Switch now or wait till next year?
- Thread starter joconnor316
- Start date
Day four: things starting to look better
Look at that goo that settled to the bottom of the pool
Look at that goo that settled to the bottom of the pool
Day Seven: After changing the sand, the water is clearing up nicely. Lost 4 ppm of chlorine overnight.
Day 9: All the baqua-goo vacuumed out; ordered the stabilizer and moving along nicely
Thanks for posting the pics, it looks great! I'll bet you're glad you went ahead with the conversion. 
I clearly remember the fear that struck me a few days into my conversion. I thought I had probably done something wrong and ruined my pool! When your water turns that horrid greenish brown color it's defiantely a little scary. LOL
It'll be smooth sailing from here on out. What do your numbers look like now?
I clearly remember the fear that struck me a few days into my conversion. I thought I had probably done something wrong and ruined my pool! When your water turns that horrid greenish brown color it's defiantely a little scary. LOL
It'll be smooth sailing from here on out. What do your numbers look like now?
joconner316,
I am new to this thread but just wanted to pass along what a nice job you have done!!! I believe if you will hold the FC up high for another day or so, that greenish cast will disappear completely and your water will be pristine blue.
Then it'll be time to change out the filter and finish the process. Nice work! :lol: :lol:
I am new to this thread but just wanted to pass along what a nice job you have done!!! I believe if you will hold the FC up high for another day or so, that greenish cast will disappear completely and your water will be pristine blue.
Then it'll be time to change out the filter and finish the process. Nice work! :lol: :lol:
Dave & Samantha,
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'm VERY happy to have made the switch, and I'm glad I didn't wait until next year to do it.
I'm still only testing for FC; the last two nights it dropped about 5 ppm which is more than it had been dropping. However, it rained both nights and I brushed the pool and ran the Polaris; so I guess I stirred up some stuff that interacted with the chlorine.
Here's a picture from this morning: Day 10
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'm VERY happy to have made the switch, and I'm glad I didn't wait until next year to do it.
I'm still only testing for FC; the last two nights it dropped about 5 ppm which is more than it had been dropping. However, it rained both nights and I brushed the pool and ran the Polaris; so I guess I stirred up some stuff that interacted with the chlorine.
Here's a picture from this morning: Day 10
Question: I received the liquid stablizer yesterday as we are nearing the end of the conversion. However, last night the water lost 3 ppm of chorine. Should I wait to add the stabilizer until the loss is exactly 1 ppm or less, or are we "close enough" ?
It is best to wait. If you add CYA/stabilizer too soon it will slow the entire process down.
Another Question: I've been surprised by the amount of overnight chlorine loss the last few days; this morning it was 10 ppm. I'm beginning to think I may not actually ever be reaching 15 ppm. I suppose this is possible if I'm estimating the capacity of the pool incorrectly. After completing the FC test this morning, I decided to test CC's since I haven't been doing it during the conversion. The reading I got was 17 ppm, quite a bit more than the FC reading. Is this normal?
Chlorine will continue to oxidize broken down Baquacil even when the water looks clear, though you are probably getting close to the end. This broken down Baquacil will combine with chlorine and register as CC until the chlorine further breaks it down to get rid of it. This is normal. Have you backwashed your sand filter recently? Perhaps there is a lot of organics there that chlorine is still oxidizing so physical removal of them would speed things along.joconnor316 said:
I assume that for CC you are only counting the drops after the sample turned clear in testing for FC -- that is, you aren't including the FC drop count in the CC drop count meaning you counted 20 drops (10 ppm) for FC (assuming a 10 ml sample size), added R-0003, then counted an additional 34 drops (17 ppm) for CC, correct?
chem geek said:
Yes, that's right. An additional 34 drops. I haven't backwashed because the pressure hasn't budged since I changed the sand last Saturday. It certainly couldn't hurt, so I'll give that a try. :-D
Okay, so I backwashed the filter and there was a lot of baqua-goo in there. Back washed it again this morning and it looked clear for the entire three minutes I backwashed. Lost about five ppm of chlorine over night; I'm skeptical that I'll ever get to the point where I lose only 1 ppm overnight. So far I've used 120 gallons of bleach in a 26,400 gallon pool. How do those numbers sound to those with experience in this area. BTW, the baquacil level was 19 when I started 16 days ago. Thanks for the feedback
Sometimes it just takes longer, but remember you won't have to do it ever again. I thought the same as you, seems like it took forever to get the over night test of 1 PPM or less for FC, but we got there. Hang in there. We used about 110 or so gal. in a 13K pool. My post is: converting-with-bleach-t20189-20.html