Hi from a noob in over her head

[chiefwej]

Stay out of pool stores. Their advice is incompatible with what we teach here. Their testing is not reliable. They will sell you overpriced magic potions, which in many cases are the same chemicals that can be purchased at your local grocery, hardware or big box store much cheaper, and in other cases are either unneeded or can cause more problems than they solve.

You are going to have to decide if you want to follow the Trouble Free Pool method, like thousands of very happy pool owners, or stick with pool store advice. The two methods incompatible, so you cannot mix the two. Our system is based on pure science. It starts with accurate testing. So each pool owner must have a good test kit, and know how to use it. Then we add exactly what, and only what is needed to the pool. You have to stop using pool store methods and chemicals and only add what is recommended here. There is a reason we recommend to only add bleach until you have your test kit, and we have test results.

We really do want to help you make yours another Trouble Free Pool.

 

[BattleOfYakima]

Nice pressure spraying! Massive improvement! Be careful not to spray your bare skin as certain nozzles can damage us in less than a second!

*trigger warning, the rest of this post has a sassy attitude, read at your own risk*

So....pool store, huh? Did we let you down? Did you think we were wasting your money? What's up?

iron count was high and the pH was a little high. They suggested the liquid magnet tonight and Lo n Slow tomorrow night, along with maintaining our current chlorine level.

Was the "liquid magnet" this bottle of BioGuard® Pool Magnet Plus? If so, this is a combo product, actually an "ultra-premium name brand" markup combo product. It has 20-40% active ingredient for stain removing, but only <3% sequestrant/removal aid. Do you have metal staining? If you do have stains, for this product to have a reasonable chance at working, the FC has to be dropped, to under 1 FC if memory serves. Plus, if you do have stains, shouldn't you verify they are from iron using a cheap ascorbic acid/vitamin C tablet test? If no stains, and this product is being suggested as a preventative measure, is this really necessary? What was the iron count? What is the margin of error in the testing? Were the testing procedures followed correctly? When you add bleach/chlorine, does the water turn brown? If so, that indicates the iron is precipitating out and you could trap it in physical filtering media (paper towels, polyfill, etc) and might not need any special chemicals at all. If you don't have staining/know what it is from, if you don't have water discoloration, and you don't know what "high" means, should you really spend your money on overpriced combo product?

Was the "Lo n Slow" this jug of BioGuard Lo 'N Slo? If so, this is just "ultra-premium name brand" markup of sodium bisulfate. The cheapest sodium bisulfate in the store, assuming same %, would drop PH the same. Or better yet, the sodium bisulfate sold at walmart. Or best, assuming you're a responsible adult with a safe place to store chemicals, Muriatic Acid is way cheaper and arguably the best chemically speaking to adjust PH on a regular basis. But the question remains - do you need to lower PH? "A little high" sounds pretty vague. 7.8 sounds a little high compared to 7.2, but unless you have Calcium Scale Issues, are about to send the FC over 10, managing metals, or preparing for a metal treatment, there is little to no reason to drop a stable PH of 7.8. Was the FC above 10 when they took their PH test, and if so, is their test rated for that? Industry leading Taylor testing reagents are not, and that seems to be what most pool stores use.

 

[chiefwej]

You should never use a pressure washer with flip flops on. It's too easy to accidentally spray your bare foot. Ask me how I know this....

 

[HiddenRiver]

Your motor/pump looks newer than mine. (Mine is over 25 years I believe) We also bought a house recently with a pool that had not been opened for 3 or 4 years. We also had difficulty clearing it up and sometimes had to change the DE filter 5 or six times A DAY for several days. The pool finally cleared up and our dinosaur continues to work like a charm. I have been on TFP for about 2 months now and I find their recommendations to be excellent. Hang in there!

 

[Mandakate82]

@battleofyakima NO worries! I can handle sass and I probably deserve it - though I didnt use any of the stuff yet.

Here's the predicament that led me to take the pool store route. The pool is hazy and the filter has been running 24/7. Despite this, the PSI has not increased since I last backwashed about 48 hours ago - this says to me whatever is making the pool look like this is small enough to keep getting through the filter. We've kept our chlorine and everything else the same. Worried about adding bleach when our chlorine levels are right on target (but open to advice on why I still should) And the test kit hasn't arrived yet but doing my best to wait patiently.

- - - Updated - - -

Your motor/pump looks newer than mine. (Mine is over 25 years I believe) We also bought a house recently with a pool that had not been opened for 3 or 4 years. We also had difficulty clearing it up and sometimes had to change the DE filter 5 or six times A DAY for several days. The pool finally cleared up and our dinosaur continues to work like a charm. I have been on TFP for about 2 months now and I find their recommendations to be excellent. Hang in there!

Oh that's so good to hear! And yours is a gigantic beast like ours - so if you're keeping things clean without the expensive stuff that's a HUGE relief - when they say "oh no, for your size pool you need FOUR of these" and I'm like ....... uhhhh ........ :/

 

[Fingaling]

De is the best filter you can get... Filters down to the smallest particles. Even if the filter were under sized, it would just need more backwashing, not none.

Try backwashing and putting de again, maybe you measured wrong last time?

I know little about de filters, but if you have a cloudy pool and pressure hasn't gone up in 48 hours, something is amiss with it somewhere.


Are you still keeping your FC at the slam level? How much do you need to put in now? I ask, because if chlorine use drops, it means most of the algae is dead and just needs to get filtered out.

 

[BattleOfYakima]

The pool is hazy and the filter has been running 24/7. Despite this, the PSI has not increased since I last backwashed about 48 hours ago - this says to me whatever is making the pool look like this is small enough to keep getting through the filter.

If haze is caused by live algae in the earliest stages of a bloom - not even a DE filter can clear the pool, and a sanitizer/oxidizer (sodium hypochlorite/bleach/pool chlorine) must be correctly added and maintained (ideally at the maximum efficient level we call shock per your current stabilizer/conditioner level chart here [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]) in order to kill/oxidize/sanitize/flamelessly burn all the live algae and bacteria so that the DE filter (assuming no holes in the grid and proper DE amount) can EASILY and without any help polish the water of all dead algae particles.

Have you seen any changes on your pressure gauge at all? Ever? Non-glycerin filled gauges break if let freeze. I'm not saying you need a new gauge, but if do, these are especially awesome for pools since they use most of the gauge for only pool relevant PSI range, and of course, glycerin filled, in both back and bottom options. http://tftestkits.net/Flow-Meters-and-PSI-Gauges-c12/.

Lastly, you're using Pool Grade DE, correct? Not food grade? No offense, just making sure.