New Owner, Old VERY Neglected Pool

[TurbineTester]

FC 9 ppm
Added 1 g of LC but was short another quart so I need a refill on my jugs, I am hoping that I've just made my last trip to the pool store for liquid chlorine. I only filled up 5 jugs for 12.5g.

 

[TurbineTester]

Evening check, test and DE and chlorine addition.
FC -9.5
I added enough chlorine to get through the night and maybe till tomorrow. Can definitely tell see more than just a vague shadow of the Polaris in the deep end. I can see wheels, float and the blue body of it all the way down at the bottom. Filter did not need backwashing. I added DE to the skimmer. I feel like today is the first day the pool was more blue than green.

 

[frogabog]

Oh, I got excited when I saw you'd posted! And YES!!! I see it too! A definite positive change.

I think it's less blue than you're expecting because I think the liner is bleached. Other pools with blue liners would be more blue now than yours is, but that's fine. It's for sure TEAL!!

 

[wireform]

TT,
To make you feel better I was there a few weeks back with a friends pool and it took 3 weeks to get to this.

 

[TurbineTester]

Morning Update:
Filter at 25 psi this am and severely reduced flow due to the DE added last night. Water color slightly more green, probably due to the difference between AM and PM lighting. Backwashed and checked skimmer, very little. Deep end might be slightly more clear or that may just be my hopes and dreams affecting my vision.

FC-13.5 added .75 gallons to get to SLAM

 

[frogabog]

Top step... less green than yesterday AM. To be sure. Baby steps...

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

And it is now a kinda pretty color green, too. . It is looking better. I think it will just take time...

 

[jtpipkin]

what increments are you adding the DE in? blend it in slowly and mixed well with water prior to pouring in the skimmer. keep an eye on your pressure as you add and make sure it doesn't raise more than one psi on the gauge. it doesn't take much and clogging that filter up is just counter productive. are you running the filter 24/7 right now?

 

[wireform]

My opinion has it that you're not ready for DE. You have lots of junk that still needs to get cought in the filter and will need quite a few filter backwashs and yet some till you reach clear water. The DE will only shorten the filter time between backwashs. Backwash as often as you need per TFP recommended psi rise and at that point give it a good 4-5 minutes backwash as the shorter backwash doesn't give all the stuff time to come up and out. Use DE once the water is clear to the bottom at the deep end in order to filter the very fine particles. At that point you'll be getting much more mileage out of the DE without it getting in your way.

 

[jtpipkin]

My opinion has it that you're not ready for DE. You have lots of junk that still needs to get cought in the filter and will need quite a few filter backwashs and yet some till you reach clear water. The DE will only shorten the filter time between backwashs. Backwash as often as you need per TFP recommended psi rise and at that point give it a good 4-5 minutes backwash as the shorter backwash doesn't give all the stuff time to come up and out. Use DE once the water is clear to the bottom at the deep end in order to filter the very fine particles. At that point you'll be getting much more mileage out of the DE without it getting in your way.

totally agree with this statement - just having followed this thread since the beginning, know he wants it yesterday and we're probably not going to talk him out of, so figured I'd offer the best advice to help him with it

 

[TurbineTester]

And it is now a kinda pretty color green, too. . It is looking better. I think it will just take time...

I do kind of like this carribean green I've got going now.

 

[TurbineTester]

what increments are you adding the DE in? blend it in slowly and mixed well with water prior to pouring in the skimmer. keep an eye on your pressure as you add and make sure it doesn't raise more than one psi on the gauge. it doesn't take much and clogging that filter up is just counter productive. are you running the filter 24/7 right now?

I was following the guidelines from the article on this site by premixing in a bucket an amount that would not increase the gauge pressure more than 1 psi. Also I'm running both the pump and the Polaris 24/7

 

[TurbineTester]

My opinion has it that you're not ready for DE. You have lots of junk that still needs to get cought in the filter and will need quite a few filter backwashs and yet some till you reach clear water. The DE will only shorten the filter time between backwashs. Backwash as often as you need per TFP recommended psi rise and at that point give it a good 4-5 minutes backwash as the shorter backwash doesn't give all the stuff time to come up and out. Use DE once the water is clear to the bottom at the deep end in order to filter the very fine particles. At that point you'll be getting much more mileage out of the DE without it getting in your way.

Yeah that's kind of what I'm thinking. It's just that the filter doesn't seem to be "clogging" more than once a day without the DE. I guess that's ok though, right?

 

[TurbineTester]

FC-14, added 3 quarts LC
Lunch pics.

 

[S-Merry]

I do kind of like this carribean green I've got going now.

With a tan liner, you should end up with a really pretty aqua. I do so wish we could get a tan liner for our pool - they're SO pretty! ?

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

It is looking noticeably better every time you post...and that's on a computer monitor or phone. Keep up the fight.. I think you are getting there!

 

[frogabog]

I agree, it does look better every time you post pics. I didn't realize the liner was tan, not bleached white. I think it's coming along nicely. I'd also agree that maybe hold off on the DE for a day or so so you won't have to backwash as often.

 

[mguzzy]

I like the rain pics... very soothing

I like the old pools with their old fashioned implements of destruction, Slides, diving boards and such.

So is that a vine running along the roof or a tree growing out of the wall? That's quite a fixer you got there.. besides the pool!

 

[TurbineTester]

TT,
To make you feel better I was there a few weeks back with a friends pool and it took 3 weeks to get to this.
View attachment 116588

View attachment 116585

That's an impressive turn around. What did you do?

 

[TurbineTester]

With a tan liner, you should end up with a really pretty aqua. I do so wish we could get a tan liner for our pool - they're SO pretty! ?

It may have been tan at one point, I can't really tell, but it appears to be a bleached granite now. Mostly white and grey.