Newb! New home owner with unused pool for 7 years!

[J.denius]

Hello all,
We have recently purchased a house with a inground pool. I was told by the previous owner and the neighbor that the liner was replaced 8 years ago, used one season and hasn't been used since then. The pool is VERY VERY green, with a ton of tadpoles and frogs. It's like having a orchestra of frogs at night!

I decided the first step would be to see if the pump would work so I removed all the plugs, and was able to get the pump to prime. After a few mins of running I decided I should disassemble the filter and clean it. Now that that is all done and I know is working, I am stuck at this point....

What should I do!
When I run a net across the bottom of the pool there is prob 6" of sludge in the shallow end. Some people are telling me I should drain it. Which I am worried about all the horror story's involved with that.... I have also been told to let that pump run and try to skim as much as possible, shock the ever living stuff out of it to try to get the water clear enough that I feel comfortable enough to get in and try to clean the bottom of the pool off...

I am hoping that there is some people who have been in the situation I am and and can offer some guidance!

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Isaac-1]

It is a hard call, but if it were mine and if it were in the budget I would drain it and replace the liner then start clean. A high quality premium liner can last 10-15 years maybe more with proper care and balanced chemistry, a cheap liner with poor chemistry can be shot in less than half that time. So even if by some chance that water has fairly neuatral pH and their has been no significant chemical aging it is still likely well past middle age.

If you do decide to clean it up, we have lots of reference for you to read, and lots of swamp to clean stories with photos to prove it to show that our methods work. The first step though is getting all that gunk out of the bottom, until then there is no sense wasting chlorine on it as it would be like trying to swim upstream against a raging river.

Ike