How do I remove a large amount of organic debris.

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Here was my thoughts on the chlorine level. Last night it was 7 this morning it was 6. I thought it needed to go up and so I added half a gallon to see where it ended up. The result was it stayed pretty much constant. So I put another 2 quarts in. And I'll test again in a little while. In part because I want to make sure the water level doesn't drop any further.


I have two more gallons of LC and I need to buy some more ASAP.


Tony
 
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That much water gone should be obvious if the leak is at the pad.
If it is underground, it depends where it is whether it will be obvious or not. I had a return-side leak once that was obvious because I had a spring form in my backyard, which my Boxer found and decided to dig up. The muddy dog was my first clue that I had an issue. Turns out, she'd done a good job of excavating the leak for me.
 
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Tallfellow said:
I'm pretty sure if I turn off the pump that the water level would stabilize. But clearly that's not an option if I'm going to clean the pool up.
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I just noticed this part. This would generally indicate a pressure side leak somewhere in the return circuit. Why do you think it would stabilize if you turned off the pump? (may provide more clues to where the trouble is).
 
Tallfellow said:
Here was my thoughts on the chlorine level. Last night it was 7 this morning it was 6. I thought it needed to go up and so I added half a gallon to see where it ended up. The result was it stayed pretty much constant. So I put another 2 quarts in. And I'll test again in a little while. In part because I want to make sure the water level doesn't drop any further.


I have two more gallons of LC and I need to buy some more ASAP.


Tony
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Again, not trying to bug you but wouldn’t you want each “top off” of LC to result in FC of at least 10, or maybe 12?
 
So it's now up to 10 for FC and essentially zero for combined chlorine. I'll push it again in an hour or two.
I also cleaned out the skimmer baskets which were so clogged (they have filter socks in them) that thee was very little water circulating. I also turned off the drain at the bottom of the pool as I'm sure my water leak is in that line.
 
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Tallfellow said:
I'm pretty sure the leak is on the deep end drain because it only started last year when we turned on that line. It's off now so that's going to be another problem to fix. I'm going to set that line up so that I can do a pressure test on it.
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See if it drops more with that off. My understanding is that suction side leaks usually present as air getting into the pump/system, whereas water leaving the pool is more of a return-side leak (after the pump) or something in the envelope of the pool itself.

I had a tear in my liner when I had water dropping. Liner was super-old and had to be replaced.
 
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^^^ this.

If it leaks more with pump on than off, it’s pressure side, return circuit. If it leaks more with pump off than on, it’s suction side. If it leaks the same, pump on and off, it’s somewhere in the ”envelope” — which could be anything not directly connected to the pump.
 

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So the leak isn't horrible. an hour's worth of garden hose seems to keep it in check. I've decided that before I try to figure out where that problem is I'm going to try and get the water clean. I've stopped running the pump 24 hours a day, and run it from about 9am to 9pm. The water is not clear, but it's not so green that I can't make out the bottom which means I can now do limited vacuuming and netting of debris at the shallow end. So I'm working on that till I stir up enough junk that the water becomes opaque again. I'm keeping the chlorine level around 12 and the CYA is at about 32. There's stabilized chlorine in the chlorinator, which is helping to keep the chlorine level up. That i'm losing some water each day means that the CYA has pretty much stabilized as well. I have the garden hose on a 1 hour time each day adding water to the pool. I have about 1.5 gallons left of 10% chlorine that I bought from the local Ace hardware. I'm going to go get another 8 gallons tomorrow. I'm fighting the good fight, and hopefully things will turn the corner before ACE runs out of liquid chlorine. ;-)

Tony
 
I was using skimmer nets to try and keep the worst of it out of my filter, but I've decided that is counter productive. The nets clog up too quickly then the pump has to be turned off while I replace them and it's just not sustainable. So now I'm running the skimmers with just the regular basket, and flushing the filter every night. I realized that the pressure gage on the pump is defective. So there's another bit to replace. It's really frustrating but I'm trying to keep a positive outlook on the whole thing. I'm also wondering if maybe now is the time to get a robot clearner, as that would work indepdenant of the filter/pump. Of course there's so much junk on the bottom that I'm not sure how effective a robot would be, how quickly would the robot's basket get filled? I'm looking at the Dolphin Premier, which is pricey but I think because it has a variety of different filter elements I could use it now while the pool is dirty with the coarsest bag, and then as things get better step up. Though my pool is in a location where, till I do some chain saw work, is going to get leaf litter for a while (black locust and the Tree of Heaven).

