Hi everyone,
A little background. I knew nothing about pools 3 weeks ago. I bought my house back in December and it was a foreclosure. Very nice house that was well taken care of. The pool was closed for 2 seasons and the people sold the pool heater.
The neighbors have pools and a couple of them use a local guy (not pool store) to close their pool. I had this guy open my pool since it was a bit cheaper, he also did the pipe work to bypass where there wasnt a heater anymore..
Per my signature - 2005 pool, 26' Octagon, IG Pool, ~16gal, 5-5 1/2' deep, Liner, Sand Filter, Polaris Salt system, 3/4hp Pump. I don't have any paperwork on anything. I called the pool company that put the pool in and they gave me the dimensions and about how deep. I called back a couple days ago because I was unsure how many gallons, the girl did not check any paperwork this time and told me "Roughly 16000 gallons."
Here's what the pool looked like when we took the cover off:
(May 18) Still knew nothing about pools but started learning a ton after this point.
Here was 3 days later (May 21 - my 23rd bday )
I believe at this point I had poured in 2x 5gal jugs of liquid shock, per the pool opening guy. Then a few days later for the next week I put in 4-5 1lb bags of powder super shock all together and had a chlorine tablet in my skimmer basket (neighbor's suggestion).
May 24
I believe my vaccuum, net and all my pool stuff arrived in the mail around this time but I hadnt used it yet besides maybe scrubbing the walls and scooping junk out. I've had the skimmer going the whole time sucking tons of junk up and I was emptying it all the time along with backwashing the filter.
May 26 - I believe I tried to vaccuum a little but was too cloudy to see much
Since it had started to clear up and was more blue than green, I took a water sample to one the local pool places. (I have the results somewhere) The younger girl there tested my water and wanted to sell me $240 worth of stuff! 350lb of salt, some TA booster, and stabilizer? The whole time she was telling me that I should convert my pool back to chlorine too :| so I told her I'm going to talk to a friend before I bought anything (since I didnt trust her at all!). She was going off my pool being 20-22k gallons according to her math (I did not know how many gallons it was at this time).
Everyone you talk to has a different story of what to do, so its been a bit frustrating trying to figure out what to do (Before I knew about this site). My one neighbor has been super helpful with everything since i've moved in but he has a chlorine pool so hes only been able to tell me so much with mine. Another friend kept telling me to try Floc to clear up the cloudyness.
May 29 - I put this in in the afternoon, let the pump go for a couple hours and turned it off
May 30 - Next afternoon after work, Able to see where the black junk is settled at the bottom! I started to vacuum
May 31 - Vacuuming more
June 1 - Finally yesterday (it stormed bad the night before)
Probably still a little cloudy. So what's my next step? I don't have a test kit and that's probably something I need to order online, so I guess I'll have a pool store test my water again. I've already learned I can buy solar salt for much much cheaper, but i'm sure they'll want to sell my Alkalinity booster which will probably be $20-30. I also have no clue how much salt to buy/put in. I dont even know how to use my SWG and haven't found a manual online for it yet.
Thanks for any pointers
A little background. I knew nothing about pools 3 weeks ago. I bought my house back in December and it was a foreclosure. Very nice house that was well taken care of. The pool was closed for 2 seasons and the people sold the pool heater.
The neighbors have pools and a couple of them use a local guy (not pool store) to close their pool. I had this guy open my pool since it was a bit cheaper, he also did the pipe work to bypass where there wasnt a heater anymore..
Per my signature - 2005 pool, 26' Octagon, IG Pool, ~16gal, 5-5 1/2' deep, Liner, Sand Filter, Polaris Salt system, 3/4hp Pump. I don't have any paperwork on anything. I called the pool company that put the pool in and they gave me the dimensions and about how deep. I called back a couple days ago because I was unsure how many gallons, the girl did not check any paperwork this time and told me "Roughly 16000 gallons."
Here's what the pool looked like when we took the cover off:
(May 18) Still knew nothing about pools but started learning a ton after this point.
Here was 3 days later (May 21 - my 23rd bday )
I believe at this point I had poured in 2x 5gal jugs of liquid shock, per the pool opening guy. Then a few days later for the next week I put in 4-5 1lb bags of powder super shock all together and had a chlorine tablet in my skimmer basket (neighbor's suggestion).
May 24
I believe my vaccuum, net and all my pool stuff arrived in the mail around this time but I hadnt used it yet besides maybe scrubbing the walls and scooping junk out. I've had the skimmer going the whole time sucking tons of junk up and I was emptying it all the time along with backwashing the filter.
May 26 - I believe I tried to vaccuum a little but was too cloudy to see much
Since it had started to clear up and was more blue than green, I took a water sample to one the local pool places. (I have the results somewhere) The younger girl there tested my water and wanted to sell me $240 worth of stuff! 350lb of salt, some TA booster, and stabilizer? The whole time she was telling me that I should convert my pool back to chlorine too :| so I told her I'm going to talk to a friend before I bought anything (since I didnt trust her at all!). She was going off my pool being 20-22k gallons according to her math (I did not know how many gallons it was at this time).
Everyone you talk to has a different story of what to do, so its been a bit frustrating trying to figure out what to do (Before I knew about this site). My one neighbor has been super helpful with everything since i've moved in but he has a chlorine pool so hes only been able to tell me so much with mine. Another friend kept telling me to try Floc to clear up the cloudyness.
May 29 - I put this in in the afternoon, let the pump go for a couple hours and turned it off
May 30 - Next afternoon after work, Able to see where the black junk is settled at the bottom! I started to vacuum
May 31 - Vacuuming more
June 1 - Finally yesterday (it stormed bad the night before)
Probably still a little cloudy. So what's my next step? I don't have a test kit and that's probably something I need to order online, so I guess I'll have a pool store test my water again. I've already learned I can buy solar salt for much much cheaper, but i'm sure they'll want to sell my Alkalinity booster which will probably be $20-30. I also have no clue how much salt to buy/put in. I dont even know how to use my SWG and haven't found a manual online for it yet.
Thanks for any pointers