Pea green and frustrated

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G

graler

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LifeTime Supporter
Jul 17, 2014
114
Cedar Park, TX
I have posted here before and had my mind set on waiting until this swim season was over and doing the conversion upon opening next spring. My pool is a green mess. We have dumped and dumped the baquacrap in, vacuumed and brushed over and over again. No progress.

Here is the question. Stop the fight or at least minimize it or do the conversion now? It will be likely convert and then close the pool. Will the green stuff stop growing when the water temp reaches 60? I a not sure when this will happen in Texas but it is probably not that far away.
 
It's your choice. If you're ready and have done your homework (read the conversion articles in Pool School) you can tackle it now. It will be fairly easy to maintain your pool over the winter.

Your other option is just to let it go and convert in the Spring. You'll probably use more chlorine and the process will be slower.

My choice would be to get it now and be ready to swim in the spring.

I would consider leaving your pool open all winter in your climate
 
Ok so now the questions really start. I have my test kits ordered they are not here yet. I do have a Leslie's fas/dpd so I can test my chlorine levels.

Once I drain it down (to a couple of feet) and refill I am assuming I will need to get my PH right then dive into the conversion process. The process should be significantly shortened given the drain and refill. Is this a correct assumption?
 
I am not sure as this is not something I have dealt with BUT it seems as if that should be the case.

I wonder if you having a sand filter will mean anything? Do you need to open it up and flush it real good? I bet there is a answer on here somewhere LOL. I will try a search for you in a few.

Kim
 
I will clean the sand filter once in get my FC to stabilize at 15ppm with less than 1 ppm drop overnight. That is my understanding from the conversion threads. I will have chlorine getting consumed by the baquacil and the algae that is currently present in the pool. First things first - drain to a foot or so of water remaining. Then fill it back up. Get the PH in the 7.4 range and then its time for bleach and up to 15 ppm. I expect that to be sometime Sunday. I am shooting for Sunday evening.
 

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So far it seems like you've got a good game plan set for your conversion. The conversation will go MUCH smoother as you have drained the water down and got rid of alot of the Baqua in the water. You will still have some work ahead of you however. The best advice I can give you is to raise the FC to 15 as often as you can at first, and brush the heck out of the pool. Every light, ladder, return, and skimmer you brush will speed up the process. I even went as far as hitting every crack with a toothbrush when I could reach. You'll be amazed just where that gunk is hiding. :(

Seeing you have a sand filter, you will want to change the sand once the conversation is over. There's no getting around this in my mind. The conversation will create a ton of "BaquaGoo" that is rather sticky and will give you fits in the future. Do NOT however change the sand before you can pass the OCLT. Wait towards the very end to avoid putting that BaquaGoo into your clean sand. :D

Have I mentioned you need to brush alot! Good luck on the conversation! You won't regret it!
 
Ok we are underway. Drained down to about a foot of water remaining. Now starting to refill. So I did a little thinking on my feet. I hope it will not turn out to bite me. I figured roughly the amount of water I had left in the pool - about 1000 gallons. Went to pool math and set it for 1000 gallons and did the calculation to bring me from 0 FC to 15 FC. It was about 23 oz. I took a bucket poured in 23 oz of 8.25 bleach and diluted it with water. Dumped it in the pool. Figured that I do not have to wait until it is completely full to start the conversion. I will have a hose running all night keeping the water moving - not as much as the pump but not stagnate either. Probably will not make much difference given that I am adding water as well. It is in the very least a moral victory and a start of the next phase.

So any predictions how long this conversion will take given that I have drained about 93% of the baquacil water out?

By the way it is nice to have inquisitive neighbors. One of them noticed the water running all day yesterday and today. He stopped by to make sure I new something was running or draining.
 
I have to say that when you do something you do it all the way! Good start!


There is no real way to say how long it will take. Every pool is different. You have already done so much of the work by draining off most of the water that it should not take long at all but.....................who knows how long? Not I.

Good for the neighbors. I have turned off many of overflows for my neighbors when they forgot to turn off the water filling the horse's water troughs. The bad thing is that I cannot really see it from my house as I live on 6.5 acres and their house is at the front of their property and my house is at the back. It is not until I hear the horses playing in the mud that I know something is going on! The horses love to play in the mud LOL

Kim
 
By replacing almost all of the water with fresh the conversion should go rather quickly, depending how hard you hit it. There is still Baqua hidden in the plumbing and such, however the majority will be removed by your drain/refill. Again, the more you can brush the pool the faster it will go.
 
Last night was the night of pretty colors - kind of a yellow green. It appears that my gallon calc has been off all along. So I corrected that but after I added the chlorine for the higher number. I let it filter all night. Got up this morning to a very unexpected surprise. I have never seen the water this clear. All of the cloud is gone. The bad part is my test kit isn't here. I have a Leslies DPD kit but I have not been able to get a result - always clear for the FC test - even when I do the 1.8ml of pool water and 7.2 distilled. I am afraid my chlorine is off the chart. I will likely have to resort to a pool store test just to get an idea. If they have an OTO kit I might buy that. It is still cheaper than what I would have spent on baquacil.
 
I'd doubt that your FC levels are high. My gut says that they'll read zero. It's VERY common to drop to zero in your FC levels after several hours of no testing. I'd wait until you can test with a FAS/DPD test to verify before going much further.

Do you have a date when it's set to arrive?
 
I just got home from the pool store. Leebo is the winner. My levels are low. FC looks to be in .5 range. I lept past the obvious this morning. I immediately jumped to the 4.5 pool water and 4.5 distilled water test. I will retest with 9ml of pool water with a standard DPD drop based FC test to confirm before I load it up to 15 ppm again. I am learning so much. My Tf-100 was shipped yesterday. I do not expect to see it til the end of the week.
 
FC test not behaving as expected

I just got my brand new TF-100 test kit today. I also went all out and got the auto-stir.

Here is my situation. I am doing a baquacil conversion. I drained 90% and refilled so most of yuck is gone. I have used pool math to determine how much bleach to add to get from 0 to 15ppm (283 oz). My FC test was a guess until tonight given that I did not have my test kit. Now I do. I added chlorine and let it spread in the pool 30 - 45 minutes. Then I got my sample (10ml) added my heaping scoop of powder (R-0870) it turns pink - yeah!. Start the spinner. Begin adding drops. Clear at 5 drops. WTH? I just added just over 2 gallons of bleach. I expected to be adding drops until I reached almost 30 given that you multiply by .5 to get to 15. It couldn't have consumed that much in that short of time.

Ok so there is more. I ran a second test. This time same steps. It went clear at drops. (2 ppm). At least it is going down so if it is being consumed it is going the right way.

There is another twist. I know I am not concerned with CC right now - but I followed that anyway. 5 drops. - bright pink. Four drops to clear. That means that almost all of my chlorine is CC correct?

By the way my water is very clear I have never seen it look so good.

Please help. Do I need to order bleach by the 55 gallon drum?
 
Re: FC test not behaving as expected

That means that your FC is 2.5ppm or 2ppm (2nd test) and the CC is also 2ppm ... your TC would be 4ppm.
This is perfectly expected during at Baq conversion. That is why you test every 30-45 minutes at the start of the conversion. As time goes on, you will find that the CC drops and the FC starts to hold higher.

Keep the faith. It works. :goodjob:
 

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