I had the pool store open the pool this year (I know now, but didn't then) just so I wouldn't have to mess with the cover, and because this was our first open, and I wasn't 100% sure about how to attach all the hoses.
Well, that is pretty much all they did. They didn't even add water to it. Sadly, I was out of town when they did all this. My wife called me and told me it looked really good and pretty clear so I was excited. Unfortunately when I got home a week later, it was a green swamp.
I immediately added water up to the right level and started the pump. I dumped in the last few bags of shock I had from last year. No real change. I decided it was definitely time to hit it hard. I re-read pool school and trekked around town buying up as much bleach as I could find.
I fished out 3 frogs and probably a billion egg sacks. That was the grossest part of the whole experience.
I ran a test. The chlorine was zero of course, and so was the CYA. So I went to the pool store and bought some stabilizer, socked it and put it in. The next day I ran a test and decided how much bleach I needed to shock. It was a lot, but I remembered last year I didn't hit it hard enough and I struggled all year with it. So I went ahead and added the 6 bottles I needed.
The next day was a huge improvement. It went from dark green to milky green. More testing and more bleach. Same for the next day. Then it was the weekend and I had time to do the overnight testing. I continued hitting it hard throughout the weekend, and by monday evening I had a crystal clear pool. Since then, I have only had to add minimal amounts of bleach.
Easy peasy.
You guys are amazing. I would probably still be screwing around with this if I was using the old methods. In fact, my wife's aunt has a pool and saw the pics of ours and wanted to know how we did it so fast since theirs is still murky. I offered to teach them when they are ready.
Well, that is pretty much all they did. They didn't even add water to it. Sadly, I was out of town when they did all this. My wife called me and told me it looked really good and pretty clear so I was excited. Unfortunately when I got home a week later, it was a green swamp.
I immediately added water up to the right level and started the pump. I dumped in the last few bags of shock I had from last year. No real change. I decided it was definitely time to hit it hard. I re-read pool school and trekked around town buying up as much bleach as I could find.
I fished out 3 frogs and probably a billion egg sacks. That was the grossest part of the whole experience.
I ran a test. The chlorine was zero of course, and so was the CYA. So I went to the pool store and bought some stabilizer, socked it and put it in. The next day I ran a test and decided how much bleach I needed to shock. It was a lot, but I remembered last year I didn't hit it hard enough and I struggled all year with it. So I went ahead and added the 6 bottles I needed.
The next day was a huge improvement. It went from dark green to milky green. More testing and more bleach. Same for the next day. Then it was the weekend and I had time to do the overnight testing. I continued hitting it hard throughout the weekend, and by monday evening I had a crystal clear pool. Since then, I have only had to add minimal amounts of bleach.
Easy peasy.
You guys are amazing. I would probably still be screwing around with this if I was using the old methods. In fact, my wife's aunt has a pool and saw the pics of ours and wanted to know how we did it so fast since theirs is still murky. I offered to teach them when they are ready.
