Foreclosure Swamp in Pensacola, Florida!

[UnderWaterVanya]

CYA: still less than 20, but appropriate amt added 3 days ago
No chlorine added yet.

What was your target? Hopefully no more than 30 or so to make the shocking go easier. AFTER you have clear water and you've passed all three criteria to stop shocking then you'd raise it to 60-80 and run the SWG. You can run the SWG whenever you want ahead of time except when you check overnight chlorine loss (OCLT).

 

[mapace83]

What was your target? Hopefully no more than 30 or so to make the shocking go easier.

Target was 30. However, it looks like I added a bit more CYA than I should have to my sock (no more than .25lb too much). Using poolcalc, I'm assuming that my final number will be 35 to 37 (before all of my backwashing is taken into account).

No backwashing going on during the daytime right now, as my wifey is constantly tied up with our screaming, adorable kid haha. Will be giving it a workout over the weekend though!!!

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

What was your target? Hopefully no more than 30 or so to make the shocking go easier.

Target was 30. However, it looks like I added a bit more CYA than I should have to my sock (no more than .25lb too much). Using poolcalc, I'm assuming that my final number will be 35 to 37 (before all of my backwashing is taken into account).

No backwashing going on during the daytime right now, as my wifey is constantly tied up with our screaming, adorable kid haha. Will be giving it a workout over the weekend though!!!

35-37 is fine. I had a CYA of 60 earlier this year (took over a pool) and successfully shocked - mine wasn't a swamp - and the difference between 30-40 isn't that large when shocking - it's not as easy but it's not drastically harder.

 

[mapace83]

Third day of shocking. Checking FC roughly every 2 hrs and so far my chlorine add quantities have been based off of an assumed 37 CYA level, corresponding to a mustard shock goal of 23 per poolcalculator. Due to constant backwashing and re-filling by hose for the past 2 days, I'm certain that I've pumped some of the CYA from the pool and I'm moving my assumed CYA level down to 30 (which will give me a mustard shock goal of 19). I'm getting a CYA reading of 22 using my test kit, but have read that it can take up to a week to read properly so I'll keep my assumed number up at 30 until the water is clear.

Also, thanks to UWV I found a chart matching my sand filter, which told me to add 100 more pounds of sand to it. Clean pressure only went down .5 psi, but I'm certain that it's doing a better job with filtering as I can see more definite changes in water clarity when backwashing.

Before and current pictures attached. Looks like an ugly, ugly milkshake with scary-looking whipped cream gathering all around the place haha.

Located a rolling magnet that I felt comfortable with putting into the pool and put it to work. Will be making another thorough pass with it tomorrow before going back to the leaf net.

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Glad that I could help. Did the magnet grab anything off the floor?

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[mapace83]

Yes, it worked great. I ended up going with the cheapest one I found ($10.49 at Harbor Freight) because it had the least number of sharp edges and the magnet is held about an inch off of the floor, keeping the nails up off of the liner once it picks them up. I just zip-tied the handle to a 14-ft piece of wood and got to work!

Can anyone chime in on the use of sequestrant? Any brands of it that are better than others? I know I'm definitely going to see some metal staining once the water clears up.

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Yes, it worked great. I ended up going with the cheapest one I found ($10.49 at Harbor Freight) because it had the least number of sharp edges and the magnet is held about an inch off of the floor, keeping the nails up off of the liner once it picks them up. I just zip-tied the handle to a 14-ft piece of wood and got to work!

Can anyone chime in on the use of sequestrant? Any brands of it that are better than others? I know I'm definitely going to see some metal staining once the water clears up.

Jacks magic... Various kinds are highly thought of

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[Bama Rambler]

Jacks is a good brand but any of the phosphonic acid derivative’s will work well.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the sequestrants right now but it shows good planning on your part to be aware of a possible problem.