I'd be happy to hear from anyone who has any suggestions.
 
Tallfellow said:
I was using skimmer nets to try and keep the worst of it out of my filter, but I've decided that is counter productive. The nets clog up too quickly then the pump has to be turned off while I replace them and it's just not sustainable. So now I'm running the skimmers with just the regular basket, and flushing the filter every night. I realized that the pressure gage on the pump is defective. So there's another bit to replace. It's really frustrating but I'm trying to keep a positive outlook on the whole thing. I'm also wondering if maybe now is the time to get a robot clearner, as that would work indepdenant of the filter/pump. Of course there's so much junk on the bottom that I'm not sure how effective a robot would be, how quickly would the robot's basket get filled? I'm looking at the Dolphin Premier, which is pricey but I think because it has a variety of different filter elements I could use it now while the pool is dirty with the coarsest bag, and then as things get better step up. Though my pool is in a location where, till I do some chain saw work, is going to get leaf litter for a while (black locust and the Tree of Heaven).

I'd be happy to hear from anyone who has any suggestions.
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Robot isn’t good for lots of debris. Only small amounts of it. You just need to keep netting it out. There’s been a few people here with way worse pools than yours sounds. Can you run the pump in recirculate mode to bypass the filter? That may be an option.

One way to find a leak is to let the water keep leaking until it stops. Then the leak will be at that water level unless it’s a pressure side leak.
 
I'm really sure it's a problem in one of the lines of the filtration system. If the pump isn't running the water level doesn't go down. That's part of the reason I'm turning it off at night. I don't want it to run when I'm not around to check it periodically. The flip side of course is that the pool doesn't get filtered while the filter isn't running. I'll probably run it all night again tonight. Then add more water tomorrow.

So this morning reading FC: 10 CC: 0.5 I didn't run a CYA test, it seems to be pretty steady around 30.
 
Tallfellow said:
I'm really sure it's a problem in one of the lines of the filtration system. If the pump isn't running the water level doesn't go down. That's part of the reason I'm turning it off at night. I don't want it to run when I'm not around to check it periodically. The flip side of course is that the pool doesn't get filtered while the filter isn't running. I'll probably run it all night again tonight. Then add more water tomorrow.

So this morning reading FC: 10 CC: 0.5 I didn't run a CYA test, it seems to be pretty steady around 30.
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Leak only with pump running points to pressure side above the water line. So 1. are you sure you lose no water with the pump off, or could it just be much less loss than when the pump runs? 2. Do you have any concealed or underground pressure side plumbing above the water line?

I can imagine in my mind a pressure side leak below the water line that only leaks when pressurized, but I’d start with the usual suspects first.
 
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So the only way to really know is run a pressure test. The current plumbing of the supply side doesn't really allow for that. I'd like to try and get the water clear enough that I can get in the pool and see things, but that may not be possible anytime soon. The water is still remarkably green and I'm still pulling organic debris from the deep end. I can't see down into there to know where I need to pull from so I just pull a bunch of nets full of stuff and then I wait for it all to settle and start again. I'm going to run the pump all night. So we will see how much water has been lost. The latest numbers are FC: 14 and CC: 1. With the pump running all night the chlorine should say higher because the chlorinator on the pump will keep feeding chlorine into the pool all night. Today I put the vacuum hose on the skimmer and left the hose near the bottom of the pool to try and get some of the deeper Crud out of the pool. I'm not sure how well that worked. Tonights fishing got a good amount of junk out. So maybe I'm getting close to fishing out the worst of the Crud on the deep end. This is going to be a hard long fight. The water is still pretty green and we'll see where things stand tomorrow.
 
Tested this afternoon. CYA was low 30s, FC was 12, CC was 1. So in my 26000 gallon pool 2 3 inch tabs should raise the CYA level goes up by 2.8ppm I've used about 6 tabs in the last two weeks so up by 9ppm But I'm losing water to the tune of about 750 gallons a day. So I'm adding about that each day. So far the CYA level has gone up from about high 20s to about low 30s while I've been using the pucks.
 
Tested this morning, FC was 10, CC was 1. I pulled out more debirs from the floor of the pool. It's hard to know what's going on down there as I can't see anything at the bottom. Big portions come up clean but I'm still getting 2 or 3 lbs of organic material
 
At this point you're fishing out what you can, while making sure nothing grows in the pool with the elevated chlorine levels, and letting your sand filter do the hard work of clearing the water.

Getting stuff of the bottom will absolutely make it clear faster but as you mention, it can be difficult without seeing it. :(
 

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