The AGP journey part 2 - it's swim time down under

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It's Tuesday already :), the goal over the weekend was to disconnect the existing plumbing from the pool, move the pump and connect enough stuff up to get water circulation going on Sunday, got a late start on Saturday as we had grand kids over for a swim and i had to vacuum etc after visiting two different hardware stores on Sat morning to get the last of the plumbing bits needed ..... neither had any filter material in stock and i had to visit a third over the other side of town.
What a fun couple of days and i have the sunburn to prove it :)
Filling the monster sand filter with enough filter material was interesting. the specs call for 240kg of sand or 180kg of Zeosand. Zeosand is more common over here than plain old sand though more expensive .... i've had good experience so far with it so despite needing 12 x 15kg bags at $32 each i just sucked a deep breath and bought...
One thing i learned from this forum and in practice is the need to pre-rinse the zeo media ... you would think it would come pre-washed and clean for the price you pay but no such luck.
I pre-washed/rinsed every single bag and the amount of grey cloudy water was scary not to mention a level of particles small enough to get past the lateral slots.
Even with all that it took quite a few minutes back washing the filter at start up to get the water running clear ....
A short rinse and we had a clean ready to use filter :)
Still dosing the pool with liquid chlorine as we do final testing of the SWCG with it scheduled to run today for most of the pump run time, so this evenings testing will be interesting.

Between all the back-washing rinsing and general loosing water we have dropped quite a few inches in depth at the moment
 
@Tjie77 reminded me to check this thread and i'd forgotten that i hadn't posted the completed equipment pad.

So let's get some (more) pictures and text into this thread

It's amazing just what grows in a few weeks, just to the right of the equipment pad are self sown pumpkin vines :) they have grown out of un watered clay!
The original Bestway pump and sand filter are sitting on the pad and the 21" sand filter is up near the pool waiting to be moved.
It also appears i'm a couple of bags short on the filter media.... the specs on the side say 300kg (660lb) of sand but the online details said 240kg .... seems to be filtering just fine so i'll worry about it over winter.
_Z170077 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

in a photo on the first page you can see the just in front of the pad was a wasted area, so to get rid of some more rocks we did a very rough mini wall to enclose so fill to put succulent plants into
_Z170079 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

We had originally plumbed the SWCG to exit via the bottom connection but I found that at any pump speed lower than 1750 and any swcg setting over 50% that i would get a built up of gas in to swcg to the point it would lower the water level enough to cause a water fault/turn off .... moved it to feed straight through and we are down to 1650 and zero sign of gas build up, i'll drop it a little each weekend and see where the low point is .... remember Aus based SWCG (most) run 100% of the time and proportionally control production by changed voltage and current applied to the plates.
The two stubs heading away at the top of the plumbing are for future solar heating.
_Z170083 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Big oversized filter + medium pump speed + 2" piping = low filter pressure :) even at full pump speed we get to 8PSI :)
_Z170088 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
 
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:shock: grew out of DRY CLAY??? Man you better be careful you don't fall down out there by those plants! They might grow right over you in no time! LOL

Look at the tiny filter sitting in front of the HUGH one! What a difference! Nice!

Good job figuring out what your SWG needed to work right.

Kim:kim:
 
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Great job on the plumbing Phil.

I like your choice on selecting the 32" sand filter. I did the same with my setup in going oversize with a 32" one as well - I find I only need to backwash once a year...!

I struggle to reach 7 PSI with my pump at 2850 RPM... :)

BTW - Forecast temp for Adelaide today is 42C and rising to 44C on Friday...:eek:
 
kimkats said:
:shock: grew out of DRY CLAY??? Man you better be careful you don't fall down out there by those plants! They might grow right over you in no time! LOL

Look at the tiny filter sitting in front of the HUGH one! What a difference! Nice!

Good job figuring out what your SWG needed to work right.
Kim:kim:
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I swear that every morning I can visual see significant growth on those vines, it's becoming a chore to direct them in the desired direction.
I did flood water the sand in the trench to settle it around the pipes but i never directly watered the plants :) Just had another shoot from a dry section.... no rain in the last 7 weeks now.


Costas > DownUnder said:
Great job on the plumbing Phil.
I like your choice on selecting the 32" sand filter. I did the same with my setup in going oversize with a 32" one as well - I find I only need to backwash once a year...!
I struggle to reach 7 PSI with my pump at 2850 RPM... :)
BTW - Forecast temp for Adelaide today is 42C and rising to 44C on Friday...:eek:
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Hope your surviving the 40+ in ADL, we have 40,41,42 for today + more ....
If i remove the custom return jet i use i reach a max pressure of 5.5 at 2850, the custom water multiplier style jet adds a couple of psi of back pressure but i can get great circulation with it.
 
Wow great job on the plumbing! Your little bit of landscaping looks good as well.
I can certainly see the benefits of a SWCG after me dosing my pool all the time with liquid chlorine. I'm sure my pool would disintegrate pretty quickly it being an all metal pool though.
Thanks for the pics!
 
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Tjie77 said:
I'm sure my pool would disintegrate pretty quickly it being an all metal pool though.
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Not really. Low pH is much more harmful to metal than the low salinity needed for a SWCG.

You should test your current water salinity. You might be surprised. Liquid chlorine, muriatic acid, etc all add salt to the pool water.
 
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kimkats said:
:shock: that is a LOT of ice!
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Fortunately the hail stones where not that big, last big hail storm quite a few years back destroyed my patio roofing and put dents all over the car.... This one did shred my pumpkin vines :(

Tjie77 said:
We’ve had some great rain here too!
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Great to hear, shame this fell so fast as the ground was so dry most of it just ran off into stormwater.... and it seems like it was localised as well, a few miles either side had no real evidence this morning of any real rain!
 
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