Hello All! New pool owner (February of this year). For awhile, things were going well. The pool got a little green now and again, but with the help of my trusty friend Power Powder Plus 73, we always got back on course. I know now that I was treating symptoms, not root causes. Anyways, fast forward to July and we began a full scale renovation of our house. We decided to move out until we finished the remodel, hopefully that will be in a couple of weeks. One day I came by to check on everything, and the pool was a little green again. "Not to worry," I say as I dump a few pounds of shock in. I walk away, confident in the fact that upon my return my pool will be sparkling. How wrong I was. My pool was a swamp. I've made all the mistakes at this point.
"Shock, shock, shock some more. " (No effect, pH was way high)
"Throw in some Algaecide left in the chemical shed from the previous owner." (No effect, shocker)
"Throw in some clarifier." (Getting the picture yet)
"Don't add DE to the filter, you are just going to backwash it out anyways!" (Hello, short cycle city.)
All genuine thoughts I have had in this process.
At this point, I finally feel like I am starting to turn a corner. I broke my filter down completely and cleaned everything, reassembled. Pressure looks good, and now a quick backwash effectively cleans everything up and effectively lowers my pressure. Have my handy dandy TFP test kit and have begun using it, planning on completed a full set of tests this evening. I did hire a local pool company to assist me for the time being, as I am not able to make time daily to get over to my house to do everything that needs doing. Between myself and the pool company, we will have near daily presence fighting the algae. I am a little skeptical of their approach, but obviously its difficult to explain to a guy who cleans pools for a living that you think he is wrong as he looks over your shoulder at the miniature everglade model in your backyard
. We will see if our efforts end up working in tandem or if we end up getting in each others way. At this point, I plan on keeping the filter clean and running tests to monitor water parameters as a backstop to check the progress of the pool guy. I figure if I keep seeing positive changes in the pool water at a chemical level, I will see them visually as well. Anyways, thanks for reading. I have really learned a lot reading the different threads here on TFP. This is mostly a rant, and perhaps a cautionary tale to the unsuspecting new pool owner. I don't think this is overly difficult, we just make it that way. My hope is that the pool guy can get the algae cleaned up. Either way, I will likely end my service with them once we move back in. If the pool is cleaned up and tests look good, great. If not, I will commence SLAMming when I can attend to it multiple times a day.
"Shock, shock, shock some more. " (No effect, pH was way high)
"Throw in some Algaecide left in the chemical shed from the previous owner." (No effect, shocker)
"Throw in some clarifier." (Getting the picture yet)
"Don't add DE to the filter, you are just going to backwash it out anyways!" (Hello, short cycle city.)
All genuine thoughts I have had in this process.
At this point, I finally feel like I am starting to turn a corner. I broke my filter down completely and cleaned everything, reassembled. Pressure looks good, and now a quick backwash effectively cleans everything up and effectively lowers my pressure. Have my handy dandy TFP test kit and have begun using it, planning on completed a full set of tests this evening. I did hire a local pool company to assist me for the time being, as I am not able to make time daily to get over to my house to do everything that needs doing. Between myself and the pool company, we will have near daily presence fighting the algae. I am a little skeptical of their approach, but obviously its difficult to explain to a guy who cleans pools for a living that you think he is wrong as he looks over your shoulder at the miniature everglade model in your backyard
. We will see if our efforts end up working in tandem or if we end up getting in each others way. At this point, I plan on keeping the filter clean and running tests to monitor water parameters as a backstop to check the progress of the pool guy. I figure if I keep seeing positive changes in the pool water at a chemical level, I will see them visually as well. Anyways, thanks for reading. I have really learned a lot reading the different threads here on TFP. This is mostly a rant, and perhaps a cautionary tale to the unsuspecting new pool owner. I don't think this is overly difficult, we just make it that way. My hope is that the pool guy can get the algae cleaned up. Either way, I will likely end my service with them once we move back in. If the pool is cleaned up and tests look good, great. If not, I will commence SLAMming when I can attend to it multiple times a day.
