Helping neighbor w/ SLAM - ammonia nightmare?

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Anyone else thinking of this?

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JoyfulNoise said:
I went back and read the first post. That level of fizzing is some serious chemistry happening, like what would occur if you mixed straight bleach and ammonia cleaner together. It makes me wonder if someone didn't intentional put ammonia in the water in some half-baked attempt to fix an algae problem. I have seen postings around the internet instructing people to do that for really bad mustard algae problems but it's mostly a bad idea that shouldn't be attempted.

Any idea if this "pool guy" would fool around with stuff like that?
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I wouldn't go that far. I've still used him for some mechanical things like replacing heater, adding pump timer, and labor for opening and closing and he can handle that stuff fine. I think it's largely a case of when things go south with water chemistry he is just guessing. His only water chemistry experience is working at a pool store.
 
Slowrider5 said:
I wouldn't go that far. I've still used him for some mechanical things like replacing heater, adding pump timer, and labor for opening and closing and he can handle that stuff fine. I think it's largely a case of when things go south with water chemistry he is just guessing. His only water chemistry experience is working at a pool store.
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Gotcha.

That was some seriously bad water though. Fizzing and off-gassing like that is some seriously concentrated chemical reactions occurring. I'm glad you weren't hurt by it because high concentrations of bleach mixed with ammonia and no CYA present has the tendency to form the much more dangerous chloramine --> nitrogen trichloride. NCl3 is some very noxious stuff and will seriously irritate and inflame mucous membranes. It only takes exposures to parts-per-billion level concentrations to make an average person gasp for air.

Good job helping out your neighbor.
 
FC has been holding quite well last couple days. Average loss per hour has dropped to a point where I can pass OCLT. Went 8-10 hours during the day today covered with less than 1ppm loss. But water isn't crystal clear. He has a sand filter so maybe that is it. Going to try the trick of adding some DE.
 
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Final report: chalk up another win for the TFP SLAM method! It took 7+ days for water to get absolutely crystal clear w/ his sand filter. He is getting a lot of sand on the floor so maybe it has issues. The DE trick didn't seem to help speed up the process. The first time I added DE following the TFP instructions waiting for a 1 PSI increase after adding 1 cup DE to skimmer, then 12 hours later we checked and it had shot up 4-5 PSI so we backwashed immediately. Repeated the addition of DE and didn't get a big jump like the first time. Can't say it did anything.

He had to spend $300-$400 on chlorine by the time it was all said and done. Roughly equivalent to what a drain and fill would have been if we were on city water/sewer. But, since we are on a well, trucking in water for a complete drain and fill would have been $940, so this was still more economical.

We ran out of time to get his chlorinator tuned before I left on vacation, then he went out of town and had family house-sitting that used the pool extensively and the pool got cloudy again. But he caught it quick and I was able to walk him thru a mini-SLAM while I was on vacation using test strips believe it or not. It helped that stabilizer was still low. Back in the clear with an OCLT pass and should be good until his CYA gets too high again. He'll never convert to liquid chlorine w/ testing, he has no technical ability whatsoever. He even read the strip instructions wrong at first and held it under water for 30 seconds instead of dipping and holding level for 30 seconds.
 
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