Pressure up from 15psi to 25psi in an afternoon

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Well, I've already done that (nearly) but I spent 8 hours water blasting the floor and walls yesterday so was able to drain between 1500 and 2000 gallons. I'm still only half way so will be able to do the same today. I also aimed the hose pipe at a gap between the wall and the light housing and all manor of green stuff came out the other side out so I'll be investigating how to remove the two lights (no obvious means so far).

I also know how many 5L jugs of weak bleach fit into a regular sized trolley at Mercadona, 15 :D
 
Hi, we are in Cyprus, so would be interested where you obtained your test kit from, and what the cost was for the kit and shipping, as I think they are also hard to come by here. We are not in our villa until mid-July, and it will be our first pool, so a little apprehensive!
 
DHCYP59 said:
Hi, we are in Cyprus, so would be interested where you obtained your test kit from, and what the cost was for the kit and shipping, as I think they are also hard to come by here. We are not in our villa until mid-July, and it will be our first pool, so a little apprehensive!
Click to expand...

It wasn't cheap but as you say, they are hard to find in Europe although I'll admit I didn't spend weeks looking for one. I got it from Sword Scientific Ltd and a guy called Tim Schofield [email protected] The list price was £92.25 + £25 postage to Spain +VAt @20% so all in all £140.70.

Be sure to ask that all the bottles are sealed. Some of mine weren't and the box was shrink wrapped so could have been a customer return. I did haggle for a discount prior to purchase so maybe that was the trade off.
 
OK, thanks for that. Will check them out. We do have someone coming to give us a couple of lessons once we move in, so we'll see what he suggests. Someone is looking after the pool while the house is empty (we're renting, not buying) but not sure how often or what he's doing.

Look forward to reading more about your progress!

Diane
 
Desiato said:
Well, I've already done that (nearly) but I spent 8 hours water blasting the floor and walls yesterday so was able to drain between 1500 and 2000 gallons. I'm still only half way so will be able to do the same today. I also aimed the hose pipe at a gap between the wall and the light housing and all manor of green stuff came out the other side out so I'll be investigating how to remove the two lights (no obvious means so far).

I also know how many 5L jugs of weak bleach fit into a regular sized trolley at Mercadona, 15 :D
Click to expand...
Well Done!!

Once you've gotten rid of the "moss" and if you do have any calcium deposits on the tile, it would be good to get rid of them with an acid wash before you refill the pool.

On the lights look for a screw or two someplace, most likely going thru the housing around the glass. if no screws next option would be to give the light a good pull...maybe they are pushed into compression fittings?
 
DHCYP59 said:
Good news is, I have managed to locate a pool company in Cyprus (and not too far from where we live) that stocks the LaMotte test kits. Will give them a call to check on prices soon.
Click to expand...

Excellent news, if I looked harder I may have found one in Spain but my Spanish isn't great which makes the whole process 10 times harder. Let me know what prices they are going for as it's likely to cost me the same from the UK as it is from Cyprus for reagents.

Whilst I'm here, a quick update.....Someone please shoot me! After the drain I tested the CYA and was seeing the same results, black spot disappearing around the 80 mark. I then doubled this number because that's what I did before.......doh! :rolleyes: Eventually the penny dropped and I realised my CYA was now 80 and not 160 and after a week of power washing the tiles and draining to waste it fell to 70 and now 60 (albeit with a note from the council to tell me my water consumption has been exceedingly high of late....oops)

I decided to SLAM but unfortunately, it didn't go to plan. Despite reading that I should make sure my PH was in the 7.2 to 7.6 range, I forgot and only remembered after I had poured the bleach in. To cut a long story short, The PH was very high so I panicked and put some PH- in. Next morning my PH was too low so put some PH+ in which I'm guessing contributed to a large drop in FC to below shock level (was expecting 30 but only got 21) although my CC was 0.5 so thought I'd got away with it. 24 hours later the FC dropped to 13 and the CC was now 0.0 and I was about to get the party poppers out but that evening my FC was 12 (which was unbelievable, it had been a very sunny day, how had it maintained that level?) but 0.5 CC had crept back in from somewhere. The next morning the FC was 10 and the CC was still holding at 0.5 which was dissapointing as I knew that meant I was losing the battle. This evenings test confirmed my fears as the FC was now 6.5 and the CC has gone up to 1.0 so I guess I didn't get away with it after all.

