Frustrated in Florida (with pics)

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L

lzajac

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Sep 8, 2008
21
Hi....Let me begin by saying that I started this conversion 2 weeks ago today with the "help" of my local pool store. As I said, I'm now 2 weeks in and still have a green pool. Please help me. I bought a test kit from the store and am able to test, but it's not the really good kit that you all suggest. So I took a sample of my water, again, this morning and here are the latest numbers.
TC: 0.0
FC:0.0
CC: 0.0
pH: 7.0
Base Demand: 9
TA: 125
CH: 245
Stabilizer: 40
Total Dissolved Solids: 1450

I've dumped three 2.5 gallons of chlorine in since Friday and now the store tells me... 2 more today plus a bag of stop yellow (keeping 3 tablets in the pool/chlorinator as well) and then another jug on Tuesday, Wed bring in a sample. I feel like I'm going nowhere FAST! They say I may have an algae problem that is keeping the pool from holding the chlorine. Any suggestions? I could really use some and a little encouragement. :?

BTW.....my pool is a 24ft round above ground (12-13000 gallons), cartridge filter
Not sure what other info to add, again, please help a florida girl out. Thanks!

IMGP1288.jpg
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

HI we are here :wave:
First go to "Pool School" from the Home Page,"GETTING HELP","Read This BEFORE you Post".
This will get your posting up to date.
Next you have pretty much nothing in the pool at this point.
As most will chime in soon and tell you we need a full set of numbers as you'll find in the above reading.
What we need most is a CYA reading to figure out how much bleach to use. but for now stop putting all chemicals in the water except for bleach. I would start with 3-4 gallons of bleach until you get a reading on your testing supplies then continue to add bleach until you reach 15 -20m ppm
then start work on bringing up the pH to 7.5-7.8.
More help is on the way.

jb :monkey: :monkey:
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

Thanks for your suggestions. I can use all the help I can get. I've been reading the various posts on here for several weeks and am much more informed than ever just from this website. It's really good to know that I'm not the only one going through this with their pool.
The numbers I posted are from the pool store this morning and, yes, it does look like there's very little in the pool. I posted the stabilizer numbers (40), isn't that the same thing as CYA? Let me know and thanks for helping.
:)
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

Sorry, I just re-read your post your stabilizer is your CYA. and 40 is a good place to be.
By the "pool calculator" your shock number is 15ppm. so you need 3+ gallons of bleach.
(regular house hold 6% bleach). Add all at once and brush then check for levels, add as necessary to get to 15 ppm.
Then relax and be patient, you don't need to add any other chemical right now.
Just vacuum, brush, and check the FC level every hour or so to see if it's holding ( buy more than 3 gallons of bleach maybe 6-9 for starters) Keep the pump running 24/7 and back wash when the pressure hits 10-15 psi over normal.
Keep in mind the pH will give false readings when the FC is at shock levels.
we'll check back to see how your doing.
jb :monkey:
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

monkeywrench said:
Sorry, I just re-read your post your stabilizer is your CYA. and 40 is a good place to be.
By the "pool calculator" your shock number is 15ppm. so you need 3+ gallons of bleach.
(regular house hold 6% bleach). Add all at once and brush then check for levels, add as necessary to get to 15 ppm.
Then relax and be patient, you don't need to add any other chemical right now.
Just vacuum, brush, and check the FC level every hour or so to see if it's holding ( buy more than 3 gallons of bleach maybe 6-9 for starters) Keep the pump running 24/7 and back wash when the pressure hits 10-15 psi over normal.
Keep in mind the pH will give false readings when the FC is at shock levels.
we'll check back to see how your doing.
jb :monkey:
Click to expand...

Sorry again :oops: I didn't realize you were doing a conversion, :hammer: you are going to need tons of bleach.
I have no experience except reading the conversion post.it looks like to most recent one used
~48 gallons of bleach.
Maybe some of the conversion pros will chime in on Monday. Whats another day. At least you have the rest of the day to buy all the bleach in town :-D
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

Thanks for your help!
I have 3 jugs of 12.5% liquid chlorine here at the house. Since it is a higher concentrate, should I only add half of it? Also, is it better to add it in the evening because of the HOT FL sun? Thanks.
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

I would say the evening would be better since the sun would consume less of your money,
and half would be a good start then check then add to boost then check again.
But from what I have read here that once you start you have to keep going. I have noticed may conversion staying up most of the night and early morning just to keep their FC numbers up.
Have you read any of the other threads with in the Baquacil conversion topic. This may give you an idea of what you are up against.
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

Well......just for giggles, I added two more 2.5 gallon jugs of chlorine and my pool turned a rather interesting shade of brown (which I would post pictures of if I could figure out how!) The good news is that the tests I just ran (cheap kit and sticks) showed over 10+ fc. Woohoo. That's a first! Now what? :mrgreen:
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

Hey, Monkeywrench has given you a good start.

Like almost everyone who does this, it appears you are about to underestimate just how much chlorine it will take.

Each gallon of 12.5% you put in that pool will raise your FC by 10ppm. So, don't hesitate to put in 2 gallons (not jugs) and bring your FC to 20ppm. It will VERY quickly be consumed by the baqua and you will need to add more.

That's the secret to the conversion.....continue to test as many as three times daily and each time use the bleach calculator to bring your FC righ back up to 15+ppm.

As the baqua is killed off by the FC (and, in turn, the FC is consumed....don't overlook that) you will need less and less FC to get back to 15ppm.

The better you are at keeping the FC at 15+, the quicker your conversion will go.

