Just became the proud owner of a frog pond.

[cgallaty]

I'm sure you've heard this one before. I just bought a house at the beginning of May. Mostly working on renovating the inside to make it livable by the end of June, but every time I head out the back yard, there is the swamp, calling for attention. Largish diamond shape. Vinyl liner. Can't see the bottom. There are a ton of frogs. Working (slowly) to get it to the point where I can actually work on it. There was a bunch of pipe missing (and likely pipes below ground have some issues), rough fit some into place only to find that the pressure gauge on the filter is toast. (As a side note, exploding PVC couplings make a great, if not messy, pressure limiter for filters... or so I found) So, work in progress. I plan to try and get the filter in some workable order and perhaps SLAM the thing, but right now there is so much debris in the water that I fear it would just laugh at any bleach I through in. Like everything else at the house, its a project. Very interested in getting it running, but not if it's just going to be a hole to throw cash into. Very interested in the idea of flipping it to salt seeing as I'm in the frozen north, seems like it could only help me with freezing come winter.

I have not dug, but I'm looking for any tips on bulk organics removal. I was thinking of McGyvering some kind of giant garbage can based coarse filter for leaves and all the muck on the bottom. I've spent some quality time with the whimpy little net that was here, scooping off some of the stuff, but its really a joke, I need something that can handle volume.

 

[JVTrain]

Welcome to TFP! Not too many of us Minnesotans around here. Can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Texan though...

Once you start to tackle the pool, the best tools are a good sturdy pole and a leaf rake. Skimmer nets, which I'm assuming you were using, are relatively worthless in my opinion and a leaf rake will do that job of manual surface skimming and be able to scoop material off the bottom. Something like this:

Other options could be to rent a trash pump and put a hose on the bottom, taped or otherwise affixed to a pole to attempt to get sludge/debris off the bottom but that will also suck out quite a bit of water... which may not be so bad up to a point.

Salt water chlorination is a great option to consider no matter where you live as it automates the addition of chlorine without the nasty side affects of using trichlor tablets (constantly raising your CYA). Your pool will still freeze solid around here so no real winter advantage but it would make chlorination easier in the summer time. Wish I had SWG... but other priorities as you have at this time too.

Good luck getting started and getting the plumbing going. If the pool was neglected and unclosed for a few years, there could be lots of problems lurking below ground with the plumbing...

 

[cgallaty]

That's the main guy I was using up until now... until someone's cotton wood started shedding. I broke down and snagged a 12 gallon pumping Shop-Vac over the weekend and spent some quality time holding it just above the surface and slurping up cotton. I had stopped by Menards to get the vac (and a new pole as I _bent_ the one I had pulling leaves out) I swung over to the paint section and picked up those nylon nets they use for straining paint in 5 gallon buckets. They work really well for holding CYA power it turns out, and I threw one over the inside of the Shop-Vac. I turned the water back into the pool as I figured what could it hurt at this point. Went back in rather green and the machine cried uncle twice and so I dumped off only about 24 gallons, but no more cotton clumps (for a short while at least) I can't seem to get any suction off the skimmers to try and vac and so I'm likely going to try rigging the Shop-Vac to the bottom rolling vac head that I just picked up. I'm also likely just going to completely disconnect the skimmers for now and just run some PVC from the pump to the deep end and then muck with the same filter till the water comes out (somewhat) more see through. At some point I'll dig down under the area where the pipes are connected to the pump, but I fear what I will find. Here's hoping they are busted just around the frost line and I can dig lower, hack them off and put new ends on.