Staring into the deep end of the pool with the pump off it looks like the pool is empty, the water is that clear but I know what I have to do, another trolley load of bleach will be on it's way tomorrow.

I didn't find the time to have a look at the lights and I can't see anywhere else the pesky little blighter's can be hiding so I'll have to make a concerted effort at getting them out and blast the green vermin.

To be continued...
 
jblizzle said:
Now that your FC is down ... check and adjust the pH.

And get that FC back up to shock level for your current CYA.
Click to expand...

That's today's plan.

PH has been stable at 7.4/7.5 over the last 24 hours. I'll give the pool a good brushing today and work on each bottle raising the FC by 2PPM (down from the original estimate of 3PPM) so will go for TFT (The Full Trolley) IE 15 bottles = 30PPM

I'll do it late tonight and take a reading first thing in the morning so that I can nail down this PPM once and for all.

Overnight FC held at 6.5 with CC dropping to 0.5 which is impossible but good news all the same. I've been trying to conserve the reagent but think I will need to test at 0.2 instead of 0.5 when I get down to these levels again to get a more accurate result.

Thanks jblizzle, appreciate your help.

The Deep End Nice and clear

Just as an aside, I started reading up about BBB yesterday as an additional way to seek out and destroy my hiding algae. I was liking what I was reading and was all set to go shopping until I got to page 6 of the thread "So you want to add Borates to your pool--Why and how" and read Freelancer's posts about Borax being either unavailable or ridiculously expensive in Spain ($65 per lb). Apart from getting annoyed and then depressed, this lead me again to thinking about a section on the forum for us non Americans. I know it has been talked about before and that the consensus of opinion was that there were not enough of us to make it worth your while but I think there is a bigger picture here. So far I have found out that bleach in Spain is very weak, Taylor kits are not available outside of the US and that Borax is stupidly expensive/unavailable. The problem is that finding this information on this website is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I have a feeling that if there was a very small section just for the non Americans, with specific info about what is available and where in various Euro countries and the rest of the World, it would fill up pretty quickly. IE Build it and they will come. This site is one of the largest and most informative swimming pool sites on the net but because some of the info only applies to the US, I find I'm trying to play along with one arm tied behind my back. I've also recently been on a British Expat site for those living in Spain and there are people on there asking how to maintain their pools and some of the advice they are getting is shocking! A couple of us are pointing people in this direction but until you build a ROTW (Rest Of The World) section, not many will hang around as BBB and strong bleach for SLAMing is not something they can play along with. Posters like Freelancer did some digging (in 2009) and found out some vital info but it's buried so deep I almost missed it. There are 30 different sections on the Forum home page, would 1 more really make that much difference? Thoughts? Separate thread?
 
^what a wonderful idea. If the mods decide to make a thread section, perhaps you could send in a list of the links you read that were helpful!

How is your filter behaving now that you've added glass, reduced your cya, and gotten into a slam? Has it resolved?

Lastly, just a tip on finding stronger bleach -- call it "liquid chlorine shock" and then see if the pool stores cough it up ;) In the US, some pool store sell 10% and 12.5% "liquid chlorine shock" that is identical to "bleach" except much stronger.

Its actually what I use in my TFP pool ;) Hope that helps.

And just wanna say, Barcelona is one of my fav cities. I'm jealous ;)
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
I do not know if this helps you or not, but you may want to locate a large cleaning company or laundry company in Barcelona, and ask them where they buy industrial amounts of bleach at. In the US, we buy bleach at our grocery stores in 1 gallon bottles. However, industrial amounts can be found in some areas where you can buy 5 gallon containers, or sometimes even larger.
 
Swampwoman said:
Ps - just for fun I googled "liquid chlorine shock and Barcelona" and got a uk supplier that lists Barcelona as part of "worldwide supply"
Here's the link: Swimming Pool chemicals | Case Chemicals

Maybe if you call or email them they can tell you who they sell to!
Click to expand...

Nice one swampwoman!

I emailed a couple of companies about testing kits in Barcelona and none of them had the decency to reply which has kind of put me off emailing companies but I've just sent them a message, let's see if it is third time lucky. I went wandering around the town centre today to find pool stores but of course, they all close for the afternoon here (and they wonder why the countries going to the dogs). I did find one with a 25kg bottle of Liquid Chlorine for €30 but they were closed so no idea what strength it is, will find out another day.

