Hello all,
Sorry for what will be a long OP but after such a good first year on the BBB system, a few monkey wrenches have been thrown into our system this year and I'm sort of struggling to keep up. As a brief review, after having the best looking water we ever had last year, we ran our system through the colder weather this winter (never shutting the system down for the winter but running only on days where cold might be a problem). No problems there at all.
I was surprised and pleased how clean our water stayed all winter (despite really doing nothing to it the entire winter). However, as the calendar turned to April and into May, we have had one of the wettest springs on record in Arkansas. Before we received any meaningful amount of warm weather to really get the grass growing, we have had a six week period where almost all of our soil has been full saturated.
There is one other new factor I should note here - the good water quality of April (seen in the second photo) has given way to a dirtier version courtesy of our two lab puppies (seen in the first photo).
Young puppies + constantly wet soil + puppies running rampant around yard = lots of dirt in the pool.
I've been reading previous threads here about dogs and pools and I know one area where I have missed the boat has to do with a skimmer sock to trap the dog hair. As a result, I have to believe my sand filter may have a good bit of dog hair trapped within. Additionally, I've also not been running my Dolphin pool cleaner nearly enough. So I know I have two action items right there.
My test numbers still look pretty good but the pool visually looks dirty thanks to all of the dirt brought in by the two labs. My CYA was low when I did my first test of the year recently and I am working to bring that number up.
With respect to controlling (limiting) the dirt, we'll need some help from Mother Nature, and more cleaning.
My question has to do with the sand filter. Can I clean the sand (using Baquacil Sand Filter Cleaner) - is this stuff strong enough to dissolve the dog hair in the sand filter - or should I change the sand?
Either way, I am getting a sock to put on both skimmer inlets but is there any other advice anyone can offer when dealing with a lot of dirt and dog hair in a pool?
Thanks all!
Sorry for what will be a long OP but after such a good first year on the BBB system, a few monkey wrenches have been thrown into our system this year and I'm sort of struggling to keep up. As a brief review, after having the best looking water we ever had last year, we ran our system through the colder weather this winter (never shutting the system down for the winter but running only on days where cold might be a problem). No problems there at all.
I was surprised and pleased how clean our water stayed all winter (despite really doing nothing to it the entire winter). However, as the calendar turned to April and into May, we have had one of the wettest springs on record in Arkansas. Before we received any meaningful amount of warm weather to really get the grass growing, we have had a six week period where almost all of our soil has been full saturated.
There is one other new factor I should note here - the good water quality of April (seen in the second photo) has given way to a dirtier version courtesy of our two lab puppies (seen in the first photo).
Young puppies + constantly wet soil + puppies running rampant around yard = lots of dirt in the pool.
I've been reading previous threads here about dogs and pools and I know one area where I have missed the boat has to do with a skimmer sock to trap the dog hair. As a result, I have to believe my sand filter may have a good bit of dog hair trapped within. Additionally, I've also not been running my Dolphin pool cleaner nearly enough. So I know I have two action items right there.
My test numbers still look pretty good but the pool visually looks dirty thanks to all of the dirt brought in by the two labs. My CYA was low when I did my first test of the year recently and I am working to bring that number up.
With respect to controlling (limiting) the dirt, we'll need some help from Mother Nature, and more cleaning.
My question has to do with the sand filter. Can I clean the sand (using Baquacil Sand Filter Cleaner) - is this stuff strong enough to dissolve the dog hair in the sand filter - or should I change the sand?
Either way, I am getting a sock to put on both skimmer inlets but is there any other advice anyone can offer when dealing with a lot of dirt and dog hair in a pool?
Thanks all!
