Shrek's Spa - the Muck is winning

[KirstenHW]

So, for two days I've been renting a Hayward Shark XL for my pool (Shrek's Spa) for $125 and things are worse than before. The pool is murky grey, there's sediment EVERYWHERE, the cleaner belches muck out EVERY time I take it out to clean the filter units, and I am beyond heartbroken.

I have also broken down the Perflex EC 65 DE filter four times and leaf bagged out the bottom of the pool numerous times but I can get the shock levels to stay up, I can't get the filter to clear the water.

I've been told that vacuuming to backwash will ruin my filter but I don't know what else to do.

I'm returning the rental robot in a couple hours today. Should I buy my own robotic cleaner and keep pressing on?

I am crestfallen. I've never had such a hard time getting ahead of a pool before. I opened it at the beginning of August or thereabout after having it closed since Fall of 2011 (illness in the family - cancer). I've had it closed for a couple seasons in a row before this as well and have never had such disappointment.

:-(

 

[kimkats]

The answer is to SLAM the pool. Here is a link:

Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain

You need to get as much of the solid as you can out with a leaf net or such.Then kill the rest of it with the SLAM.

It will take a while and quite a bit of chlorine. Do you have one of the good test kits? WAIT.........if your pool has been closed this long your regents will not be any good due to age. You need to buy replacement regents. Look in my siggy for where to buy them.

Let us know how things are going.

Kim

 

[Catanzaro]

Please see below. I do not know how much validity there is to this story, but this is what I was told.

The pool was similar to yours, not covered for 3 years, and not even closed properly in NJ. Nothing underground was damaged. A pool company came in with this big suction vacuum and dumped almost half the pool water to the street and vacuumed everything out of the bottom. There was leaves, needles, sludge, etc., that came out to the street and into the gutter. Luckily the township was not sitting around watching.

This must have been a professional type of vacuum with a large hose (from what I was told). They filled up the pool and the water was still green, but the PB came back daily to treat the pool and clean it up. Definitely not the TFP way, but they cleared up the pool. The cost was around $500, which included daily visits of $90.

I would not purchase a robot for this task. You could go at this manually as Kim suggested, which will save you a lot of money for this task. Good luck and keep us posted.

You could try a rental place to see if they have industrial types of vacuums. But be careful not to grab the liner as it could get damaged. The end would have to be raised enough off the liner with some sort of nylon bottom so it can act only as a vacuum.

 

[KirstenHW]

Kim & Catanzaro, thank you for your posts!

I do have a high end Taylor Kit (my old friend lol) and I have fresh reagents from TFP - so I am good on that front.

I've broken down the filter and cleaned it a number of times and we've mucked out as much as we could see with our net bags. Part of the problem is that I cannot see the bottom due to stirring up all the fine matter. I know the Hayward Shark Vac XL I rented got a LOT of materials out - but it also stirred everything up - a lot. I am SLAMming away but still no heartening progress. In an attempt to get the material settled out, I turned off the filter so I can see the situation.

I'm heading to the house today and will post all my numbers and some photos - the pool is at my parent's a few miles away. I've been working 55 hour weeks too which has impacted my ability to maintain my fight properly.

Thanks guys!!

 

[KirstenHW]

The water is still murky but it has a lue cast and is a little milky - like water from a glacier. Good to see no green.

I use my trusty old Taylor K2006. Here were my numbers:

FC 0.5
CC 0.5
pH 7.0-7.1 (couldn't tell what the color was closer to)
Alk 80
CYA 1 ppm

I had to break down and clean out the DE filter - pressure was over 30 even after bumping. Didn't seem terribly filthy though. After restarting I added
1 gal 10% chlorine
2 - 182 Oz jugs of 6% chlorine bleach
refilled my three floaters with one 3" trichlor puck each

6% has been in the basement a while - not sure how good it is but it's all I had.

Oy. And I saw I have a pinprick leak in one of my return lines above ground... I will need to get some kind of patch tape - plumbingstuff to get me to closing and deal with it in the spring with my skimmer lines (using the dedicated wall vac line now on suction side exclusively).