Hello and Thanks from a new pool owner!

Jump to latest Follow Reply
squeak0090

squeak0090

0
Silver Supporter
Jun 19, 2014
22
Rochester, NY
Hello, All!

I purchased a house in 2013 that came with a pool. It was late in the season and I had so much to do with moving in so I never opened it last year (and apparently the previous owners didn't open it the year before either), so my pool sat for 2 years unused.

This year I went for it but my efforts were stunted and resulted in some issues but I'm slowly but surely getting up and running. This is a season of learning for me. Next year will be a season of (fully) enjoying. LOL.

I tried to open my pool over memorial day weekend. I got the cover off, the water level was quite low but the water itself looked really good. The bottom had a bunch of debris so I *thought* things would go smoothly, but alas, things did NOT go well. Long story short, I wasn't actually running until 2.5 weeks later...2.5 weeks without filtering and me clueless about chemicals. I came back from a green pool twice (once during the initial 2.5 weeks and once shortly after. I'm currently sitting at cloudy and thanks to the education that I've gotten here am working up to slamming my pool (I need a test kit to do it properly - I've got strips now). In the meantime I'm running my pump 24/7 and putting liquid chlorine in the pool just to keep the algae at bay. I'm blue but hazy right now and I'm not holding chlorine (because I need to slam).

I've been reading this forum for the last few days and it's been extremely helpful in my understanding of what I'm (supposed to be) doing! It also took away some of the :drown: feeling that I started feeling earlier on, so a big thanks to everyone for that. I look forward to diving in. ;)
 
Get the TF100! Start the SLAM so you can enjoy the pool by July and still have all of August to go! No reason why you can't enjoy it this year. You sound like you knbow what you need to do but you just haven't gotten to it. Make the jump and get the kit. You will NOT regret it!!!

Welcome to TFP!
 
Thanks, Casey!

I ordered the TF100 shortly after my post and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival.

I'm totally convinced that slamming works after reading a few posts on the forum complete with pictures that showed the progression from totally green to sparkling blue. I also look forward to the accuracy that the kit will give me.

I'm ready!
 
Current Status:

TF100 is due on Monday

I just stocked up on 20 gallons of chlorine (12.5% for this batch) + I still have 1 gallon of "please don't turn green again before I get to SLAM you!!" stash left - I'm ready for the SLAM, If I need more than 21 gallons then I will replenish my supply along the way.

I want to start as soon as I get my test kit but I work during the day so I'll have to try to ensure that I don't fall below shock level while I'm at work. As such I'll probably shoot for higher than needed on my shock level (or I'll just make sure to run home during lunch next week to verify levels and adjust as necessary).

I'm going to try to post "current state" pictures. These are where I started. Where I started (once things turned wrong in the beginning) was green water with a dead bird in it. I'm happily improved form there but still have a fight ahead of me.


Pre-SLAM water "clarity" visual



whole pool pre-SLAM
 
Oh, and I forgot to add, a couple of things.

I was cloudy but could kinda at the bottom of the pool, and could certainly make out shadows of debris on the bottom, over the last few days. I tried to vacuum on Wednesday and Thursday but didn't do well either day (operator error and what I identified as sand in the pool before it went green the first time went right through the filter and back into the pool). I decided to vacuum to waste on Friday due to the sand issue and eventually that did work for me (the operator got better at vacuuming her pool). The problem is that on Friday I had NO clarity (see pics in last post) so I did the best I could, made a few passes and hoped for the best. I did see some of the muck on the bottom come out via the view area on the backwash port so I know I got some, I just don't know if I got it all.

Now, on to full disclosure. Today I did dump some snake oil into the pool.

I already had it (Pool First-Aid) and had already opened/used it (before finding TFP!!). I'm in a holding pattern for now and put a dose in just to see if it helps at all - at least with the clarity so I can see how good of a job I did of vacuuming. I know better than to think it fixed things but I don't expect it to make things any worse...:(

Okay, I think that's it...guts on the table and all.
 
I had enough clarity this morning that I could see shadows of the muck on the bottom of the pool. I vacuumed to waste again (because the muck went right through the filter and back into the pool). I was able to get out all of what I saw (can't promise that I didn't miss any) which was not a trivial amount.

All in all, I feel really good about getting out the stuff at the bottom and getting myself in a good position to start my SLAM once my test kit gets here.
 
Okay, I finished vacuuming about an hour ago and when I was just out (had to raise my water level back up, went out to take the hose out) I saw that there were more deposits of what I'm assuming are sand in the area that I just vacuumed. Not a ton, but then, it's only been an hour. No telling how much will be there after 24 hours... :mad:

It is new sand but I've backwashed 3 or 4 times since I had the new system put in. I wouldn't expect to have many (any?) fine particles left that would still be blowing into the pool. It isn't the stuff I just vacuumed out because I vacuumed to waste so it was gone gone. I've seen this issue in other posts so I'll have to go back and see if anyone figured out how to make that stop... :confused:
 
Ok.

So I see that there is a collection of what I thought was more sand yesterday but I think it may actually be settled cotton (looked less like sand and more like...something else and more towards white than anything else). I need to vacuum again but won't get to it tonight.

My pool was clear this morning and is right now so things are good on that front. Not sure what that means in terms of SLAMming. I figure I need to do an OCLT and base a decision on that.

My Jr. Scientist Kit (TF-100) arrived today and I got to testing. Results are as follows.