 

[mapace83]

I wouldn't get too hung up on the sequestrants right now

No kidding! This thing is using up chlorine like mad. So far, we've gone through 15 2.5-gal containers of 12% hypochlor to keep our shock levels up to mustard shock. We did lower the level that we're shocking to down to 19 ppm Saturday evening to compensate for loss of some CYA though, so that should help us out a bit.

Using numbers from yesterday and today, I've figured our daily chlorine consumption to be about 6 gal of 12% per 24hrs to maintain 19ppm. I'll be stopping by the pool store this evening to re-fill the 8 containers that I have lol.

Right now our plan is just to keep chlorine up and filter/backwash as much trash out as possible. We'll be re-checking CYA later in the week (I haven't added any since last wednesday) to see if we need to add any after continued backwashing.

Can't wait to start seeing some blue in the water instead of this mucky brown stuff!

 

[Bama Rambler]

The blue will come. Be patient.

You should start seeing a reduction in the amount FC required to get back to shock level or in the amount of time between additions.

 

[kimkats]

Have you priced out the bleach in Walmart vs the pool store price? Do you have an ACE Hardware in your area? They are the cheapest by far for me here in Tallahassee.

Good luck! You can do it. Keep taking pics so you can see how far you have come!

Kim

 

[SebringDon]

Have you priced out the bleach in Walmart vs the pool store price? Do you have an ACE Hardware in your area? They are the cheapest by far for me here in Tallahassee.

Good luck! You can do it. Keep taking pics so you can see how far you have come!

Kim

Based on mapace83's comments about 2.5 gal containers and refills, I'll guess there's a Pinch-A-Penny nearby. That's by far the cheapest chlorine I've found. My store refills 2.5 gallon containers for $4.50, but it's only 10%. That still works out to about 15 cents per chlorine-ounce, which is cheaper than any of the store bleaches I've found.

And mapace, stick with it. I had a huge burn rate the first week or so, but it's settled out to 18-27 ounces day for me now that the nasties are (all but) gone. I've still got a few spots I haven't had time to scrub away, so I'm still maintaining my 10ppm shock level for CYA 20. This week I should finish bringing the CYA up to about 30, finish scrubbing, drop my chlorine to a target of 4, and chop that burn rate even lower.

 

[mapace83]

Hi Kim and Don, and thanks for your responses

Yes, I pretty much called everywhere within a thirty mile radius to get prices, as well as looking for myself around all the big-box stores. The best price I could find was with Pensacola Pools, and they have a store that's on my way home from work so that works out great. Price is right about the same as what you posted, right there at $4.50 per 2.5 gal container, and they claim the chlorine to be 12%. Ace's prices are higher, and Pensacola pools wants a third of what Ace is asking for their containers. There is a Pench-a-Penny in my area, but it's not on my way home nor are their chlorine prices better than the pool store.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement! Don, good to hear that your pool is doing well! I'll keep it up with the pictures as we keep going and I notice changes with the water.

 

[mapace83]

Quick update on the pool's progress...


As Bama Rambler mentioned it would, chlorine demand is slowly and steadily falling. We've come down to about 3 gallons of 12% per day (from 6 gallons per day just last Sunday). We're running the pump and filter 24hrs (low speed setting at night, normal speeds during the daytime as we can watch it better then), and the water itself looks only slightly better than it did last weekend. Visibility is still less than a foot, but we're just putting on our patient shoes to give the sand filter enough time to clean the mess up.

My plan for the weekend is to get away from the leaf rake and start vacuuming. I've removed enough trash that I can FINALLY feel the bottom of the pool with the leaf rake from any location around the shoulder, and there are still a few solid objects down there but they're few and far between. Over the weekend I plan to give the leaf gulper a shot to see if it'll help me track down some of the remaining leaves, and I may end up doing a floc/vac to waste if the leaf gulper seems to run into solid objects a lot (as it did the first time I tried it, but I've removed a bunch of stuff since then). If the leaf gulper doesn't work well, I'll be attempting to use my second 1.5hp pump as a suction device to pull trash off of the bottom. Last time I tried this, though, a piece of brick was pulled into the flex hose,which gave the hose a nasty little cut that pulls air in and causes the pump to lose prime I'll be adding some sort of filter to the end of it to keep big stuff out this time.

I feel like we're close to seeing it clear up. Excited!!

 

[Bama Rambler]

You're doing good. Just have patience and keep after it. Vaccuming might be a good thing now.

 

[Swampwoman]

Hi there. I stopped our initial pool guy from vacuuming blind after he spent an hour just fishing bark and stuff out of the hose...not time productive. I really feel it's worth trying to get that water clear enough to see, either via filtering, or maybe floc. THEN do a slow vacuum-to-waste.

To give you an idea, here's a picture of how clear you CAN get the water, even if there's debris on the bottom (note the pile of leaves over in the one corner in the last few shots...) Basically, that was just shock, filtering, leaf gulper, then floc x2, then vac, just so you know

Best wishes for continued and speedy progress!

[attachment=0:1vfh4y01]12DaysofShockandAwe.jpg[/attachment:1vfh4y01]

 

[mapace83]

Day 14 of shocking.

Eye of the tiger came on the radio last night and gave me some new-found motivation! It's been stuck in my head all day haha.

Progress. We've been keeping our FC level at 14 - checking and adjusting it at least twice daily. Backwashing is becoming less and less frequent, as it appears that most of the larger-sized trash has been removed from the water. I've been keeping a close eye on the samples of water that I take (allowing the sample to sit still in a clear container for a few hours after testing), and the water is MUCH cleaner now than when we started. Still brown and cloudy with only about 6 inches of visibility, but getting a bit cleaner every day. My sand filter is taking much more time to build up pressure now, and I'm looking to start adding DE to it over the weekend to help speed things up. Currently backwashing at 25% pressure increase from 12.5 psi clean sand, and our chlorine consumption is FINALLY down to about 1.5 gallons of 12% per day.

Last weekend I freed up a few hours and set my second pump up as a vacuum. It pulls HARD once it gets primed up, and with the soft bristle-style vacuum head it's been pulling up all sorts of good stuff. Didn't end up spending as much time as I would have liked doing this, but I definitely got a lot of it. There shouldn't be much physical trash left in there, but I still plan on running the vacuum pump for a few more hours on it before moving on.

Brushing. This is something that I looked over when I first started shocking (because I knew that there were sharp metal objects in the pool). However, once I get another solid round of vacuuming in, I'm pretty confident that the small metal trash will be up and I'll take off with the brushing. I did go ahead and start brushing the walls a few days ago, though.

This evening will be the first time that the pool has gone without chlorination for more than 12 hrs since the start of shocking, due to my wife and I being out of town last night. I'm betting that my FC will be 7 or below based on my shocking patterns, and if it is I'll use the opportunity to double-check my pH level and then bring things back up to shock. I hated to leave it alone for so long but didn't have a choice.

Should I also give CYA and TA another check due to all of the backwashing and replacing water that I've done??? I'm thinking that I've probably lowered each significantly since I last checked them(about 5 days ago).

I'll take a picture of it when I get in from work if there's still any light, but with the time change it's nearly dark by the time I get home.

Will also post updated test results later tonight! Thanks to everyone who's kept up with me so far!!!

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

You can certainly check CYA and TA if you have had a lot of water change. The other factor would be if you are not seeing the FC hold during sunlight but seeing it hold better overnight then you might suspect your CYA was lower than you realized. TA is pretty low priority even it it changed - until the water is clear your job is to dump chlorine, brush, and test.

 

[mapace83]

...so don't worry with pH, even if it looks funny at 7 or lower FC?

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

...so don't worry with pH, even if it looks funny at 7 or lower FC?

Normally your FC should not drop below 7 while shocking. But I know the situation and understand why it would have dropped. If you have time to adjust it and it's not about where you want it - then by all means do. It should still be around where you started before shocking at this point - the shock process is pH neutral when using liquid chlorine. It spikes up pH but that spike comes back down.