SLAM IS ALMOST FINISHED, NOW WHAT? ??'s on HOW TO LEVEL AND THEN MAINTAIN AFTER SLAM

[Crackerjack4u]

Hello Algae Warriors- (PS- LOL I think the TERM "ALGAE WARRIOR" needs to be on a TFP T-shirt)

My SLAM is almost finished thanks to the awesome knowledgeable people here at TFP. (SLAM started on 7-18-15). My once green swamp of a pool, that was left untouched, and uncovered for over 3 years, that required approx. a truckload of green, slimy, yuck, to have to be removed from the bottom of the pool, is looking beautiful.

(When my SLAM began my CC level was running almost exactly double of my FC level, that's how gross it was in there).

TODAY: My current levels FC 17, CC 0 (whoo hoo!!), CYA 40, (others levels have not been checked during SLAM, but prior to SLAM were pH 7.2, CH 100, and TA 80 .

I have been consistently meeting 2 of the criteria on OCLT for several days, except for the water being crystal clear, so I'm continuing to keep my FC levels at shock level while running the filter 24/7, until that occurs. The pool is almost clear, and continues to improve daily. Yesterday I could see below the water about 2 ft., and today I can see the vacuum head, and the hose connected to it on the pool bottom, although still cloudy/hazy it is visible, so the end of SLAMming is near.

I have a few questions on what I need to do, and how I need to do it, once I meet all 3 OCLT criteria and head into the Level and Maintain phases.

(I'm almost certain I know the answers to most of the questions, but I want to ask them just to be certain because I don't want to mess this up, and have to restart SLAM because of it).

If I'm understanding all this correctly. I think once OCLT is met that I need to let my FC levels drop back down until they reach My Target FC per CL/CYA chart. This would be Target FC of 5, and no lower than my minimum of 3, at my current CYA of 40. Is this correct?

1) Do I recheck the CYA before the SLAM ends, or at what period after slam does CYA need to be rechecked to ensure Minimum or Target FC levels are being maintained?



2)Are there a certain amount of times daily that I should check the FC/CC levels during this time?



3) Do any other levels, other than CYA, need to be checked at this time too, or do I wait until Target FC is reached, and is being maintained, and then check the other levels, and begin leveling them after?




4) After All levels are checked, is there a specific order they need to be leveled in? i.e.) pH 1st, then TA, etc.?



5) Once everything is leveled how often does a full set of levels need to be checked after that?



6) How often should the FC/CC levels be being checked once everything is leveled to ensure Min-Target FC levels are being maintained?



7)Does a full set of levels, or just the FC/CC levels need to be rechecked after water is added, it rains, and after swimming?



8)On average how often does the FC/CC levels need to be checked to ensure it is being maintained?



9) If water is added should a full set of levels be checked of just the FC/CC levels?



10) Should the pool continue to be brushed/vacuumed about the same amount of times daily as was done during the SLAM, or can those be done less?

a)If Less, approx. how often should they be done?


11) Approx. How long daily should the pump be ran after SLAM?



12) Should small amount of DE being used during SLAM continue to be used after SLAM?



13)I read that it is safe to swim as long as the FC is below 10, Is this correct?



14) I'm almost positive the pH must be within recommended range of 7.5-7.8 to be able to safely swim in the pool. Is this correct?



15)Are there any other chemical levels that if they become high or low that affect the ability to swim in the pool safely?


16) If I'm going out of town, or going to be unavailable for a couple of days, Is there any way I calculate how many 3" pucks need to be placed into the floater to keep my FC levels up while away?

Anyway that's all the questions I can think of that I need clarification on at the moment, lol but I'm sure there will be a lot more later.

Thank you all again, for everything you do. You all, the TFP site, and the BBB method are all just awesome. Have A Wonderful Night!!!

 

[pabeader]

I'm sure all of your questions will be answered shortly. Just in case you were wondering, most of them are covered in Pool School. And some of the secondary parts of pool school.
Pool math has an extra thing on the bottom that can tell you the effect of different additives like pucks.

