Good gravy, I'm so happy I found this place. Brand new pool owner here, and I was about to lose my mind trying to figure all this out. Thank you all for being here.
I recently built a basement with an indoor vinyl pool. I told the dude who installed the pool I had no idea what to do with this thing, and he said "Just bring some of the water to a place called Leslie's and they'll tell you what you need." Sigh. I made four trips to Leslie's, and only got more confused. They said my water was pretty good, it just had too many phosphates. Ultimately I didn't feel confident in the advice they were giving me, so the only thing I did was add the phosphate remover. It seems to have worked, and according to my amazon-purchased phosphate test kit my phosphates are now very low. But the phosphate remover made the water cloudy.
A pool-owning friend gave me a bottle of flocculant and told me to use that, but again, I just didn't feel confident in the advice, because the instructions on the bottle clearly weren't meant for a cartridge filter like I've got on my pool. So I started googling and found you guys, and I've finally got some confidence in the advice I'm being given. So that's a start at least.
I've got a TF kit on the way to start getting exact numbers, but I have a couple of questions right off the bat.
Based on the test strips (that I promise to throw away once my TF kit arrives), it seems like I've got something in there eating up my chlorine, cause it's disappearing at more than 1 ppm overnight. My basement has a skylight, but the pool is covered almost the entire day, so I don't think it's sunlight. Plus, after the pool was filled, we discovered that the pump was broken, so it sat for several weeks without water circulating at all. The installer threw some chlorine granules in there, but by the time we finally got everything fixed and got in the pool I could feel slimyness on my feet. That's algae, right? I've been putting nothing but Clorox in there since, but the chlorine level keeps dropping, and my guess is I'm probably going to have to SLAM this Hecker.
I'm getting to a question, I swear, but first some additional information: The specific pool is made by Endless Pools, and it's got a swim current with some unique hardware. In particular, there are channels running around the sides of the pool, kind of like air conditioning ducts, that take water from the back of the pool and suck it around to the front and shoot it back at you so you can swim laps without actually going anywhere. (Or so you can blow little kids across the pool real fast. It's awesome.) But the thing is, they're screwed in. Taking them out would be a massive hassle and would probably require draining the pool most of the way.
QUESTION 1: Will a SLAM work if I don't have access to be able to brush and vacuum every surface in the pool? I can definitely run a Darnload of water through those channels by turning on the swim current, but I would reeeeeally love it if I didn't have to take them apart.
Also, Endless Pools recommends a zero or near-zero CYA level for indoor pools, which, based on test strips, seems to be where I'm at. Endless pools basically says just pour a cup or so of Clorox in there after you swim and that's all you need to do. Based on some of what I've read here, I'm thinking of adding a little bit of CYA anyway, because it's supposed to make the water less harsh or something? But in case I decide not to do that:
QUESTION 2: Will a SLAM work with zero or near-zero CYA? And is it possible that my near-zero CYA level is what's causing my chlorine to disappear and I actually don't have an algae problem at all?
Thank you for reading my novel. I truly appreciate this community's existence.
I recently built a basement with an indoor vinyl pool. I told the dude who installed the pool I had no idea what to do with this thing, and he said "Just bring some of the water to a place called Leslie's and they'll tell you what you need." Sigh. I made four trips to Leslie's, and only got more confused. They said my water was pretty good, it just had too many phosphates. Ultimately I didn't feel confident in the advice they were giving me, so the only thing I did was add the phosphate remover. It seems to have worked, and according to my amazon-purchased phosphate test kit my phosphates are now very low. But the phosphate remover made the water cloudy.
A pool-owning friend gave me a bottle of flocculant and told me to use that, but again, I just didn't feel confident in the advice, because the instructions on the bottle clearly weren't meant for a cartridge filter like I've got on my pool. So I started googling and found you guys, and I've finally got some confidence in the advice I'm being given. So that's a start at least.
I've got a TF kit on the way to start getting exact numbers, but I have a couple of questions right off the bat.
Based on the test strips (that I promise to throw away once my TF kit arrives), it seems like I've got something in there eating up my chlorine, cause it's disappearing at more than 1 ppm overnight. My basement has a skylight, but the pool is covered almost the entire day, so I don't think it's sunlight. Plus, after the pool was filled, we discovered that the pump was broken, so it sat for several weeks without water circulating at all. The installer threw some chlorine granules in there, but by the time we finally got everything fixed and got in the pool I could feel slimyness on my feet. That's algae, right? I've been putting nothing but Clorox in there since, but the chlorine level keeps dropping, and my guess is I'm probably going to have to SLAM this Hecker.
I'm getting to a question, I swear, but first some additional information: The specific pool is made by Endless Pools, and it's got a swim current with some unique hardware. In particular, there are channels running around the sides of the pool, kind of like air conditioning ducts, that take water from the back of the pool and suck it around to the front and shoot it back at you so you can swim laps without actually going anywhere. (Or so you can blow little kids across the pool real fast. It's awesome.) But the thing is, they're screwed in. Taking them out would be a massive hassle and would probably require draining the pool most of the way.
QUESTION 1: Will a SLAM work if I don't have access to be able to brush and vacuum every surface in the pool? I can definitely run a Darnload of water through those channels by turning on the swim current, but I would reeeeeally love it if I didn't have to take them apart.
Also, Endless Pools recommends a zero or near-zero CYA level for indoor pools, which, based on test strips, seems to be where I'm at. Endless pools basically says just pour a cup or so of Clorox in there after you swim and that's all you need to do. Based on some of what I've read here, I'm thinking of adding a little bit of CYA anyway, because it's supposed to make the water less harsh or something? But in case I decide not to do that:
QUESTION 2: Will a SLAM work with zero or near-zero CYA? And is it possible that my near-zero CYA level is what's causing my chlorine to disappear and I actually don't have an algae problem at all?
Thank you for reading my novel. I truly appreciate this community's existence.
About your questions: