Hey everyone, apologies in advance for the essay but want to give as many details as possible.
I am based in NJ with a DE filter, vinyl liner pool and opened on the later side this year (Friday, May 28th), and upon opening I had some pretty gross cotton candy stuff (White Water Mold?) all in my skimmers and the corners of the deep end. Picture below (Skimmer)of the grossness.
First Question: How do I prevent this from happening in the future? Opening early? Or was something wrong on closure? <- While I open my pool, I have a company close to blow out the lines.
After seeing that, I decided to SLAM. Here are the general chemistry results that I had pre-slam, with a Taylor FAS-DPD test kit:
FC: 3
CC: 2? This is scribbled I can't read it, but now its around ~0.5
pH: 7.6
TA: 85
CH: 200
CYA: ~30 - 35 (I struggle reading the dot in a CYA test)
I am raising my FC levels to around ~14-15 as I am unsure of my CYA, and I am doing this with liquid chlorine (12.5%). Pump has been running non-stop for the first 2 days, with filter pressure raising due to collecting the dead stuff. I have done a full backwash once on Monday (May 31st), as I thought we were getting close to the end....
Being freaked out at how everything looked on open, I decided to pop off the light fixture and saw a bunch of stuff growing (unfortunately I didn't get a picture). I brushed all that stuff into the deep end and ever since that, I feel like my pool has been struggling.
I was testing every 2 hours and the FC level only went under 15 once (13), and I topped it back off. Not getting much FC loss overnight, but I am seeing the below pictures appear in the morning (Liner Edge brown Crud, and black spots in the corners), and my CC this morning was ~0.5. Question, is there an easy way to test for CC at 0.2 / 25mL sample while testing FC in a 0.5 / 10mL sample? 0.2 will go through my 2oz dropper quickly, and my next won't arrive until Saturday.
So, after all that, a few questions:
1). With these pictures, there is definitely something wrong, but why would I have little-to-no overnight FC loss?
2). I noticed my filter pressure is staying stable, despite running 24/7 and vacuuming / brushing twice a day. Should I backwash anyways?
3). Will my brush / vacuum need to be sanitized in any special way before re-introducing back to the pool?
4). Losing hope that this will ever end, am I fighting something specific that I need to spike FC levels higher? Or just keep following the SLAM like I am doing?
Thanks and happy to provide more details if needed!
I am based in NJ with a DE filter, vinyl liner pool and opened on the later side this year (Friday, May 28th), and upon opening I had some pretty gross cotton candy stuff (White Water Mold?) all in my skimmers and the corners of the deep end. Picture below (Skimmer)of the grossness.
First Question: How do I prevent this from happening in the future? Opening early? Or was something wrong on closure? <- While I open my pool, I have a company close to blow out the lines.
After seeing that, I decided to SLAM. Here are the general chemistry results that I had pre-slam, with a Taylor FAS-DPD test kit:
FC: 3
CC: 2? This is scribbled I can't read it, but now its around ~0.5
pH: 7.6
TA: 85
CH: 200
CYA: ~30 - 35 (I struggle reading the dot in a CYA test)
I am raising my FC levels to around ~14-15 as I am unsure of my CYA, and I am doing this with liquid chlorine (12.5%). Pump has been running non-stop for the first 2 days, with filter pressure raising due to collecting the dead stuff. I have done a full backwash once on Monday (May 31st), as I thought we were getting close to the end....
Being freaked out at how everything looked on open, I decided to pop off the light fixture and saw a bunch of stuff growing (unfortunately I didn't get a picture). I brushed all that stuff into the deep end and ever since that, I feel like my pool has been struggling.
I was testing every 2 hours and the FC level only went under 15 once (13), and I topped it back off. Not getting much FC loss overnight, but I am seeing the below pictures appear in the morning (Liner Edge brown Crud, and black spots in the corners), and my CC this morning was ~0.5. Question, is there an easy way to test for CC at 0.2 / 25mL sample while testing FC in a 0.5 / 10mL sample? 0.2 will go through my 2oz dropper quickly, and my next won't arrive until Saturday.
So, after all that, a few questions:
1). With these pictures, there is definitely something wrong, but why would I have little-to-no overnight FC loss?
2). I noticed my filter pressure is staying stable, despite running 24/7 and vacuuming / brushing twice a day. Should I backwash anyways?
3). Will my brush / vacuum need to be sanitized in any special way before re-introducing back to the pool?
4). Losing hope that this will ever end, am I fighting something specific that I need to spike FC levels higher? Or just keep following the SLAM like I am doing?
Thanks and happy to provide more details if needed!