- - - Updated - - -

Here is an example of the kind of info available: http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/165-getting-started

 

[jaduck]

Mileage may vary...

1. When you finish your SLAM I would perform a full battery of test. I recheck my CYA every month.

2. Once a day until you can gauge your average daily FC consumption. I test once every other day.

3. No need to check CYA with every FC check.

4. I do the following FC, pH, TA, CA.

5. I do once a month or as needed.

6. See #2

7. I check FC/CC, Ph after big rain or heavy swim load.

8. See #2

9. See #7

10. I have a robot and use it 2 or 3 times a week.

11. Run the pump only long enough to keep your pool clean...different for different pools.

12. I do...

13. It is safe to swim if you are at or below the SLAM level for your current CYA.

14. No, it is safe to swim in the following range 7.2 - 8.0

15. pH, FC, Temp (LOL)

16. I don't use pucks...ever

HTH

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Thank you pabeader for the info and for the link. I had actually read all the sections here and there of that link Except the Basic Pool Care Schedule which I hadn't seen until just now so thank you for leading me to it. Had I read it prior to posting my questions, it would have answered a lot of them for me, but now I have the info and link you gave me, as well as, jaduck's answers to my questions to fall back on as needed.

jaduck yes it did help very much, and thank you. LOL on the Temp affecting the ability to swim in the pool safely. I agree with that because I am not now, nor will I ever be, a member of the Polar Bear Club. Becoming Hypothermic is Not on my bucket list. .

You said you Never use Pucks. Out of curiosity, what do you do to keep your FC levels up when you are unavailable for several days, and have no one else to add chlorine for you?


Thank you both again, and have a wonderful night!

 

[jaduck]

You said you Never use Pucks. Out of curiosity, what do you do to keep your FC levels up when you are unavailable for several days, and have no one else to add chlorine for you?

LOL, I have one kid about to start Vet School, one about to start college and one that is 3 years away, so I can't afford a vacation and a pool...so, ZERO pucks and no vacations! I guess if I got to go on vacation I would fill up the bypassed Pentair chlorinator with three inch tablets and dial the FC in for a couple of days.

 

[Crackerjack4u]

I understand about how no money equals no vacation, and how having kids, especially in college, always equals no available money. Thankfully mine has graduated college already, but unfortunately she now live about 10 hours away.

LOL I was merely using the vacation as an example. I'm broke too. I'm going no where except in for another surgery in a couple weeks, and I thought I could use pucks to allow me a couple days recovery time without having to even think about the pool at all. ( I can get someone to come add chlorine for me if I need to but I just hate to so that. I know a lot of people use pucks for that purpose only, and have pretty good luck with no major setbacks.

It's not really a biggy, I'll figure something on it, even if I have to pay someone to do it. I have several friends who could do it, but I hate to have to get them to come over here multiple times a day to deal with the pool.

So I'll do some more research, and check out the bottom of Pool Math, as pabeader suggested, and ask around to see if I can find out what would be the best option for me because like I said in the original comment, "I don't want to mess this up, and have to restart SLAM because of it."

Thanks for the info, and have a nice night!

 

[layla2052]

Once you get your pool stabilized & learn approximately what it uses in chlorine a day, you can calculate it on a per day basis and plus it up to cover the days you'll be gone. We have a tree overhanging our pool & so it can use 1-2 ppm of FC a day between tree debris and the sun so I always use 2 ppm a day as my guide plus one for good measure. If we're going for a long weekend, say 4 days, I count from the top end of my scale (6), add 2 ppm per day (8), plus one extra and I'm at 15 as my target. When I get back, it's usually at 4.5-5.5 so still above my minimum. Pump is on timer so the pool looks the same as when I left it. Hope this helps.

