Do Not add anything to a cartridge filter. Those items are intended to be tried on a sand filter.
Pool clean up - 3 weeks in and stalled
- Thread starter Camman
- Start date
wmorge
0
It get's clearer day by day .. so let's hope by the 4th of July we have a Crystal Clear Oasis. : )
It's powdered cellulose and sold under various names. Purifiber was just the best option for me because of the price. It was around 50-55 $$ delivered for a 25# bag. Sparlke Up (cellulose, same thing) is a Biogaurd product and sells for 28-30 $$ for 1.5 pounds. Dosage is up to 8 cups per 100 sq. ft. of filter area. I use 10-12 cups and my pressure stays right about clean pressure. Of course I start with clean/hosed off carts. You don't have to mix it into a slurry before application but I give mine a littles stir while it's mixing up in the skimmer. I wait until all the spring "junk" is done blowing off the trees before I use it. If you were closer I'd give you some because I got lots!
Just wanted to come full circle on this post - my pool is finally clear. I purchased some "HTH Super Concentrated Clarifier" from Walmart, started putting some in last Sunday night. Monday the pool was noticeably clearer. Added again Monday night, again marked improvement. Put in a 3rd dose Tuesday and by Wednesday the pool was swimmably clear. I added a 4th and final dose to take away the remaining slight haziness and now my pool is crystal clear.
In between these doses I was taking the cartridge out and cleaning off the congealed muck. It seems to me that the particles were just too fine for the filter and needed the clarifier to bulk them up to filter it out. I was pulling my hair out with frustration once my chemistry looked really good and chlorine was holding over night, it really required the clarifier to get the filter to clean up the cloudiness. Perhaps with some additional time it would've cleared up without the clarify but given my short summer I couldn't wait any longer once the cleanup was going into week 4.
But I learned some important lessons with this opening:
1) Properly close/cover your pool AT ALL COSTS. Having a newborn baby is not a good excuse unless you want to spend the first month of your next summer scooping gunk out and cleaning up your pool
2) Cartridge filters = go big or go home. Once I swapped from the 40 sq. ft. Easy-Clear to the 150 sq. ft. XStream I noticed a big difference in time between the flow being significantly reduced during the clean up. the Easy-Clear would clog within hours, the XStream would need to be cleaned daily at the beginning, then every couple of days, and now I think it will run for quite a while without requiring cleaning, but I'll check it in a week or so.
3) BBB works fantastic but sometimes clarifier also has its place. BBB helped me kill all the algae and get my pool blue again but I was holding the pool at shock level for weeks and it did not start to clear up the cloudiness until I dosed it with some clarifier. So, I can see where clarifier is avoided so that people are not "hiding" existing problems with bad water chemistry, but, with perfect chemistry, no overnight chlorine loss, and a short summer, in my particular situation the clarifier helped me get over that final cloudiness hurdle in a few days and allow my filter to do it's job. Again, perhaps with several more weeks the pool would've cleared without the clarifier but I just could not wait any longer with our New England blink-of-an-eye length summers!
Thanks again everyone, and with my newfound minor pool wisdom and understanding of BBB I can hopefully keep my pool running great through the rest of the season and maybe offer some advice to some other folks around TFP!
In between these doses I was taking the cartridge out and cleaning off the congealed muck. It seems to me that the particles were just too fine for the filter and needed the clarifier to bulk them up to filter it out. I was pulling my hair out with frustration once my chemistry looked really good and chlorine was holding over night, it really required the clarifier to get the filter to clean up the cloudiness. Perhaps with some additional time it would've cleared up without the clarify but given my short summer I couldn't wait any longer once the cleanup was going into week 4.
But I learned some important lessons with this opening:
1) Properly close/cover your pool AT ALL COSTS. Having a newborn baby is not a good excuse unless you want to spend the first month of your next summer scooping gunk out and cleaning up your pool
2) Cartridge filters = go big or go home. Once I swapped from the 40 sq. ft. Easy-Clear to the 150 sq. ft. XStream I noticed a big difference in time between the flow being significantly reduced during the clean up. the Easy-Clear would clog within hours, the XStream would need to be cleaned daily at the beginning, then every couple of days, and now I think it will run for quite a while without requiring cleaning, but I'll check it in a week or so.
3) BBB works fantastic but sometimes clarifier also has its place. BBB helped me kill all the algae and get my pool blue again but I was holding the pool at shock level for weeks and it did not start to clear up the cloudiness until I dosed it with some clarifier. So, I can see where clarifier is avoided so that people are not "hiding" existing problems with bad water chemistry, but, with perfect chemistry, no overnight chlorine loss, and a short summer, in my particular situation the clarifier helped me get over that final cloudiness hurdle in a few days and allow my filter to do it's job. Again, perhaps with several more weeks the pool would've cleared without the clarifier but I just could not wait any longer with our New England blink-of-an-eye length summers!
Thanks again everyone, and with my newfound minor pool wisdom and understanding of BBB I can hopefully keep my pool running great through the rest of the season and maybe offer some advice to some other folks around TFP!
wmorge
0
