First of all, a thanks to this forum - I bought a home with a pool having never owned one before last season, and what I inherited was a 30 year old pool that had become an abandoned swamp. Winterized but uncovered for at least one year, possibly several. I had to learn how to recover the pool, repair the equipment, then manage the chemistry and finally winterize and re-open this spring. The knowledge gained here and the poolmath app have surely saved me thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, and given my family and I the opportunity to enjoy the pool time.
This year I've been faced with a problem I didn't experience last year, the floor of the pool is turning absolutely filthy. At first I thought it might be tree pollen, but now I think it's runoff from rainwater as last year we had drought-like levels of rain and this year it's been a neverending parade of thunderstorms with brief but torrential downpours. I should probably go out and observe the next chance I get when it's pouring to see where the surface water is running and what I can do to stop it.
But that aside, I haven't been able to get the pool clean again for the past 3 weeks. The dirt settles on the bottom mostly, some on the walls, and leaves everything brown. I have a sand filter, filled with fresh sand and new laterals this season as I had no idea the state of the old stuff, and a mid-wall located vacuum port. I'm using a 1.5" hose and a manual vac. It takes hours to vacuum the whole pool slowly and carefully trying not to stir the dirt up and I have very little free time to work on it with 5 children to take care of, leaving me basically just the weekends to do anything.
-3 weeks ago I tried to hit the worst spots before family went swimming and hopelessly stirred it up, water was cloudy but nothing terrible.
-Last weekend I vacuumed about 1/2 of the pool, starting at the shallow end, which left the floor looking perfect at first but by the time I reached the deep end the water was so cloudy I couldn't see the bottom there. I got discouraged and gave up for the day.
-A few days later the entire floor of the pool was brown again but the water clear - seems like the dirt settled, but also we had like 2 more heavy rains this past week
-Today I vacuumed the entire pool, took about 6 hours with several breaks to deal with children and other things. Water again is cloudy enough I can't see the deep end bottom at all, and some of the vacuuming was just blindly pushing the vac head into the abyss and trying to hold a straight line.
I don't think I'm just stirring stuff up, I'm moving very slowly and deliberately. I think what's going on is some part of the dirt is too small for my sand filter, and so it just sprays back into the pool after I vacuum and turns the water cloudy, then eventually settles on the bottom if I leave it a few days. If this is true then I'm never going to get it out. Here's my ideas for possible solutions:
1. Add DE to sand filter, to hopefully catch the stuff the sand can't. I've never tried this, but I'm not too concerned about back-washing the DE given where my waste drains. Unsure of the price of DE.
2. Add floc and vac to waste. This worked well for me when I was first reclaiming the pool swamp, but will lose me a TON of water since it takes hours to vac the whole pool. I'm worried more rain storms will bring my problem back before I can even get the water level and chemistry back to normal.
3. Buy a fancy expensive vacuum robot that has it's own filters, assuming they can filter smaller than the ~30 micron or whatever my sand filter is. I'm appalled by the price of some of these things on Amazon, but maybe it's an investment that's worth it for the long run?
Looking for thoughts and advice on what I should do, maybe ideas I haven't thought of or perspective on the ideas I've come up with. Thanks in advance!
This year I've been faced with a problem I didn't experience last year, the floor of the pool is turning absolutely filthy. At first I thought it might be tree pollen, but now I think it's runoff from rainwater as last year we had drought-like levels of rain and this year it's been a neverending parade of thunderstorms with brief but torrential downpours. I should probably go out and observe the next chance I get when it's pouring to see where the surface water is running and what I can do to stop it.
But that aside, I haven't been able to get the pool clean again for the past 3 weeks. The dirt settles on the bottom mostly, some on the walls, and leaves everything brown. I have a sand filter, filled with fresh sand and new laterals this season as I had no idea the state of the old stuff, and a mid-wall located vacuum port. I'm using a 1.5" hose and a manual vac. It takes hours to vacuum the whole pool slowly and carefully trying not to stir the dirt up and I have very little free time to work on it with 5 children to take care of, leaving me basically just the weekends to do anything.
-3 weeks ago I tried to hit the worst spots before family went swimming and hopelessly stirred it up, water was cloudy but nothing terrible.
-Last weekend I vacuumed about 1/2 of the pool, starting at the shallow end, which left the floor looking perfect at first but by the time I reached the deep end the water was so cloudy I couldn't see the bottom there. I got discouraged and gave up for the day.
-A few days later the entire floor of the pool was brown again but the water clear - seems like the dirt settled, but also we had like 2 more heavy rains this past week
-Today I vacuumed the entire pool, took about 6 hours with several breaks to deal with children and other things. Water again is cloudy enough I can't see the deep end bottom at all, and some of the vacuuming was just blindly pushing the vac head into the abyss and trying to hold a straight line.
I don't think I'm just stirring stuff up, I'm moving very slowly and deliberately. I think what's going on is some part of the dirt is too small for my sand filter, and so it just sprays back into the pool after I vacuum and turns the water cloudy, then eventually settles on the bottom if I leave it a few days. If this is true then I'm never going to get it out. Here's my ideas for possible solutions:
1. Add DE to sand filter, to hopefully catch the stuff the sand can't. I've never tried this, but I'm not too concerned about back-washing the DE given where my waste drains. Unsure of the price of DE.
2. Add floc and vac to waste. This worked well for me when I was first reclaiming the pool swamp, but will lose me a TON of water since it takes hours to vac the whole pool. I'm worried more rain storms will bring my problem back before I can even get the water level and chemistry back to normal.
3. Buy a fancy expensive vacuum robot that has it's own filters, assuming they can filter smaller than the ~30 micron or whatever my sand filter is. I'm appalled by the price of some of these things on Amazon, but maybe it's an investment that's worth it for the long run?
Looking for thoughts and advice on what I should do, maybe ideas I haven't thought of or perspective on the ideas I've come up with. Thanks in advance!
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's start with the basics. Can you post a full set of test results with TF-series test kit or Taylor K-2006C? We have to start there. Also need sure to update your signature with all of your pool and equipment info. It helps tremendously. See mine as an example. Well be glad to help.