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Thank you Layla yes it does help. It gives some idea of approx. how much I could need to raise the ppm up from Target to where it won't be depleted below minimum upon return. I now know I'll need to try to figure close to My exact number of daily loss on my poo,l and calculate up approx. 3ppm from my Target to keep it safe for a few days.

My pool gets direct sunlight all day which can really run through the chlorine, especially without a cover on it, but luckily no trees really close by. I may also cover it during this time which should help too.

I also think I'm going to have to invest in a timer too, which I don't have right now.
Approx. How many hours a day do you set your timer to run while you're away? I've never used a timer, so I'm not sure if they can be set to kick on more than one time a day, i.e.)kick on at 4am and run till 7am, then kick back on say at 1pm and run till 4 pm etc. or do the run for X amount of hours during the same time frame. ie)4Am to 10Am to get in say 6 hours runtime daily?

Are there better times of the day to run the pump when set on a timer, lol, or when Not set on a timer? I'm just trying to cover all the bases, and run the pump at times that will be most beneficial to the pool, to the chlorine levels, and lol the electric bill.

Thanks for the info I appreciate it. Have A Wonderful Day

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Thanks to this site, and all the help provided by so many awesome, and knowledgeable people on here, my pool water is now crystal clear. Whoo Hoo! It is so clear that I was able to see 2 small pieces of dead algae about the size on an ink pen cap, and 2 tiny pebbles of pea gravel on the bottom, all of which were retrieved with the vacuum. So as of right now, I see not one speck of anything else on the bottom of the pool.

So, now that all 3 criteria for OCLT have been met, I am now getting ready to start letting my FC level begin dropping. I have my new pool step put together, and they're ready to be set into the pool as soon as the FC comes down enough to get in.


Current levels at 4:30pm on 8/2/15 were:
FC 17

CC <.5

pH 7.3

TA 100

CH 75

CYA 20 -(My CYA was 40 just 3 days ago, but I've been doing a lot of backwashing, and having to top off the water multiple times, so I suppose that caused the drop?)

I'm not exactly sure if when the FC level is dropping if it will alter any of the other levels too?
Will it, and if so, what other levels will it alter, and by approx. how much?


Should I lower my TA and raise my CYA now, or wait until the FC level drop to Target then recheck all the levels, and adjust accordingly at that time?

By looking at my current levels, are there any that need to be adjusted at this time due to being too low/high, or to compensate for changes in them that will occur during the FC drop? or should I just wait until the FC level drops to Target then recheck all the levels, and adjust accordingly at that time?

Thank you for your help. My pool would not be clear now if it weren't for you all.

I'll try to post a before (Have this one on my intro page, and an after pic of the pool as soon as possible, (I'm having issues posting pics because of the allotted space so in order to post one I have to delete one or else there is not enough space to post the new one. I'll also post the final amount of time it took, and the amount of chlorine required to achieve these results. Thank you all again, I really appreciate your help. Have A Wonderful Night.

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Please help I have a couple quick questions in my post above, and 1 another one here.

With the levels above, and after doing some more research I'm thinking the 1st thing I need to do is to raise my CYA back up to at least 40 or 50. Is this correct?

It is my understanding that this can be done by either adding Stabilizer or Dichlor. (If that is in fact correct, I have probably 500 bleach tablets here that I use to make my own gallons of bleach for using in the washing machine/cleaning etc. These tablets are in fact Dichlor is there any contraindication in my diluting a tablet in a gallon of water like I do for the laundry, and using this to try to raise my CYA level in my pool?

Or would you recommend I go buy back the packages of Dichlor, or the bottle of stabilizer I just returned to raise the CYA with?

Thanks for the info, lol I think I might have jumped the gun on taking some of my products back, but at least I'm learning lol, I think. Have a wonderful day

 

[duraleigh]

I'm not exactly sure if when the FC level is dropping if it will alter any of the other levels too?
Will it, and if so, what other levels will it alter, and by approx. how much?

