Flood water in pool. Need help please.

[kbp911]

Howdy folks , long time reader, first time poster.
We recently had about 3 inches of rain dumped on us in about an hour and my beautiful, clean and chemical balanced pool was hit with flood water from the surrounding ground. All that work down the drain.
I have a in ground roman style pool that holds about 28,000 gallons.
I was able to pump off (using the backwash cycle of my sand filter) about 2000 gallons to bring the water from the rim back to the middle of the skimmers. The water is now however brown and I am not sure what to do to fix this.
I am now running the sand filter and back washing that every 60 minutes or so to prevent mud (muddy water) forming layers inside the filter. I will dump 2 or 3 gallons of liquid chlorine in it before bedtime and I do have a few bottles of clarifier that I can use but I need someone to tell me if this is the right thing or not.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

 

[MiaOKC]

I've been there. Hang on, you will get your pool back, it will just take patience and a truckload of bleach. I'll link to my thread from when our pool was mudded out in the early summer from flood water. I will say it looks like you might have more solids in your pool than I did, it looks like a lot of mulch or leaves or something might have gotten in. So I would also add vacuuming or running your robot (even if you can't see what you're doing) to the process. Here's what I did (I see I never added a final "after" photo, I need to do that.)

pool-mudded-out-after-10-rain-t62185.html

 

[kbp911]

Thanks for your link. It sounds as if you had about the same issue as we do right now.
I just dumped what I had which was 2.5 gallons of liquid chlorine 12.5% and will get more tomorrow.
I also just backwashed the sand filter after only 1 hour of use and I am glad I did. The water coming out did appear to be very dark. I will continue this process.
Is now a good time for the clarifier or would you wait. Also what do you think of the filter schedule I am using. Too much backwashing or not enough?
Thanks again for your help.

 

[MiaOKC]

I think the sand filter water will be dark as long as the pool water is dark ... stands to reason. But I'm no expert there. For me, I was not nearly as aggressive with backwashing as you are - as long as the pump was running I didn't worry about mud forming a solid in the pump. Sometimes in the process I even shut the pump off 2-7pm because our utility company charges variable pricing during those hours. I watched my filter pressure and when it rose where I was getting nervous, I backwashed. There used to be one recommendation on when to backwash (I think it was when it got to a certain PSI over clean pressure reading, maybe 5 psi higher?) and now it's different - you should backwash when PSI raises 25% over clean. I never remember. My gauge was broken for almost a year, so I kind of learned to tell by ear and feel (at the returns) when to backwash.

Now that I have a new working pressure gauge, I'd say I might have done it a few times throughout the course of the two week clear-up, and of course, vac to waste is a thorough scrub of the sand, and I did that twice. Maybe 4-6 times total, watching the gauge to tell when it was necessary, over the course of two weeks including my vacuuming.

 

[MiaOKC]

Oh, and on clarifier - ultimately I don't think it helped me at all, but I felt better for having done it (and DH was insistent!), so if you want to do that, I'd go ahead and add a bottle now if that quantity is the treatment for your pool. Maybe it will make the mud particles "stickier" and they will settle to the bottom faster - that's what I'd hoped. It really will take the vacuuming to make the pool clear, and you can't effectively vacuum until the particles land on the bottom. That takes time and gravity. Because I was shocking, I wanted to circulate the bleach and so didn't let it all settle as fast as it might have had there been no circulation. I calculated the opportunity cost of algae outbreak to longer clear time, and decided to stick with the circulation and longer timeline. One disaster at a time!

Do you know your CYA and shock level for your pool?

 

[kbp911]

Before the flood water I knew what it was but I am sure itis different now. I will test it later however, if the water is already cloudy the small black dot at the bottom will disappear sooner than it should. In any case I will test it and figure it today. I have 2.5 gallons of chlorine in there but will grab a few cases later.
In other news....my pool pictures made the local (Columbus) news. They had a conversation about what I was going to do and think I should drain/refill. Nah, not at 800.00 for the water alone.
Thanks again

 

[MiaOKC]

You're famous! Not exactly the way you'd ever hoped, I bet.

In our area, lots of pools flooded in the same rain event, and I actually heard a psychic on the radio (guesting on a regular drive time show) a few days later advise a drain and refill of a flooded pool. Evidently psychics give advice on pool maintenance now! It was so hard to hold my tongue the couple of times I had to go into the pool store in that time period. There was always someone in talking about their flooded pool and listening to the pool store guys throw everything plus the kitchen sink at them made me cringe.