I was thinking about mentioning the filter today but I do tend to waffle on sometimes so didn't bother. It's actually been behaving very well. I had it running for 24 hours a couple of days ago and it didn't move from 16psi. I had the pump running for 6 hours over night and I've just turned it on to see where it's at today....16psi. :)

Hard to put a finger on what has been the main reason for the improvement so I'm going with a combination of the correct amount of glass media and a lot less invisible nasties in the water. I'm now armed with a Lidl load of bleach (their trolley holds 18 bottles, note to self) and will be commencing "SLAM2 The Sequal" this evening.
 
Yev said:
I do not know if this helps you or not, but you may want to locate a large cleaning company or laundry company in Barcelona, and ask them where they buy industrial amounts of bleach at. In the US, we buy bleach at our grocery stores in 1 gallon bottles. However, industrial amounts can be found in some areas where you can buy 5 gallon containers, or sometimes even larger.
Click to expand...

Thanks Yev, I know someone who works in a hotel in Barcelona so will see if they can find out for me, good idea!:thumleft:
 
After checking with the Chlorine/CYA chart I saw that 24ppm was my target FC so decided to go with 12 bottles instead of 15. I was basing this on the last SLAM where 11 bottles took it from 0 to 21 but I didn't know what effect my panic dumping of PH- had caused. Well, it caused quite a lot because with 12 bottles last night my FC was 37 (CC - 0) this morning. So on that basis 1 bottle is just under 3ppm (starting at 4ppm last night) which is what was calculated earlier. :goodjob:

The PSI went up from a stable 16psi for the last few days to 22psi overnight and what came out with a backwash was a bright white colour. Was this part of the bleach of what it had caught and killed? Pressure went back to 15psi so I'm really pleased that it stayed at 16psi for so long (4/5 days) as it's not done that in the last 3/4 years.

I should be fine for a couple of days but I'll do another test tonight and another in the morning to monitor the overnight FC loss and the 0-CC .

PS Case Chemicals are trade suppliers and they don't have a supplier in Barcelona. Sam asked out of curiosity what my needs were, I replied, I didn't hear from him/her again.
 
Swampwoman said:
Too bad about Case...you should ask them why they have Barcelona on their website!

Try not to go quite so high over your slam target just to be on the safe side but otherwise sounding good ;)
Click to expand...

In my reply I did say that someone gave me the website address because it mentioned Barcelona on the home page but like I said, Sam didn't feel the need to reply.

Now that I know exactly how many PPM my bleach will raise my FC (just shy of 3) I won't be making that mistake again. It was my panic dumping of PH- that messed up the figures last time so it should be plain sailing from here on in....famous last words?

I see the target FC for 100 CYA is 12 but what is considered a safe level of FC for swimming in?

Thanks
 
Yev said:
I asked this question before about my pool, and everyone told me that you are safe to swim as long as the FC level is at the shock level or below on the FC/CYA chart for the CYA level in your pool.
Click to expand...

Oh right, I read on here someone who was SLAMing his pool but had to get in to remove some lights and then said something like "but don't worry, I had a good shower straight afterwards" as if to suggest he shouldn't have been in there.
 
A quick update and a question whilst SLAMing.

My 37FC yesterday morning dropped to 27 last night and was 23 this morning so I had to bite the bullet and get in the pool to get the lights out. All manner of gunk behind them so with two bleach top ups so far today (9am added 1 bottle (3ppm) tested 12am - 24. 3ppm added, tested 5pm, 25). Will test again in a couple of hours and again last thing at night. Will leave it until dark and get up extra early to get a TRUE overnight FC loss count.

My arms are now itchy and my skin feels tight/dry so I won't be letting the kids in the pool until the FC is back to normal levels. Sorry guys, I know I am supposed to be able to swim at Shock levels but my skin is telling me otherwise. I know the level of CYA dictates the FC level for a SLAM but can you test the CYA during a SLAM? I tested the PH and the TA last week during SLAM1 and the numbers were well off so just stopped testing everything apart from FC and CC. I tested my CYA just now and it is 40 which it can't be as it was 60 three days ago. I only tested the CYA today because of my skin reaction to see if my FC level of 24 needed adjusting. I'm guessing the answer is that CYA readings are off during a SLAM but after a search couldn't find the answer so if someone in the know doesn't mind?

Fingers crossed the light cleaning has done the trick as I'm out of ideas if the OCLT drops 4ppm again.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply