Another Green Swamp

[applgrl]

After many years with an I/G pool we decided the easier path (both have work involved) is to forego the winter cover and drain every spring. (note we don't pay to drain or re-fill, that factors in heavily.)

The expense of a winter cover + water bags, then the additional step of pumping the cover, then ending up with leaves falling in ANYWAY as you remove the cover is just like herding cats.

Also as jblizzle points out, the organics on the walls are a huge problem, they cling and re-grow if you aren't dedicated to brushing. Since you are going to drain, here's a bit of helpful advice to help save you time and elbow grease. Buy regular unscented chlorine, 6-10 gallons before you drain. When the pool is empty, dilute the bleach with water, 1/3 bleach plus 2/3 water. Pour it carefully and thoroughly down the side walls from the top. Wait 10 minutes and let the Clorox do the work!!! It gets into all the nooks and crannies and kills everything on the walls. (when the bleach is dead, do a water rinse.) Then brush the chlorine down the floor to the deep spot, and pump it out. Use more bleach on the floor if necessary. This way, you don't damage plaster with a power washer, you don't have to scrub (maybe the odd spot) and you'll definitely kill the algae so it won't be as quick to re-grow.

Please note we do NOT run this waste bleach through our pool pump, we use a trash pump to get the 6-10 dilute gallons out of the pool. If you were going to run it through your pump I'd dilute it with a lot of fresh water first, so that you don't put the concentrated bleach through your system. Good luck!

 

[Dudek]

Let the headaches begin! Started draining today after cobbling together hose lengths with hose clamps, etc. Using the filter pump set to "Waste" and so far all is well [knock wood]. With a little luck we'll probably be adding fresh water sometime tomorrow.

 

[Dudek]

Update. We drained the water, cleaned up the film like debris (the big portions, leaves, etc) with a few shovel full of leaves and are now filling it back up. There is still a lot of film-like material maybe a little under ¼” or so I thickness that will get vacuumed up with the Hayward later. It’s just too slippery to work on right now. When there was about 3000 gallons of water I dumped in 2 HTH Shock bags good for 15K gal. each and now the water is a milky, very light greenish color, similar to the 4th picture down from the “inspiration pictures” mentioned by Richard320 (Post #4 here).

The water is not quite deep enough yet to run the filter but I was wondering if the experts think I should add more HTH Shock as the water level rises?

As the water level rises and covers the shallow end floor drain the filter could be turned on to help filtrate but the water return would be a fountain until the water level gets higher. Is this advisable or should I wait until the water is deep enough for the surface skimmers?

 

[Richard320]

Update. We drained the water, cleaned up the film like debris (the big portions, leaves, etc) with a few shovel full of leaves and are now filling it back up. There is still a lot of film-like material maybe a little under ¼” or so I thickness that will get vacuumed up with the Hayward later. It’s just too slippery to work on right now. When there was about 3000 gallons of water I dumped in 2 HTH Shock bags good for 15K gal. each and now the water is a milky, very light greenish color, similar to the 4th picture down from the “inspiration pictures” mentioned by Richard320 (Post #4 here).

The water is not quite deep enough yet to run the filter but I was wondering if the experts think I should add more HTH Shock as the water level rises?

As the water level rises and covers the shallow end floor drain the filter could be turned on to help filtrate but the water return would be a fountain until the water level gets higher. Is this advisable or should I wait until the water is deep enough for the surface skimmers?

You could pour some liquid bleach into the hose stream to get a jump start on things, I suppose.

 

[Dudek]

Would chlorox (regular laundry bleach) be acceptable? I ask because at one time we did buy liquid bleach from a pool supply store that came in big plastic 5 gallon containers but we can't get that anymore.

 

[Richard320]

Would chlorox (regular laundry bleach) be acceptable? I ask because at one time we did buy liquid bleach from a pool supply store that came in big plastic 5 gallon containers but we can't get that anymore.

You haven't been reading pool school, have you?

What's he using?

 

[Dudek]

You haven't been reading pool school, have you?

What's he using?

I checked Pool School, thanks. For about 10K gallons of light green water roughly how many gallons of chlorine should I put in as the charts advise against adding too much chlorine? Would the floater with the TriChlor tabs and running the filter with water 3-4 feet below surface skimmers help?

Or should we just wait until the water level is full before running the filter? I checked Pool School couldn't find answers to this.

 

[Richard320]

What'd you do? I'm out of town, couldn't reply.

By now you're probably filled and running and can start the shock process as spelled out in the how-to.

 

[Dudek]

Okay. We still have 2 1/2 feet of water to go for full/filled. I'll search around for the how-to and then make a run to the dollar store. Thanks.

Edit: this is a tough one. I searched around the site and the web and to super shock a pool with 20,000 (partially full) I come up with inconsistent answers as to how many gallons of 12.5% laundry chlorine to use. 17 gallons seems too high. I'll have to play this by ear.

 

[duraleigh]

I'll have to play this by ear.

Pick one site and shock your pool. Mixing instructions in from the pool store or other sites adds a lot of confusion and frequently bad advice. I suggest you follow the article in Pool School.....thousands use it...it works. "Playing it by ear" or "winging it" is the opposite of what we teach.

 

[Dudek]

Pick one site and shock your pool. Mixing instructions in from the pool store or other sites adds a lot of confusion and frequently bad advice. I suggest you follow the article in Pool School.....thousands use it...it works. "Playing it by ear" or "winging it" is the opposite of what we teach.

The information I needed was found at this link, 3rd post down in a quoted post from waterbear.

bleach-vs-shock-t11415.html

This might help:
1 1 lb bag of 35% lithium hypo will raise 10000 gallons 4 ppm FC
1 1lb bag of 48% cal hypo (the most common kind) will raise 10000 gal 5.5 ppm FC
1 1lb bag of 68% cal hypo (the most common super shock strength) will raise 10000 gal 7.5 ppm FC
1 1 lb bag of 73% cal hypo (getting very difficult to find) will raise 10000 gal 9 ppm FC
1 gal of 5.25% bleach will raise 10000 gal 5.25 ppm FC
1 gal of 6% bleach or liquid pool chlorine will raise 10000 gal 6 ppm FC
1 gal of 10% liquid pool chlorine will raise 10000 gal 10 ppm FC
1 gal of 12.5% liquid pool chlorine will raise 10000 gal 12.5 ppm FC

I'll take the numbers with me to the dollar store to see what the chlorine concentration is of the chlorine bleach that they have and get what I need.

 

[jblizzle]

Use the poolcalculator.com to calculate exactly what you need to add.

 

[Dudek]

Finally! Today the pool is finally crystal clear after many days of fighting heavy algae. The debris on the bottom is gone much thanks to the Haywood pool vac and a manual vacuum once around the pool I did “blind” in lime green water. I added CYA today and surprisingly the level was already 30 according to the free pool store test.

 

[Richard320]

Finally! Today the pool is finally crystal clear after many days of fighting heavy algae. The debris on the bottom is gone much thanks to the Haywood pool vac and a manual vacuum once around the pool I did “blind” in lime green water. I added CYA today and surprisingly the level was already 30 according to the free pool store test.

You've been fighting this thing for over a month and you still don't do your own testing?

 

[Dudek]

You've been fighting this thing for over a month and you still don't do your own testing?

Nope. I’ve been testing twice a day every day in the morning and at dusk. My test doesn’t include CYA which is the reason I took the free test at Leslies.