the breaker and have it fixed quickly. I will test the pH at 5pm and will continue to post my progress... well, hopefully it will be "progress" throughout this conversion!
 
Well the filter is back up and running 24/7! I added more bleach and then took the pH test. Now I see I should have tested pH before adding the bleach. I'll do that in the morning. The pH was between the 7.8 and 8.2 colors so I guess 8.0 would the be approximate number. I've been backwashing each time before adding bleach. The backwash water was pinkish red and foamy. I guess that's the slime coming out of the pool. Looking at the water in the pool, it's still very murky but now has millions of pink pieces of slime(?) floating in it. The water still has a bad odor to it... so strong it could be smelled in our front yard and also our neighbors' yards. I hope they don't start complaining.

If someone could tell me how to upload pictures to my messages, I could post some from the last couple of days.

Thanks again for all your help.

Debbie
Leander, TX (nw of Austin)
 
This morning gives me hope that this conversion was the best decision! I can see the bottom of the pool!!!! Well, not very easily but yesterday I could only see as far down as the top step on ladder. It's still very murky looking but when I'm vacuuming I can actually see the "clean" path the vacuum is leaving. Also, the chlorine held over night at a little above 15ppm which was where it was late last night. I did check my pH this morning before doing anything and the color is between 7.5 and 7.8. I'll keep posting my progress.

I will work on posting some photos.
Thanks again for all the help!
 
That is just excellent!

The day will come when my friend in Virginia will be very unhappy with her BaquaX pool and when that happens, I'll guide her to some of the conversion successes on this forum.

Anna
 

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