Hi all!
This is a long story but i will try to keep the intro short. Around 6 weeks ago i decided it was time to get off the couch and dive into (not literally) the cleanup/startup of our 18x48 Intex pool. Last year we have a great time with this, had a couple of algae outbreaks while i was out of town/on vacation and went through a case of paper cartridge filters (i was rinsing a few times and throwing away). After the season was over, instead of draining the pool and putting it up i decided to leave it up over the South Texas winter. Uncovered... lol Well by February it was black...i mean really gross looking. I wish i would have taken pictures. Mind you this is all Pre-TroubleFreePool discovery. Instead of attempting to filter all of that stuff out of my little cartridge filter (which i felt was on its last leg anyways) We went ahead and drained as much water as we could, leaving about 4 inches of water. This left all of the leaves, sticks and whatever else was in there easily accessible. After scooping out as much as we could and giving up with trying to siphon the rest of the water out we went ahead and refilled the pool.
At this point, the pool was still a dark dark green. I went ahead and removed the filter element out of the intex baby filter and started dumping 1LB bags of shock in there daily. After about a week we went from dark green to light green. At the end of that week though, the pump sounded really bad...so i decided to invest in a Intex Crystal clear sand and salt system. Found a killer deal on amazon and pulled the trigger. When it finally came in about a week later (the pool still green and still treating with shock bags). I got the salt added and filter setup. Power this puppy on and started running it non-stop. This is about the time i found Troublefreepool.com. After reading through hundreds of pages and dozens of articles, i was very concerned with what i had done up to this point...Especially the CYA levels, of which i had no way of knowing what they were...after what must have been no less then 12 1LB bags of shock. I also read that copper was not that great either so I promptly unplugged the ion generator and left the SWG and filter running 24x7. At this point i yanked all pucks and stopped shocking the pool with Trichlor. I also ordered the TF100 kit.
Fast forward to today. It finally came in and now i can official start my SLAM, officially abandoning the pour and pray method.
Here are my first official test results.
CYA=100 (Not near as bad as i was expecting)
FC=55.5 (whoa!)
CC=2
TC=57.5
This to me was nuts..i definitely expected the CYA to be high, but the FC? I really thought i would be running low but i guess because the SWG/filter has been running for at least 2 weeks straight it has actually kept the pool at what PoolMath says is the Mustard Algae shock value...I know this is probably not that great for the SWG plates but still..wow....
At this point i am going to drain approximately 30 percent of the water to get my CYA down to 70 and maintain shock level until the SLAM is completed. There may be a few days between updates on here but please feel free to offer advice on anything you think i have missed.
Thank all of you for the great information on this site!
This is a long story but i will try to keep the intro short. Around 6 weeks ago i decided it was time to get off the couch and dive into (not literally) the cleanup/startup of our 18x48 Intex pool. Last year we have a great time with this, had a couple of algae outbreaks while i was out of town/on vacation and went through a case of paper cartridge filters (i was rinsing a few times and throwing away). After the season was over, instead of draining the pool and putting it up i decided to leave it up over the South Texas winter. Uncovered... lol Well by February it was black...i mean really gross looking. I wish i would have taken pictures. Mind you this is all Pre-TroubleFreePool discovery. Instead of attempting to filter all of that stuff out of my little cartridge filter (which i felt was on its last leg anyways) We went ahead and drained as much water as we could, leaving about 4 inches of water. This left all of the leaves, sticks and whatever else was in there easily accessible. After scooping out as much as we could and giving up with trying to siphon the rest of the water out we went ahead and refilled the pool.
At this point, the pool was still a dark dark green. I went ahead and removed the filter element out of the intex baby filter and started dumping 1LB bags of shock in there daily. After about a week we went from dark green to light green. At the end of that week though, the pump sounded really bad...so i decided to invest in a Intex Crystal clear sand and salt system. Found a killer deal on amazon and pulled the trigger. When it finally came in about a week later (the pool still green and still treating with shock bags). I got the salt added and filter setup. Power this puppy on and started running it non-stop. This is about the time i found Troublefreepool.com. After reading through hundreds of pages and dozens of articles, i was very concerned with what i had done up to this point...Especially the CYA levels, of which i had no way of knowing what they were...after what must have been no less then 12 1LB bags of shock. I also read that copper was not that great either so I promptly unplugged the ion generator and left the SWG and filter running 24x7. At this point i yanked all pucks and stopped shocking the pool with Trichlor. I also ordered the TF100 kit.
Fast forward to today. It finally came in and now i can official start my SLAM, officially abandoning the pour and pray method.
Here are my first official test results.
CYA=100 (Not near as bad as i was expecting)
FC=55.5 (whoa!)
CC=2
TC=57.5
This to me was nuts..i definitely expected the CYA to be high, but the FC? I really thought i would be running low but i guess because the SWG/filter has been running for at least 2 weeks straight it has actually kept the pool at what PoolMath says is the Mustard Algae shock value...I know this is probably not that great for the SWG plates but still..wow....
At this point i am going to drain approximately 30 percent of the water to get my CYA down to 70 and maintain shock level until the SLAM is completed. There may be a few days between updates on here but please feel free to offer advice on anything you think i have missed.
Thank all of you for the great information on this site!