No affect at all. Just let FC drift down to maintenance levels.

Raise CYA to 40-50 ppm now. Not AT LEAST 40-50 but 40-50....no more. DO NOT use dichlor Simply just buy CYA and dose accordingly.

Where did yo get di-chlor tablets? Not a common pool item.

 

[Crackerjack4u]

The bleach tablets I have for the laundry I bought off of ebay in a bulk of like 500 tablets and they are actually dichlor. The listings doesn't specify the ingredients on them, but I read the ingredients on the packages I have here, and it's on them. They are Not sold in the pool item section, they are just sold for household use, and are cheap. Knowing what I know now about dichlor I'm not sure I should even be using it in my washing machine lol?

Thanks for the info, I'm heading out to an OOT doctor's appt. but I will start raising the CYA as soon as I return in a few hours. You are awesome, Have a Wonderful day.

 

[Crackerjack4u]

CYA D/T low levels was added yesterday to raise level as instructed. I'll recheck my CYA tomorrow to give it a couple days to get circulated, and regulated.

My issue now is since my FC levels are dropping, my beautiful crystal clear pool has now gotten a lot of ugly large brown dust ,or algae, or dead algae spots all over the bottom of it (which was vacuumed up). The sides appear clear.

The large amount of spots all started yesterday. My FC the day before yesterday was 17, FC yesterday 11, FC today 8, CC- reading from 0 to <.5 all 3 days.

There is no ladder, steps, or lights in the pool, and the return eye/location, and skimmer have both been scrubbed thoroughly with bleach a few times during Slam and when brown spots were seen, even though no algae was seen in either of those areas.

The pool bottom and sides do not feel slimy, or slick when being brushed, or vacuumed. Ever since the Slam began on my pool, I even have went as far as to remove the vacuum, and hoses from the pool to drain them outside the pool, instead of allowing them to drain back into the pool incase there was algae in the vacuum hose that hadn't yet made it to the pump.

So I have no clue what it could be, or how to get that ugly brown stuff out of my pool for good? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you and have a nice day.

- - - Updated - - -

The spots that were vacuumed up also caused the water to become cloudy. After the cloudiness settling back down, there appeared to be even more brown spots present.

 

[duraleigh]

That sounds remarkably like dead algae settling to the pool floor. A pic would likely confirm that.

That most always means the SLAM was not brought to a complete finish. Since you are close, I would suggest you keep your FC at twice normal maintenance levels for 4-5 days all the while vacuuming up the dead algae into your filter. That should do it.

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Thank you Dave, I will do that, and I'll get a pic in a bit of what it looks like.

MY levels today:

FC 8/CC 0- (I added 10% liquid shock yesterday to maintain it at 8 due to the previously low CYA level, and also added 10% Liquid shock this morning to maintain it at 8 for the day. (see below)

MY CYA was up from 20 to 40 today (Whoo hoo!! and after reading your post, I increased the FC level from 8ppm to 10ppm-which is double the target on the cl/cya chart of 5ppm, if that doesn't appear to work in a couple days or so, I'll start raising the FC levels more to get it closer to the slam level.

Also when I added CYA the other day, I added 40 oz of stabilizer to bring the CYA level up to 40 (which right now is right where it was suppose to be). It rained last night, plus I am attempting to locate a small leak, plus am doing frequent backwashes that keeps requiring me to add water, so do you think I should leave the CYA at 40 for now (which I know it can take up to a week to get an exact reading after a CYA add, but after that time , should I maintain at 40, or increase it closer to the 50? I have plenty of liquid shock on hand so adding more chlorine to compensate from the 40 to 50 difference, and the water adds, is also doable if necessary because I know I can always add more CYA latter if needed, but it's a lot harder to get it back down if it gets too high.

pH 7.4

TA 100

CH 75

Thank you so much for you help, and for sharing your knowledge. You and TFP are awesome. Have A Wonderful day!!

