Sorry it's been so long without an update--been plugging along with SLAM, probably dragging it out longer than it needs to just due to time constraints. With all my other life stuff it just isn't possible to test & adjust every hour, but depending on the day I've been getting it back up to 10PPM maybe two to five times a day, as well as vacuuming & scooping.
The vacuum is no longer picking up very much, I can vacuum for a long time and pull it out with just a little green gunk inside, not the heaps of stuff from before.
Water clarity has improved to the point of being able to still see the vacuum when it's at the bottom of the pool, though things are still too cloudy & green to be tempted to swim. This allowed us to see where a bit of leaf debris was still hanging out in the middle, which made it much easier to scoop. The dark blob used to re-accumulate in the middle of the pool floor a while after the latest vacuum/brush/scoop stirred it up, but as of a few days ago that's finally gone too. I'll post progress pics soon.
URGENT QUESTION:
Husband is out of town for a few days. We've gotten to the point where the filter cartridge can go a day or three between cleanings (versus the 3x daily we were doing for a while)--but unfortunately it got slowed down & sluggish, starting yesterday morning, right after he left. I've tried, and I just physically can not open the blasted pool pump to pull the cartridge out-- the lid is just incredibly hard to unscrew. My husband is burlier than I am and he struggles with it.
Can I keep SLAMing if I'm not running the pump?? Or running it minimally, at very sub-par flow? Like, if I just do a bunch of brushing to stir the water up after each chemical adjustment? I can get the water moving at a good clip again briefly, if I turn off & drain the pump, then start it back up, but the current doesn't keep up strength for too long after.
Do I risk really messing something up if I keep adding chlorine (at SLAM levels) to water that is not getting filtered & moved around constantly?
