Opening Swamp, TFP, No Problem

[Jonesy]

Hey everyone,
So I left our pool uncovered over the winter because we don’t have any trees nearby, so leaves aren’t an issue. However, I did disconnect (literally had to cut the pipes, yes, it was HARD plumbed) the pump/filter as they were hard plumbed, and I wanted the pool to not overflow.
Unfortunately, while I was waiting for the concrete guy to pour a small slab to put the filter on, it warmed up just enough to encourage algae to grow. We watched, from our new deck, our pool go from crystal clear to green, can’t see the bottom, swamp in 3 days.
After a week or so of algae growth, I was able to get the pump and filter up on the new slab and replumbed, with a drain for the winter. No more disconnecting, yay.
So I brought up the CYA to 40 and SLAMed, not even bothering to run the other tests as we wanted to get rid of the algae, fast. Passed an OCLT after 3 days of SLAM and have been brushing and vacuuming daily, backwashing as needed, waiting for the FC to drop below 10 to get a good set of numbers. The water was extremely cloudy at first, but has since gotten much better, which leads me to my current numbers.....

FC 7.5
CC 0
CYA 40 (let the water warm inside to get a good reading)
Ph 7.5
CH 75
TA 60

I’ve seen elsewhere that I shouldn’t worry about CH unless we get foaming as it’s an AG Vinyl. Should I bother bringing the TA up? It will be another month before the water gets warm enough (for us) to swim, so should I just monitor it and see what happens?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Texas Splash]

If you are having no foaming issues and your pH is remaining stable, I'd just leave things as they are right now. Give the water time to acclimate and you'll have opportunities to fine-tune things later as needed.

 

[Jonesy]

If you are having no foaming issues and your pH is remaining stable, I'd just leave things as they are right now. Give the water time to acclimate and you'll have opportunities to fine-tune things later as needed.

Thanks. That’s what I was thinking. Let the water warm, monitor/ keep FC in range, and see where everything else goes in the meantime.
I gotta say, I was shocked by how fast the algae was gone. I stocked up on 10% thinking I was going to have to SLAM for at least a week. Nope, 3 days, and I think even that was overkill.

 

[Jonesy]

Ok, so everything has been going fine.

Except..... I had some contractors in that enlarged our back patio and put on a nice, styrofoam insulated, patio roof. For some reason, they decided to cut the roofing panels upwind from the pool, putting a really nice layer of styrofoam dust in the pool. I picked out what I could with the net, and the rest seemed to “disappear”. However, upon closer inspection, it just went from white styrofoam flakes to very small, clear, flakes. They are everywhere, leaving a nice floating mess in my pool.

Any thoughts on how to get them out? Since they float, the skimmer/filter isn’t helping, they seem to be too small for the skimmer net to get them as well. I’m afraid to ask the local voodoo store as I’m sure they’ll just try to sell me a bunch of chemicals that will completely wreck my perfectly balanced pool......

 

[Texas Splash]

Any thoughts on how to get them out?

Yikes! Thank you contractors! Well, I honestly cant' think of anything other than the eventual use of the skimmer sock and sand to grab that stuff, Perhaps add a small amount of DE to the sand later if you still need to. It may just be a matter of time for that stuff to get sucked out.

 

[kimkats]

Wrap a tight knit t-shirt around your net and see if that will get them up and out. That is what I do when I get tiny stuff in the pool.

 

[Jonesy]

Good ideas! Thanks! I hadn’t thought of trying something (T-shirt, maybe even pantyhose) around the net. Luckily the wife hates pantyhose, so I’m sure she will volunteer those as tributes ?