Go buy as much bleach (or 12%) as you think you will need and then double it. It will not go to waste and YOU STILL PROBABLY WILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH.. :lol:
 
Re: Frustrated in Florida

Bleach, bleach, bleach......

My conversion took over 100 bottles. :wink:

During the day I tested every hour or so, and added probibly 2 bottles each time to keep it at 15. I kept this up until dark & started as soon as it was light enough to see.

When your water is clear & the clorine holds over night, you change your filter medium und you are done!!!

Good luck, keep your cool, and keep lugging bleach home from the store. :whip:
Aldi $1.09 per bottle, Walgreens has a sale right now B1G1, sometimes Freds has the large bottles on sale. Make sure that it is the 6% plain bleach.
The cashiers will give you puzzled looks; just smile...

Look at this post:
my-week-long-conversion-t9508.html
Great pictures from the color changes & one with a mountain of empty bleach bottles.
 

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Re: Frustrated in Florida

Thanks so much for the help...keep it coming. I need all I can get. Funny thing, I just added enough chlorine to FINALLY get fc up to 10+ and now it's POURING rain. :grrrr: This is how my conversion has gone all along!!!!! Just can't seem to win. But I'm feeling better now that I am getting help from this site. Thanks again.
Going to Publix to get more bleach tomorrow, on sale ($1.69 a gallon).
 
Use this pool calculator to figure out how much to use: http://www.poolcalculator.com/

My pool is 16x32 and I used 20 or so (fewer than 30) 96 oz-bottles of 6% bleach. Mine only took a few days to clear also, but I probably didn't have much BAQ in there.

Good luck!

Sue

ps - no need to add yellow-out or anything else, just keep adding bleach. If you can do it every 2 hours for a couple of days, it will hasten it along.
 
From the picture it looks like you are still in the middle of the conversion. Because you already added CYA, it is going to go a little slower than usual.

You should test the FC level and add bleach to bring the FC level up to between 20 and 25 as frequently as possible, up to once per hour. The more frequently you can test and add more bleach the sooner the conversion will be complete. You want to keep adding bleach to bring FC up till the FC level remains the same overnight.

Do you have a FAS-DPD chlorine test (powder turns the sample pink and then drops are added till it turns clear again)? The FC level remaining the same overnight test really only works with a FAS-DPD test kit.
 
I just ordered a TFtest kit,not sure when it will arrive, so for now I'm using the kit I have and test strips. The strips go up to 10 so I'm trying to keep it at that level as much as possible. Have to go to work tomorrow, but just bought 12 gallons of Clorox to use tonight and tomorrow pm, as needed. From what i've read, sounds like I'm gonna need lots more. I'll keep posting numbers as often as I can and pics. I'm wearing thin....been at this conversion for 2 weeks now (due to pool store). :grrrr:
The pool store told me to also use 3 pucks in a floater or chlorinator(?) which is a compartment on the side of our filter. I've been doing this, but now that I"ve pretty much convinced myself to use this site to convert...do I still need to make sure there are pucks in that automatic chlorinator compartment thingy? :lol:
 
Baquacil conversions can be an adventure. I encourage you to relax and enjoy the ride. Yes, you do need to buy and carry a lot of bleach, but in exchange you get to see your pool go through some colors you will never see anywhere else. After you are done it will just be a monotonous sparkling blue color, not the amazing range of colors you are likely to see for the next little while. :)
 
The pool store told me to also use 3 pucks in a floater or chlorinator(?) which is a compartment on the side of our filter. I've been doing this, but now that I"ve pretty much convinced myself to use this site to convert...do I still need to make sure there are pucks in that automatic chlorinator compartment thingy? :lol:
 
No, you have no use for the pucks for now.......let 'em dissolve and don't replace them.

Your kit will ship to you tomorrow (Thank you for the business! :lol: ) but I don't know where you live to estimate delivery. You'll get a DHL tracking number tomorrow afternoon giving you the delivery date.
 
Do not use the pucks only bleach. I also got frustrated with just bleach but pool is perfectly clear now and I am still doing the conversion. I have someone coming tomorrow to change out the sand filter and then I can get my cya where it needs to be. I used the bbb method before I used the baquacil but did not know it was this. I just used what worked in my pool at that time. I noticed that bleach and baking soda kept my pool clear. When I got algae I just overdosed with bleach. I just had a Wal-mart test kit then. I had a cartride filter at that time.

When I bought a new filtration system which is sand the pool store talked me in to using Baquacil which was great for the first 2 years then it started costing me more and more. This year alone since the weekend before Memorial Day I have spent upwards of $1600 on pool chemicals still with a cloudy green pool so I decided 2 weeks ago that I would switch back to Chlorine, (actually Bleach). I started the process on the Friday before Labor Day and now my pool is beautiful. (NO REGRETS)

Susan
 
I had a similar experience with Baquacil. The store that sold us the pool talked us into Baq. BIG mistake. I've regretted it ever since. The first year was fine (expensive, but fine). No algae problems, pretty water. Then came the algae, pink, green, brown, you name it. I've been dumping in soft swim products all summer and always had algae. So 2 weeks ago I changed pool stores and decided to convert to chlorine. They had me put in shock and swim for 3 days, then do it again for another 3 days. So there was the first week of conversion and not a drop of chlorine added. This week I'd had enough and told them that I wasn't putting anymore shock and swim in, which they wanted me to do AGAIN, so they agreed to give me some chlorine. They told me that if I added too much my pool would turn to jello. :shock:
Well after many trips to the pool store and a green pool all week, I decided to try this sites conversion method. I've been reading postings for over a month and have finally taken the plunge! Trying to stay positive as each beautiful FL weekend goes by with no swimming.
 

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