Help? Pre-Opening/Opening of newly installed pool.

[Cod3Monk3y]

Hello All. I wanted to get some advice regarding opening my newly installed pool. A bit of background: I have no PB to speak of so I have done most of the work aside from electrical. The pool is 16x40 fiberglass ~13k gallons. The pool will hopefully be finished within the next 4 weeks. The pool is currently not hooked up to any equipment and won’t be for at least a few weeks.

The pool is nearly full and the water is quite dirty (green and murky and algae is starting to form) and I’m guessing there is a layer of dirt on the bottom of the pool from all of the construction. I’m not able to drain the pool because of the backfill and warranty implications. What can/should I be doing right now to keep the water as clean as possible prior to having the pump and filter hooked up?

I have a dolphin, but I’m guessing it will clog almost immediately. I do also have a small submersible pump that I was thinking of pumping through a skimmer sleeve to try to filter as much as I can. I have not added any chemicals. I do have a Taylor test kit.

Thanx for any tips/advice.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Hey there Monkey-
I actually think the sump pump idea is pretty good but will require almost constant attention to clean out or change the socks on the end. It certainly won't hurt to try, eh?
A dolphin can help circulate and pick up some debris. If you also have the extra fine filters you might see what it picks up of dust/dirt.
If you start chemicals now you have to commit to keeping them going or you'll just regress with more algae. Also along with the extra work of mixing them in without equipment? If you choose to go this route I'd put 1/2 gallon of liquid chlorine in per day along with 30ppm of CYA hung on a stick over the edge in the water (not touching side of pool).

If you feel you want to jump in early that's how I would do it. But I can also say it will be easier once you have a pump and filter installed, and a GOOD test kit in hand.

For future reference- each 2 cups (actually 17oz) of 10% liquid chlorine gives you ~1ppm FC in your sized pool.

Maddie

 

[Cod3Monk3y]

LOL. My first dogs name was Skippy. Thank you for the advice YippeeSkippy. I'm thinking about starting your advice this weekend or maybe next week. Do you think an initial shock might help or is that a waste of time and resources?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

what is a "shock"?? I dunno? Is that a product or a procedure?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

So unless you've got the time to do a SLAM procedure, the best you can hope for is to keep any algae at bay with a dose of chlorine per day that will only stun the algae till you can do it properly.
The 1/2 gallon of Liquid Chlorine per day brushed and mixed all around by your robot will *help* but not entirely kill. You can't fix it entirely until you have good circulation and continuous levels of chlorine.

 

[Cod3Monk3y]

Yeah, I was thinking I needed to SLAM, but with my limited equipment (i.e. none) I knew that wasn't possible. I appreciate the help.

 

[Cod3Monk3y]

YippeeSkippy - Thanks for the advice. Here is the skimmer sock solution I came up with along with the CYA