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Here are some pics , the brown spots in the 1st one are kind of hard to see because it was very overcast outside today, and now it's storming again. Before the storm hit all the brown stuff I saw was vacuumed up, and the pool was then brushed again, so if there is more, hopefully it will end up in the center of the pool for vacuuming up again. LOL right now with the storm, high wind, and heavy rain, it's out there being stirred, and mixed around, uggg.

The entire pool pic is prior to the slam beginning. It was so dark green that it looked almost black, so you can just imagine what was lurking on the bottom at that time. It was in a horrible mess. LOL overlook the rusty ole storage building in the back, it needs to be cleaned out and taken to the dump.

The block of green pic with the floating algae in it was taken after the slam had began.


Now just look how clear and pretty the water in is otherwise tks to TFP, and all the helpful people here. The water in the today's pic, looks darker in this pic than it actually is d/t the clouds. It is clear as can be other than the brown spots that are forming on the bottom right now.

Thanks again for everything. Have A Wonderful Day.

 

[duraleigh]

plus am doing frequent backwashes

That may not be good. Why are you doing them?

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Hi Dave,

As far as the frequent backwashes. I was doing them at 1st because of necessity of how disgustingly gross the pool was. Then I did them frequently when I started using the DE because of how well it was filtering and the pressuring rises. Then I started vacuuming to pump instead of to waste like I had been doing, so I was backwashing then to remove what I'd vacuumed up out of there. (I usually wait until after the pump has ran most of the day, then do a vacuum to filter, then do a backwash at that time, regardless of the pressure readings, to clear out the daily yuck from the pump, so it will be clean, and ready to go again.

I backwash a lot mostly because I'm gun shy, (or is it dirty pump shy) lol.

When the slam was in the earlier stages. I vacuumed to the filter (like I had always done) because I had no clue that you could even vacuum to waste. Well I was on the other side of the pool as the filter/skimmer basket filled completely up with green algae, rotted leaves, bugs, and yuck etc. and the all that began spraying back out into the pool through the return making things much worse. It took days to get the stuff to settle back down before I could vacuum it out again.

Well in the time I waited for things to settle back down, I learned about vacuuming to waste, so I began doing that every time. (1 to 2 times a day which still required water replacement).

I had to replace the entire part that the MPV sits on, so I also replaced my sand at the same time. The sand I removed was gross, and definitely needed to be changed, it was like a big solid piece of concrete in there, there' is no wonder it wasn't filtering a whole lot of anything. When I added the DE to the sand to help clear up the cloudiness in the pool last week, it was then I started vacuuming to filter again to allow the DE to trap the smaller particles, and then backwash the dirty remains out.

I know I don't have to backwash until the pressure rises, and I'm sure I do it way, way, too often, but I do it daily because I have seen what a backset it can be Should the filter get too full and overflow, pumping the dirty stuff back into the pool.

I have also heard though that actually a sand filter with a little dirt in it actually cleans better than a clean one (Is this true?)

I can stop backwashing as much as I do if it isn't doing anything, but wasting water, costing money, and lowing my CYA. I was doing it that often for various reasons (all of which may, or may not have been responsible, or necessary), but the majority of them were Not related to the pressure rising to where it was a necessary, have to backwash Now case.

Please let me know your thoughts on the frequency of backwashing. My question that I've asked before is can a person backwash too often?

Now that the pool is finally clean, and clear, and only gets a few particles here and there (minus the dead algae issue occurring right now), I suspect I don't have to worry about another return port Yuck explosion happening again, so I suspect I'm safe in backing off some of the backwashing.

So, would you recommend that I stop backwashing the filter at All at this point, until the appropriate pressure gauge rise warrants me to do it?

Thank you for your help, and have a wonderful day.

 

[duraleigh]

Backwash each time your psi increases by 25%....easy peasy

 

[Crackerjack4u]

Thanks Dave. Got it. From here on out there will be No backwashes without a 25% increase in PSI pressure .