Converting to chlorine from PermaSalt

[Bperry]

Here’s a pic of the steps. Weep holes all throughout with a bag of sand on each side piece with caps to keep sand in. To drain you tip on back to drain water without sand coming out. I pretty sure to get the sand out you’d have to invert and remove a cap to blast out with hose.

You may be able to blast water through the drain holes without removing the steps from the pool?

 

[cm35]

That loss of +5. Fc overnight is bad.

 

[Mdragger88]

Others have simply drilled extra little holes in those kinds of steps to facilitate regular cleaning. Some have luck blasting with the pressure washer & or injecting them with liquid chlorine. Or possibly completely seal them.
Then attach Separate, sealed weights that can be removed & don’t hold water.

Not sure about the other set you described. Almost all pool steps will get water in them (& eventually algae) so they may need to be altered for maintenance purposes as well.

If you like your steps you should just modify them somewhat to stay algae free.

 

[cm35]

I may open up larger holes in the bottom to facilitate the pool water flowing into them. The current is pretty good at the location.

 

[cm35]

Well that’s not happening. I think I’ll just take a loss on the steps. There’s about 30 hollow parts to this brand of steps and the two major side pieces fill with sand and have a plug but all other parts have multiple weep holes. Algae City. Super strong setup and very nice looking curved steps. It’s been a while and never occurred to me when I purchased it that algae would live inside. I had assumed if it was in treated water it would be treated inside the parts through the holes as well. Life lesson learned. I took it apart yesterday in the water to get out. And it was draining out of every hole so as you can imagine my chlorine loss last nite on a SLAM was substantial. Lost 10ppm overnight, and just topped it back off to continue SLAM during the day.

 

[cm35]

Water is pristine clear but chlorine loss tells another story.

 

[cm35]

I should have bought stock in a bleach company. lol

 

[Texas Splash]

Water is pristine clear but chlorine loss tells another story.

I suspect still killing all the junk the came out of the steps yesterday. Hang in there! With the steps out of the picture, the chlorine has nothing left but open water to clean and disinfect.

 

[cm35]

I just opened up two jugs filled with river rock that were weighting down a second set of steps that don’t have weep holes for water to get in, and when I opened them WOW!!!
That was probably a second source of algae.
I’ll load pics later.
But as of now I’m SLAM ming at recommended chart levels and have thrown in the vac hose, vac brush, poles, brushes and floaty stuff the grandkids like. I keep turning those over to kill whatever might be on those.

 

[Texas Splash]

I opened them WOW!!!

Very good. Each year many people are in disbelief when we tell them to get the stairs out of the pool when they have algae. They just can't imagine it until they see it for themselves. Good catch.

 

[cm35]

Well it looks like the chlorine pucks for almost a week and one bag of sodium dichloro( available 55% chlorine), I had used raised my cya almost 30 points. I was at about 50. Now I’m a good 85%.
I looked under light from the window and then just holding in different light to get a good visual average.

So can pucks for a week and then only one bag of sodium dichloro at 55% raise cya that much in a week?

 

[cm35]

Or was it pointless to check cya during a SLAM?
The chart says SLAM it no matter cya level.

But maintenance says with pool calculator to drain 48% water to get to 50 cya.

That’ll be hard in a agp since it hard on liner they say to go that far down on an aged liner.

 

[Bperry]

Well it looks like the chlorine pucks for almost a week and one bag of sodium dichloro( available 55% chlorine), I had used raised my cya almost 30 points. I was at about 50. Now I’m a good 85%.
I looked under light from the window and then just holding in different light to get a good visual average.

So can pucks for a week and then only one bag of sodium dichloro at 55% raise cya that much in a week?

You cant do a SLAM with pucks of dichlor and that is one of the reasons why. Your new FC level for SLAM is 35ppm.

 

[cm35]

I took all of those out before the SMAM. I should have stated that. I was just asking if prior to the SLAM would 1 weeks use of pucks and 1 bag of dichlor raise my cya almost 30 points or is testing cya DURING a SLAM not advised?
It tested a 50-60 for almost 2 weeks before first use of pucks and that 1 bag

 

[Bperry]

I took all of those out before the SMAM. I should have stated that. I was just asking if prior to the SLAM would 1 weeks use of pucks and 1 bag of dichlor raise my cya almost 30 points or is testing cya DURING a SLAM not advised?
It tested a 50-60 for almost 2 weeks before first use of pucks and that 1 bag

You test CYA before the SLAM and then only test FC and CC until the SLAM is done.

 

[cm35]

Roger that. I took the opportunity to just now do a backwash as a means for a water swap to help cya levels knowing I’ll have to recheck FC that I had already overdosed so to stay within Slam levels.
Ran water as low as skimmer would allow. Now filling back up to way above max. Recheck FC agin which will be good since I overshot recommended level. Then go from there while keeping FC at correct levels.

It’s gonna work.

 

[cm35]

Still learning.

 

[Mdragger88]

Well it looks like the chlorine pucks for almost a week and one bag of sodium dichloro( available 55% chlorine), I had used raised my cya almost 30 points. I was at about 50. Now I’m a good 85%.
I looked under light from the window and then just holding in different light to get a good visual average.

So can pucks for a week and then only one bag of sodium dichloro at 55% raise cya that much in a week?

Those each raise cya 1ppm for every 2ppm of fc they add. 99% dichlor is 1ppm for 1ppm.
This is why we recommend only liquid chlorine during slam & for daily chlorination.
For the
SLAM Process
to work as prescribed you must follow the
FC/CYA Levels
Your slam target has now increased.
Its hard to get traction with a moving target.
If you have a submersible pump (a cover pump will work)
You can do a no drain water exchange to cya down to more reasonable level.

Draining - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[cm35]

I’m above the recommended FC levels for my CYA level currently and plan to keep it that way. Bought plenty of bleach and a second fas dpd test kit. I’m just weary of draining an older liner down that far because I don’t want to possibly damage it. So I’ll have to be content will smaller water changes.
As long as I over shoot the recommended fc levels I can manage smaller water swaps and still stay in SLAM range.

 

[Mdragger88]

the two major side pieces fill with sand and have a plug

It can be hard to get the sand out but once you do - don’t put more in!
Many steps are designed this way and they instruct to add sand directly into them but its a terrible idea.
For The other parts - if you can’t get them cleaned out, maybe seal them up instead?