Re: deswampifying - what a difference a day makes - I'm WINNING!
Hey good morning! Here's a few more pics. I cannot believe this is only Day 3. These are from ~9am on Monday. I started this process and opened my test kit for the first time after I got back from Home Depot buying bleach at 1pm Saturday. So I'm less than 48 hours in.
I know it seems like it'll take crazy $ and time -- so I wanted to document what I've been up to. Look at the crazy black sludge in my first post. Look at the pics from this morning -- you can see the cleaner at the bottom in the deep end. All I did was follow the instructions here as close as I could manage. I spent $30 on supporting this website and got a $10 coupon for the test kit. I spent $100 on the TF-100 testkit + the cool magnetic thing that swirls it around for you (I love that thing but if $ is tight, clearly not a priority). It came in 2 days. I spent $75 on 25 gallons of bleach, $15 on muriatic acid, and about $60 on 2 bags of de because I was out. I also stopped at Dairy Queen twice -- so that's $10 in blizzards . . . So I'm all in for less than $300 & I wasn't being particularly frugal & I doubt I'll have to buy any more of any of that stuff this season (except blizzards).
Saturday I claimed the whole day for the pool. I started at 1pm, took some pics, tested, added stabilizer in 2 socks, added bleach, skimmed w/ the leaf rake, hosed down the leaf rake, emptied the skimmer, backwashed a couple times, added de, tested, drove to the pool store for acid, learned how to use photobucket, cleaned out my kreepy krauly robot helper (love that thing too) many times, and generally just spent from 1pm - 9pm between the pool and this website/the pool math calculator (which is fantastic). Sunday morning I tested, back to pool math, added bleach, took some pics, posted, skimmed a little, brushed, and spent about 45 minutes 3-4 different times. This morning I spent 15 minutes after I got my kid to the bus -- tooks these pics, tested just chlorine (it was 10 when I'm shooting for 12), I skipped pool math, guessed & added some bleach (2 gallons b/c I'll be gone all day), made sure my filter pressure was okay and probably wouldn't explode before I got home -- and came to work. So it definitely took that day of battle -- but I learned so much that now I feel like I can keep it up.
I know it won't be quick for everyone and I'm not done and all that - but it's still pretty amazing. You guys who tend to this site all rock. New folks - believe and commit & buy the test kit! And if you can afford to -- go to the home page and "support the forum."
Oh - and re: Home Depot store brand bleach -- it's 8.25% -- says "germicidal" but just seems to have sodium hypochlorite and it's $2.99 for a few oz shy of a gallon.
