No Flos Phosphate Remover After Closing

[JoeSchmoe]

Hi Everyone. The pool store said my phosphorus levels were slightly on the high side. I bought some No Flos (the "natural" lanthanum stuff). Not realizing how badly it clouds up, I threw it in after I closed my pool to help prevent algae. I waited a day to put the cover on and it all settled at the bottom in the meantime.

At the time, I figured it I'd vacuum it all out to waste when I open the pool. No I'm 2nd guessing whether it will damage the liner.

Does anyone know (without guessing) if the white sediment is harmful to liners or not? I really don't want to open my pool again just to vacuum it all out if I don't have to.

Thanks!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

It won’t damage the liner but it could cause scale to form around it that could be hard to remove. The phosphate may also get released back into the water over time as lanthanum can form both carbonates and phosphates. Depending on the water conditions, the lanthanum may prefer to be in the carbonate form. It really should be vacuumed to waste but I understand that that’s not easy at this point.

Up to you - roll the dice and let it ride OR drag out lots of equipment and start vacuuming to waste … let us know what happens.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

It won’t damage the liner but it could cause scale to form around it that could be hard to remove. The phosphate may also get released back into the water over time as lanthanum can form both carbonates and phosphates. Depending on the water conditions, the lanthanum may prefer to be in the carbonate form. It really should be vacuumed to waste but I understand that that’s not easy at this point.

Up to you - roll the dice and let it ride OR drag out lots of equipment and start vacuuming to waste … let us know what happens.

Thanks. I was just thinking, could I do this with an external pump and not use my pool equipment?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks. I was just thinking, could I do this with an external pump and not use my pool equipment?

Kind of hard as you’d need a very low flow, self-priming pump. Something like a low flow transfer pump might do the trick. As long as it’s flow is below 10GPM and it has enough lift to get water out of the deep end, you might be able to rig it up to a manual vacuum head to do some slow vacuuming. It has to be slow though because if you move around too quickly then the agitation will just stir up the floc at the bottom.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

I just ordered a 360GPH transfer pump. I figure I can jam a hose in my manual vacuum head and stuff it with a rag and some duct tape to hold it solid. I'll keep you posted.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

I just ordered a 360GPH transfer pump. I figure I can jam a hose in my manual vacuum head and stuff it with a rag and some duct tape to hold it solid. I'll keep you posted.

Just tried it. Unfortunately my garden hose doesn't have the structural rigidity to suck water very well. It's like drinking a thick McDonald's shake through a straw.

I'm thinking I'll need to hook my pool hose up to it somehow.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

I just googled around and a trash pump set like this guy has seems way better don't you think?

1.2K views · 6 comments | Trash pump vacs: a good solution for when you've got excessive debris 🍂🍃🍁 ..or really dirty slime that you don't want going into your filtration system... | By Dundas Valley Pools | Facebook

Trash pump vacs: a good solution for when you've got excessive debris 🍂🍃🍁 ..or really dirty slime that you don't want going into your filtration system...

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[JoyfulNoise]

Trash pumps are typically very high velocity. Good for leaves and heavy debris, bad for vacuuming up fines.

Maybe you can just buy a more rigid garden hose? They make ones that are supposed to be impossible to collapse.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

Trash pumps are typically very high velocity. Good for leaves and heavy debris, bad for vacuuming up fines.

Maybe you can just buy a more rigid garden hose? They make ones that are supposed to be impossible to collapse.

I feel like the low flow is what was killing me. Even when I had the hose kinda good, I was mucking it up more that I was actually vacuuming. I feel like I needed more volume being sucked in in the general vicinity of the vacuum head.

 

[dereksanders]

That just requires patience, IMO. If the suction itself is not creating the disturbance something else is.

Then again, vacuuming with inadequate suction will also bite you in the butt. Both have gotten me.

There can be too low of a suction depending upon what’s being vacuumed.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

It’s very difficult to remove a floc of fine particulates. Any motion around them will cause them to stir. It’s a very painstakingly slow process. With a trash pump you will lose too much pool water as you’re moving slowly and waiting for the particulates to settle. Then you will have to fill with a hose and wait for that as it stirs up the water.

Sorry, there aren’t a lot of good options at this point. If the pool were open, you brush up the phosphate solids and let the filter handle it. I know in my own pool that when I do a phosphate treatment it takes a good 24-36 hours of continuous filtering, with the suction cleaner running as well, to get the cloudiness to clear up. Then the filter has to be backwashed. I usually time it with a filter cleaning so that I do both at once - phosphate treatment + annual filter cleaning.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

With a trash pump you will lose too much pool water as you’re moving slowly and waiting for the particulates to settle. Then you will have to fill with a hose and wait for that as it stirs up the water.

The pool is closed. The pool is going to fill up over the winter with snow and rain. Most years I have to borrow my friend's pump to bring it down. Once it gets too close to the top of the liner.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

Here's an update...

I rented the trash pump this morning. It was definitely the right call.

Since the failed transfer pump attempt, I was able to sweep 80-90% of the floc along the bottom of the edges of the deep end where it transitions up the wall. The transfer pump picked up this all of this beautifully. Maybe only 10% was lost to clouding. It's the high suction that did the trick. You could see anything that clouded getting sucked in.

The only trouble was that the leaves have started dropping around here. The ones that settled in the bottom of the pool clogged up screen on the intake of the hose a bunch of times. Each time we had to shut down the pump to clear it.

Through all this, I only lost about 3 or 4 inches of water, which will likely all come back throughout the winter.

Given there's maybe only 15% or so of the floc left, I'm going to call it a day and cover it for the winter.