Opening a neglected aboveground pool. Help needed!

[snorkly]

Hi,

We have a 27' round aboveground pool that wasn't opened last season. We just took the cover off and it's an absolute mess. It looks like there's a lot of sludge on the bottom of pool and the water is brown. You can only see the bottom of the pool if the sun is shining in the right place!

So, we're sort of at a loss as to what to do next. We have an aquabot rover, should we throw that in before we hook up the filter? We were also thinking of doing the BBB method, but we know that the pool had been treated with Bacquacil in the past. Should we try the BBB method or stick with the Bacquacil for now?

Is there any help for our pool? I can't imagine how this thing will get clean! Thanks for your help!

 

[JohnT]

Get a pool leaf rake like this

and remove as much gunk from the bottom as you can. Get the filter running and then I'd just shock with chlorine. The Baq level is probably very low since the pool wasn't maintained last year, and you're going to have a heck of mess either way.

 

[Casey]

Hi. Welcome to TFP!

I'd say that now is the time to convert over to BBB and leave the Baq behind you! You may even have a super easy convert since it hasn't been open for a year.

I don't know much about rovers but I'd scoop what you can off the bottom, fill it up and get your filter started.

Oh yeah... and go buy some bleach and a good test kit in Duraleighs signature.

You'll want to work on clearing the pool first with shock treating at 15 ppm for the first 24-72 hours depending on how bad it looks. Bring it up to 15ppm and test it every couple hours and if it drops below, bring it back up.

It would also help to add your pool specs and filter to your siggy. You can do that in your profile. If you have a sand filter, use the old sand until it clears and your CC is .5 and under and then you'll wanna change it out but then again, I don't know what kinda filter you have so please add it.

 

[JasonLion]

Absolutely convert to BBB. Baquacil is great the first year or two, but most people have on going problems after that. You should read some of the Baquacil conversion stories in the Baquacil area of this site. It can take a great deal of chlorine to convert, but it is well worth the effort.

The three steps are to get all the debris you can out of the pool, get a good test kit, and find out what your current test numbers are.