Well, I'll add my story to the list of conversion but with a pleasant surprise so far. I have had a Bac pool for the better part of 20 years. My pool is 23 years old with the original liner. 20x40 and approximately 30,000 gal. For three years I have fought pink water mold and white water mold. This year after having the pool open for 7 weeks I had spent almost 1500.00 in pool chemicals and still had a cloudy, white water mold pool. I was about to just fill it in when I came up on this website and found the discussions on converting. I just sort of read over the post very fast and didn't really get into the details, but was sold on the idea. I called a new pool person in my area and discussed it with him. He said that all his customers that had Bacquicil pools had switched over and that he had only one customer left using it. I asked him what he thought I should do and he told me to get 10 lbs. of shock and shock it and be prepared to vacuum out lots of " coffee ground" looking stuff. Well, that was Friday late in the day. I went to Lowes and purchased 4, 5 lb. boxes of AquaChem Shock Plus ( 20 lbs.) a tub of 3" tabets, dispenser, algicide and some test strips ( no quality test kit available on Friday night). I came home just before dark and started dumping in the shockplus. Immediately I got plumes of mustard looking clouds in the pool. Every bag generated a new plume. By dark the pool was completely mustard/green in color with lots of " icy" looking scale on top. It was scary to say the least. I went to bed and couldn't sleep thinking and hoping I had not made a mistake. By 6 AM on Saturday I was up and dumping in the remaining 10lbs. of shock. Still each bag generated a plume of mustard looking water in the pool. I hopped in the truck and went back to Lowes and picked up 28, 180 oz. containers of bleach. I went home and tested the pool with the strips and had ZERO chlorine. I started dumping in bleach and ended up putting 12 bottles in, which is around 15 or 16 gals. Each bottle turned the pool more mustard/green.
Had to leave the pool for a party most of Saturday afternoon, but while I was gone I found a small test kit in a rural hardware store, thought it was better than nothing. Got home around 11 PM and tested the water, ZERO chlorine again. By now I've dumped in 20 lbs. of shockplus and 12, 180 oz. bottles of bleach. Before going to bed I dumped in 6 more bottle of bleach, there was no color change and no plume. I then let it run for a few moments and took another chlorine reading...it was above 10...(10 was as high as the kit would read.) Went to bed and got up to a mostly clear pool. What a surprise, actually I was shocked. I took some more pictures and will add some more bleach tonight but I have backflushed the filter once after it raised up just 2 lbs. I have not brushed or vacuumed the pool at all, but I see no goop, coffee grounds or anything on the bottom. There is a light bluish substance on the white pool steps you can see in the pictures. I had just pumped the pool full of bac products the week before the conversion? Any ideas on why I have no residue, BaquaGoop or pressure build up. The only thing I didn't mention is that I changed the sand just before deciding to convert, so the sand is new.
Friday late in the day:
Sunday about 11:00AM:
After I typed this post I went ahead and put 6 more 180 oz. bottles of bleach in and the pool did turn slightly green. I'm guess I'm still fighting the Bac, just wondering if the worse is yet to come?
Had to leave the pool for a party most of Saturday afternoon, but while I was gone I found a small test kit in a rural hardware store, thought it was better than nothing. Got home around 11 PM and tested the water, ZERO chlorine again. By now I've dumped in 20 lbs. of shockplus and 12, 180 oz. bottles of bleach. Before going to bed I dumped in 6 more bottle of bleach, there was no color change and no plume. I then let it run for a few moments and took another chlorine reading...it was above 10...(10 was as high as the kit would read.) Went to bed and got up to a mostly clear pool. What a surprise, actually I was shocked. I took some more pictures and will add some more bleach tonight but I have backflushed the filter once after it raised up just 2 lbs. I have not brushed or vacuumed the pool at all, but I see no goop, coffee grounds or anything on the bottom. There is a light bluish substance on the white pool steps you can see in the pictures. I had just pumped the pool full of bac products the week before the conversion? Any ideas on why I have no residue, BaquaGoop or pressure build up. The only thing I didn't mention is that I changed the sand just before deciding to convert, so the sand is new.
Friday late in the day:
Sunday about 11:00AM:
After I typed this post I went ahead and put 6 more 180 oz. bottles of bleach in and the pool did turn slightly green. I'm guess I'm still fighting the Bac, just wondering if the worse is yet to come?