You are quite welcome, and good luck.

 

[Patrick_B]

Oh man, my heart goes out to you. It gave me a sick feeling just seeing it from here. It's so unfair, we can't hardly get a drop of rain here and it floods in so many other places. I'll be checking in to see how it goes. Best wishes on a quick recovery.

 

[Donldson]

kbp911, I'm assuming you mean Columbus Ohio? If so did you have any more problems on Thursday? I'm hearing a lot about more flooding just north of there, wondering how you are doing.

 

[kbp911]

Thanks Brushpup for the wishes!
Donldson, yes I am north east from the city of Columbus (OH) and yes the other storm that came through the other day was also hard however I did not have any additional flooding from that. My brother in law is in Hayes KS and is also in a level 4 drought there. I am very sorry for you guys.
I actually made a mistake and drained too much water from the top. if I had to do this over again I would only take it down to below the top of the liner and top of skimmer area. I have had to backwash several times so far to make sure the sand filter does not get clogged. This takes an additional 40-50 gallons each time out. I have had to put my garden hose in to top it off each day to get it to middle of the skimmer. Ironic isn't it.
It is high noon here and I can make out the floor drains in the deep end. 9 gallons of Chlorine bleach, 1 gallon hydrochloric acid, (ph was over 9 ???) 1 bottle of clarifier, finally non stop filtering and sweeping. My water is a green color however I am at shock level of at least 25 ppm chlorine with CYA at 50 with about 27,000 pool. It can't be algae can it??
Thanks everyone, I appreciate your help and thoughts!
Any suggestion to add to what I am doing PLEASE feel free to tell me.
p.s. I'll take any sugestion to add to what I am already doing.

 

[Prof100]

Same thing happened to me a month ago and it was easy to fix. Here's what I did:

1. Dumped in 2 gal of bleach to raise FC while the pump was off.
2. Placed the multiport valve on the filter to the recirculate position.
3. Poured two bottles of clarifier(floc) in the skimmer.
4. Let the pump run for two hours.
5. Shut the pump off.

The next day, water was crystal clear and all the mud was on the bottom.

6. Vacuum to waste until the water level got too low.
7. Filled pool back up(about 2") and started vacuuming to waste again. I had to repeat this one more time to get it all vacuumed up. It took two days and the water was perfect.

I can't see any reason why this wouldn't work for you.

 

[Prof100]

Just wanted to add this: My pool builder told me to not bother with the floc, that the mud would go to the bottom if you turned the filter off. He was right. Make sure to not let water return to the pool until it's mostly clear. Hope this helps.

 

[kbp911]

prof100 I never even thought about NOT running the pump. It makes perfect sense though and I am doing that tonight. I will try sweeping it again tomorrow and see what happens. I can see the bottom of the entire pool now. I have a lot of debris to clean up but at least I can see what I am up against!.

 

[MiaOKC]

Would love to hear if that method works for you, kpb! We did put a whole bottle of clarifier in our pool the first day we started to work to clear it, at about noon, ran the pump a few hours to circulate the clarifier, and turned the pump off. We left the pump off overnight and into the next day, but didn't notice that it had appreciably settled or that the water was any clearer, so we ended up with our combination of circ, shock and vac. But if keeping the pump off might make the process go more quickly, I'd love to know for next time!

 

[kbp911]

I just got back inside after sweeping the entire pool. I can clearly see the bottom now and I am amazed on how much junk was at down there. I just gave the pump a major workout but things seem to be working.
Next step 2 more gallons of liquid chlorine (level dropped to 9 but combined is still 0. I think 0 is a good thing?) pump on and it's a waiting game.
I can post this in another forum but, is anyone an expert on the Hayward salt generator system? I have the T-15 cell and keep getting the check salt level light to flash. I know how to reset the instant salt level but have to do this each day to trick the system into thinking there is proper amount of salt. I do have a handheld digital salt meter that was just calibrated the other day and is spot on so I know the cell is telling the board the wrong info.
Any suggestions?
Thanks again

 

[zea3]

Have you added any salt since the flood water receded?

 

[kbp911]

Not yet. I was waiting on the water to become clear so I can turn on the generator. I had a level of 3200 before the flood hit per the digital meter. Now with the addition of all the water and me backwashing, I am certain it is lower.