Oh yeah....another conversion

[Guest]

Well, of course my local wallyworld did not have any liguid chlorine, just tabs. So I bought 8 1gal. jugs of clorox 6%. Pricey too. So I'll have to find a place who sells it cheaper.
Try your local poolstores. Jut don't listen to anything they have to say and FOR GOODNESS SAKE don't tell them what you are doing because they will tell you that the world as we know it will end if you try it! If they sell liquid chlorine in refillable carboys that is often your BEST buy. There is usually a one time deposit or purchase fee for the carboy and after that the refills are very inexpensive. Most poolstore chlorine is 10-12.5% so if the price works out to being less than the price of twice as much bleach it's a better deal (i.e. if it comes in a 2.5 gal carboy is it cheaper than 5 gallons of bleach?)

And I almost made it out of the store without looks. But a customer walked by my checkout and looooookkked. lol (She must be thinking 'my, she must have alot of whites!') I'll check out Lowes & Home Depot since they are the next closest to me.

Thanks sue for your pics. It didn't look as bad as Mark's adventure. Should I be pouring something else in first to lower the level of the softswim? Or go right with the bleach?

And just so I'm clear on this, if my pool guy brings granulated chlorine or tabs, I am to tell him no, right? Liguid only for the conversion and maybe keep the powder or tabs (if he brings them) for maintenance?
Granular chlorine is going to be a lot more expenisve and you want to ONLY use either calcium hypochlorite or lithium hyopchlorite. The calcium hypochlorite will cause you calcium hardness to go up. Dichlor (the OTHER granulated chlorine) is NOT a good choice because it will cause your CYA levels to rise and the amount you will need will certainly lead to an ovestabilized pool before you even begin!

And patience I have plenty of, as I don't plan on swimming soon at all.
You say that NOW! :-D
Deb

Good luck, you CAN do this!

 

[MeSue]

Should I be pouring something else in first to lower the level of the softswim? Or go right with the bleach?

You can go right to the bleach. I did the sodium percarbonate experiment, but it is not necessary, and it's another thing to buy. I'm not sure if it reduced my conversion time,
It did
though it did seem to tone down the funky colors. I have no scientific basis for saying this, but I wonder if it contributed to the super high TA (240) I had after my conversion.
It did

The TA rise could have been mininiezed by adding 7 lbs of dry acid for every 10 lbs of sodium percarbonate.
Sodium percarbonate is NOT necessary for conversion but it does speed up the process quite a bit. It is pricey, however!

Thanks for clearing that up! I was able to get my TA down to 140 by the end of last season and when I opened this year it was exactly where I wanted it (90) so no big deal.

Too bad there is no real way to compare the cost of the sodium percarbonate vs. the extra bleach (and gas for the multiple trips to buy bleach) that would be required without it. I bought it generic from The Chemisty Store online and didn't think it was terribly expensive. Just looked up my receipt... $28 for 6 lbs. shipped. That is roughly equivalent to 15 gallons of the 10.5% chlorine I was buying, so when you factor in the gas, too... it was probably worth it.

One thing is for sure... I didn't have the "goo" that I see a lot of people discussing in the conversion threads.

 

[debjan]

Sooo, I put too much bleach in last night around 8:30 and checked my numbers at 10:30 before going to bed and FC was over 25 ppm. So of course, I didn't put more in. This morning my FC was over 16 ppm (I stopped there so's not to waste drops). Did I screw this up? Should I check any other numbers? Should I check my CC & PH? Do I yet care about CYA? I did not add anything this morning either. My water looks minty green, much better from the milky yellowy crud from yesterday morning. I don't see any of the floating crud either.

Pool: 24' round AG
Hayward Flo-Matrix pump
Hayward Sand Filter
Vinyl liner

I've used 5 gal of 12.5% chlorine and 8 184oz jugs of Clorox bleach so far.

Thanks!
Deb

 

[JasonLion]

It really is best not to raise FC much above 15, but if you do so for only one night everything will probably be fine.

You are fine where you are for this morning. By evening the FC level will be down dramatically and it will be time to add more bleach.

Don't worry about PH or CYA. You don't want any CYA in the water yet and PH should only be tested when the FC is low. If you adjusted the PH correctly (7.0 to 7.4) when you started it is most likely still fine.

 

[debjan]

Thanks, Jason.

I tested FC again and its coming down, now 23 ppm (over 25 ppm last night) CC is 6 ppm and TA is 11 ppm. I didn't bother with PH as I've read that the FC should be under 10 to test for PH and I did have the PH at 7.2 before conversion. I think I'm good for now and will test FC again later. No sun today, just when I needed it Now just so I understand correctly, we don't want the higher level of FC because of possible damage to pool, liner, pump, filter, that the chlorine could do, right?

Deb

 

[JasonLion]

That is right. FC in the 20s with no CYA can corrode metal parts and bleach the liner. The longer it stays high the more of a problem it is. 24 hours in the 20s shouldn't be too bad, though it likely will have some minor effect.

 

[debjan]

Okay, back on track. Water is translucent green this morning! I see that there is this yellow slim on the walls of inside the pool. Didn't know what that is. I'll brush the pool walls and vacuum to waste today. Just curious as to what that might be.

Deb

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

yuk! That is BaquaGoo! brush it off like you said. You can vac or just let your filter take care of it. (don't forget to backwash as needed!)

 

[debjan]

Well, here it is day 4 and this morning I could just make out the bottom of the pool! OHG! I was so suprised! I started brushing my walls and I looked down and almost screamed! I see the bottom! It got alittle cloudy after finishing the walls, but cleared again after vacumming. This afternoon is even better. Just about what it was after taking off the cover but without the pink slime! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday was raining so didn't get to brush and vacumm and the FC level stayed up so only added 1-2 gals all day. Today with the sun out its been more, but that's okay with me. Its clearing. With vacumming to waste, I had to fill up the pool a couple of times also. So maybe with replacing the water helps the process along too. This has been great, I feel like I'm in control for once with this thing. I'm learning alot too. At one point today the FC level was 8 ppm so I tested PH and it was 7.2 so that's good.

The only thing I'm alittle worried about is getting this guy to come back to change the sand when the conversion is done. He might not consider it a priority for him and may delay the ending. He tried to explain the procedure to me, but I'm too afraid to mess with it. But I'll deal, maybe even break down and call the pool store people to come out and do it.

I'll see how the FC levels hold tonight.

Thanks again!

Deb

 

[JasonLion]

That is great!

 

[debjan]

Tested FC this morning............15PPM!!!! It held! :-D

Now that I can really see the bottom, I brushed off the walls of alittle stuff that I didn't catch yesterday, I'm going to put in my auto bug vacuum to work on the bottom stuff and vacuum through filter now, not waste, since I think most of this junk is out now. Plus my water bill is going to be tremendous. I'm going to keep on this chlorine level one more day also. Then call my guy up to come change out the sand. Does this sound right?

This was so easy and I'm so very happy I found this site. From what the pool store guys told me about converting last year, I thought I would be going through a tremendous amount of work to convert and that terrible things were going to happen, to the pool, me, my family..... Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

I'll be heading over to the other threads to learn how to keep this pool balanced.

Deb

 

[JasonLion]

Congratulations! Your plan sounds very good.