Preventing algae - no power

[luma7]

Running the filter without cartridges is a good idea until all the muck is cleaned out of the pool. I think you should be able to do that with your model.

You don't need to test CYA often unless you do a big water change. Once a month is fine.

We have looked up our owner's manual and are figuring how to do that.

On CYA - we were under the impression we should test CYA when we test FC & CC. I will read back through the ABC's of water chemistry and Pool School. Thank you for the tip!

 

[luma7]

Great on paper but the bottom drains don’t really pull debris/sludge/cloudiness like you’d think. A few inches from the drain will remain untouched. What you CAN do with great success is vacuum to waste if you have the old style manual vac. If you don’t have a manual vacuum you can brush the sludge to the main drains and then it will get sucked out to waste. But you’ll have to add water a bunch of times. It drains much quicker than your house hose can fill it.

If they plumbed it the ‘regular way’ you don’t need to remove the filters to use the waste setting. It should bypass the filter on its own if you select it.

My husband thinks we have a vac that will connect to the skimmers. We do not appear to have a waste setting on the filter or the plumbing to bypass the filter. We had a specific conversation with the PB about wanting to be able to bypass the filter and they put a valve in...after the filter... ... we'd planned to discuss with them but then the storm hit. So, it won't help us right now but stays on the list of things to discuss.

 

[PoolGate]

Most systems with cartridge filters do not have a filter bypass. Unless you specified with your builder that you wanted a mechanism to bypass the filter they would not have done that. It typically goes from the pump output directly into the filter.

CYA does not generally change over days/weeks. Unless you are chlorinating with pucks, which add CYA, there is no reason to test CYA more often than every month.

 

[markayash]

If you take the filters out you will know if it works or not..My pressure went way up and I shut it back down..On my hayward I just had to put the top piece back in and it worked great without the filters,

 

[luma7]

Power is on!!

We were not able to run the filter without the cartridges in it so we are just letting the equipment do its thing. We are pulling the strainer basket out of the pump every 30 minutes and dumping debris. Our equipment was not set up properly so we aren't positive how many gallons we are filtering per hour. Based on Jandy's lowest variable speed range we should turn all the water by 1am. Funny or not so funny thing... because we haven't been through our builder's pool school yet, we are looking up the owner's manuals and using YouTube for reference of how to use the equipment. Our contract stated our pump was a Jandy Pro Stealth 2.67 HP variable speed. Turns out that doesn't exist. Also turns out we have an ePump 2.7, not a Stealth at all. No idea which one was better but definitely another thing to discuss with them.

On the algae front - we've been testing everything daily and our levels are fine. Not sure if you are able to see my PoolMath logs. We had a bigger drop in FC last night (likely do to the addition of rain); however, since I had the FC up slightly higher than recommended, it brought us down into the recommended range.

Will keep you updated as the dirt gets filtered and we see if we ended up with Algae or not. Thanks, everyone, for the help!

 

[Newdude]

however, since I had the FC up slightly higher than recommended, it brought us down into the recommended range.

This has been most of the reason for my trouble free pool. When I wake in the middle of night to a monsoon, I chuckle and know I have insurance FC to spare as I roll over and pass back out. When I'm at work on a real hot day and the Mrs has a few families over to cool off on a whim, I know it will handle it, even though I'm miles away and not able to prep/pretreat the pool.

Some people like to have the absolute least amount of chlorine while still being in a safe level. And thats OK too, but day to day that need changes and you either have to babysit it, or be reactive as it changes. It costs literal peanuts to be proactive and not care either way.

 

[luma7]

The filters did part of the job last night. We woke up to a clear pool with lots of gunk on the bottom. I netted out more leaves and brushed the dirt down to the return in the deep end. Now we can't see the bottom again but we are feeling more confident we might have avoided algae. We'll figure out all the dirt and leaves and report back in a week or so whether just maintaining brushing and chemical levels while the power was off was enough to keep us algae free.

 

[TexasBR]

This may be a good time to clean out the filters if you know how to do it.

 

[PoolGate]

FYI: The below is a great tool for cleaning the cartridges.

Amazon.com : Filter Flosser-The Most Powerful Filter Cleaning Tool : Swimming Pool Cartridge Filters : Garden & Outdoor

Amazon.com : Filter Flosser-The Most Powerful Filter Cleaning Tool : Swimming Pool Cartridge Filters : Garden & Outdoor

www.amazon.com

 

[luma7]

Just closing the loop on this old thread...We did not end up with algae after either hurricane power outage we experienced last year. If anyone else stumbles across this thread, following the TFP chemistry guidelines and continuing to brush/net several times a day worked completely even though we did not have power for a week for one of the hurricanes.