After a year of successfully maintaining my pool (using this forum's advice), I think I screwed things up. It started a couple weeks ago when I tried to deep clean my sand filter.
When I removed the multiport valve to deep clean, it didn't lift freely but was secured to the standpipe and laterals, lifting them up with it, so I couldn't close it again. I decided to just do a sand change. I used Quickcrete pool sand (purchased from a pool store).
I clean the filter and replace the laterals. Because I can't get the standpipe to come out of the valve, I cut the stand pipe and dry fit a coupling. After replacing the sand, I discover the standpipe is too short--to won't fully sit into the coupling I added. I do another splice and add a short segment of pipe so that it reaches. I get it on, but I'm not confident that I all the couplings remained in place and sealed.
I go to reconnect the plumbing and discover that when the filter was empty I must have moved it and nothing lines up. I cut out a complex network of piping that diverts the return through a solar heater and non-used gas heater, and repipe it using just manual valves to diver the return to the solar heater or straight to the pool.
From here everything seems great. There's noticeably more volume flowing through the filter and the suction vacuum is working a lot better. After a day, the pool seems to be clearer than it's ever been, but don't bet on it.
After a couple weeks, the pool gets cloudy. I also notice some yellowish residue on the walls and corners. So I decide to SLAM. The OCL is never more than 2, and the CC is never more than 1. After two days the OCL is less than 2 and CC is 0. So I do a heavy backwash and water replacement to get the FC back to a reasonable level. Pool stays clear through a weekend of heavy use until Sunday afternoon, it's cloudy again.
The yellowish stuff is back. There's more of it in the parts that are shaded, but some where it's full sun.
I'm currently shocking it again and will up the FC to the yellow algae level when that's complete, but I'm not confident that will work.
At this point, I'm assuming one (or both) of two possibilities: I screwed up with the standpipe and water is flowing into a gap above the sand; and/or it's just mustard (or regular) algae).
My questions are:
1) Is there anyway to determine the water is flowing down to the bottom of the sand filter and up the standpipe, rather than passing through a gap in the standpipe above the sand line?
The pressure after the change was maybe 1-2 psi lower. When I set the filter to recirculate, it drops about 6 psi. Unless I have the solar heater on. Then it remains about 7 psi higher than without the solar on, regardless if the filter is set to filter or recirculate. While backwashing or rinsing, the pressure is about 3 psi lower than filtering.
2) My fiberglass pool has unused ports. When I vacuum near them, dirt flows out. Not knowing what's behind these ports (if they're sealed or just plugged up by southern AZ clay), I placed plugs over them about a month ago. When Shocking, do I need to remove the plugs so that the high chlorine can get to the water that's in the ports? Do I really need to worry about the ports not being sealed?
3) Is there anything else that could be causing the cloudy water? Anything else I may have screwed up in changing the sand?
In the week leading up to my first SLAM, my water parameters were:
FC: 3-7 generally, dropped to 1-2 once.
CC: 0
CYA: 40
CH: 1000
TA: 120
PH: 7.4-8.0 (after the sand change, I was having to add a lot more acid to keep the PH down)
My pool is on well water in southern AZ. It tends to be very hard and alkaline.
Thanks for any guidance you can offer.
When I removed the multiport valve to deep clean, it didn't lift freely but was secured to the standpipe and laterals, lifting them up with it, so I couldn't close it again. I decided to just do a sand change. I used Quickcrete pool sand (purchased from a pool store).
I clean the filter and replace the laterals. Because I can't get the standpipe to come out of the valve, I cut the stand pipe and dry fit a coupling. After replacing the sand, I discover the standpipe is too short--to won't fully sit into the coupling I added. I do another splice and add a short segment of pipe so that it reaches. I get it on, but I'm not confident that I all the couplings remained in place and sealed.
I go to reconnect the plumbing and discover that when the filter was empty I must have moved it and nothing lines up. I cut out a complex network of piping that diverts the return through a solar heater and non-used gas heater, and repipe it using just manual valves to diver the return to the solar heater or straight to the pool.
From here everything seems great. There's noticeably more volume flowing through the filter and the suction vacuum is working a lot better. After a day, the pool seems to be clearer than it's ever been, but don't bet on it.
After a couple weeks, the pool gets cloudy. I also notice some yellowish residue on the walls and corners. So I decide to SLAM. The OCL is never more than 2, and the CC is never more than 1. After two days the OCL is less than 2 and CC is 0. So I do a heavy backwash and water replacement to get the FC back to a reasonable level. Pool stays clear through a weekend of heavy use until Sunday afternoon, it's cloudy again.
The yellowish stuff is back. There's more of it in the parts that are shaded, but some where it's full sun.
I'm currently shocking it again and will up the FC to the yellow algae level when that's complete, but I'm not confident that will work.
At this point, I'm assuming one (or both) of two possibilities: I screwed up with the standpipe and water is flowing into a gap above the sand; and/or it's just mustard (or regular) algae).
My questions are:
1) Is there anyway to determine the water is flowing down to the bottom of the sand filter and up the standpipe, rather than passing through a gap in the standpipe above the sand line?
The pressure after the change was maybe 1-2 psi lower. When I set the filter to recirculate, it drops about 6 psi. Unless I have the solar heater on. Then it remains about 7 psi higher than without the solar on, regardless if the filter is set to filter or recirculate. While backwashing or rinsing, the pressure is about 3 psi lower than filtering.
2) My fiberglass pool has unused ports. When I vacuum near them, dirt flows out. Not knowing what's behind these ports (if they're sealed or just plugged up by southern AZ clay), I placed plugs over them about a month ago. When Shocking, do I need to remove the plugs so that the high chlorine can get to the water that's in the ports? Do I really need to worry about the ports not being sealed?
3) Is there anything else that could be causing the cloudy water? Anything else I may have screwed up in changing the sand?
In the week leading up to my first SLAM, my water parameters were:
FC: 3-7 generally, dropped to 1-2 once.
CC: 0
CYA: 40
CH: 1000
TA: 120
PH: 7.4-8.0 (after the sand change, I was having to add a lot more acid to keep the PH down)
My pool is on well water in southern AZ. It tends to be very hard and alkaline.
Thanks for any guidance you can offer.