CYA = 0
PH = 7.2 (maybe 7.3-ish?? the color seemed more red than 7.2 but more orange than 7.5...)
TA = 110? 90? 130? I did the test three time and these were my results. I need more practice...I'll call it 110 for now (average)
FC = 0.5
TC = 0.5
CC = 0
CH = 175

So, for Calcium harness, I'm not sure that I need to do anything for that at all since I have an AGP. I'm not planning anything at this point.

Initially I was surprised that CYA was 0 since 2 separate pool stores told me it was fine. But, based on my reading over the past week or so it makes total sense. I had to fill the pool approximately half way due to water loss over the last 2 years of it being closed and there has been more dilution due to rain and having to top it off when I was vacuuming to waste.

Pool Math told me to use 72oz to get the CYA up to snuff (sorry, I can't remember if I was targeting 30 or 40..., I'll have to double check). Given the warnings about overshooting I think I'll get it to 20 for now (go half way) and adjust later (potentially post slam?) if needed.

Everything else seemed okay (except for Chlorine of course). PH is a little low, but 7.2 seems to be the recommendation for slamming so I don't plan on doing anything with that until after OCLT.

I think that's it. If anyone has any further suggestions (or if I should move this post for more views) please let me know! I'm going to load up a sock and hang it in the pool now.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
That's what I thought (about CH) based on the pre-reading (pool school). Thanks for the confirmation, Richard!!

To correct my last post I was targeting 40, not 30 on CYA in Pool Math. That should have been 4.5lbs of conditioner for my pool.

I put 2 lbs in the sock for now and just got done massaging it. I'm technically under 20 ppm (should have done 2.25 lbs of the conditioner), but will leave it as is for now and use 20ppm as my current CYA level in pool math to get chlorine in the water. I don't know if the CYA will work so soon that I can put it up to shock level right now. But all I have to lose is some chlorine (which I've been losing all along due to the low CYA level), so why not?!
 
squeak0090 said:
Chlorine is now sitting at 11ppm. I will test again in the morning and see what I get.

Is it weird that I like doing the tests? I got the speedstir, too, so that just makes it even more fun. :p
Click to expand...
attachment.php
 
:rolleyes: :oops:

I made a rookie mistake... :testkit:

I did my morning reading for my OCLT. It was 15ppm. I gained 4ppm overnight.

Through the magic of reading the forums, I realized that I forgot to remove the Mizermax pack from my AquaSmarte (or to at least turn it "off"). I've been pumping trichlor into my pool overnight (well, I've been doing that since I got the new filter running) and at the highest setting (because I wasn't registering a steady source of chlorine on my test strips - pre-test kit - and figured setting it on "blast was better than setting it to "trickle" so that I could get something into the pool.

Anyway, all of that is to say I have to do it again.

I guess on the bright side, though, the CYA is doing it's job(???).
 
As long as you learn from the mistake it is all good! How does the water look now? If the water is not clear yet you are not ready to run the oclt. Have you determined if the filter is loosing sand into the pool or not? If you are not sure and can't see if it is blowing sand into the pool, have someone hold a sock over the return while you vacuum on filter for a couple of minutes and see what, if anything you collect in the sock.
 
Happily the water has been clear since Sunday! I don't know that I would call it super sparkly but it is clear and I can easily see the bottom of my pool. I don't discern any cloudiness. I think I may still have some oil (actually, o-ring lube) in my water.

[Quick backstory: Early in my journey with the pool I was having priming issues and, convinced that I wasn't lubing the o-ring enough I went way overboard on a couple of occasions before realizing that I had an oil slick on the surface of my pool. It isn't quit as visible anymore, but I still don't see the crispness to the surface of a truely sparkly pool so for now I'm at least partly blaming residual oil.]

I still haven't determined what is on the bottom of the pool. If I can't cajole my boyfriend into holding a sock over the return today (becuase I did plan on vacuuming today if it's not raining) do you think a skimmer sock in the skimmer basket will work as well or should I do the sock over the return specifically to see if sand comes out?

Thanks, Zea3!
 
Okay. Thunderstorms are rolling through and apparently will all night so no vacuuming tonight (not likely - if we get another break then maybe...). I'm super curious of what's at the bottom of the pool right now. I know it was sand before based on what I saw when I took the cover off, but this looks different and I want to see if it *is* different.

Anyway, I tested today when I got home from work. Before I left this morning I turned the Aquasmarte to 0 to see what happened without that chlorine in play. My results were:

FC = 5.5
CC = 0.5
TC = 6
PH = 7.2
TA = 110

I just ran TA and PH for "fun" and felt much more confident in my results today over yesterday.

So, I lost 9.5 ppm of FC through the day. I'm going to keep it at SLAM level until I can verify that I don't have an algae issue so at the very least I'll do that before I'm in for the night.
 
So I did manage to vacuum.

Observation #1: when I switched my motor to high to vacuum (was going to do it on low - that worked pretty well the other day, but decided to go to high) I got stuff (sand?) shooting into the pool right away. Like a visible stream of it. I did not see any such thing when the motor was running on low.

Observation #2: I vacuumed all around the pool and it took a minute, but my boyfriend said it started getting cloudy at the return.

Observation #3: There was next to nothing in the sock after I finished.

:mad::confused:

In the meantime I dosed my pool to sock level and I'll go verify in a bit.

Because all of the muck that shot into the pool the water got a little cloudy. I expect the particles to settle and the water to clear up again. Not sure how to rid myself of these extremely fine particles. More vacuuming to waste?
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply