I have been doing BBB for a long time, yet almost each year I go thru a 2 week cycle of slamming before everything stabilizes, so I was wondering - should all organic debris be cleaned (via filter and vacuum) out of the pool before starting to shock? I usually open and then add stabilizer right away and then SLAM and brush walls 3x per day, yet it always seems that the chlorine gets eaten up very fast and I have to repeat again and again. My thought process is that by removing the remaining organic matter (small - Meyco mesh winter cover) perhaps I can slow the chlorine being eaten up quickly. Thoughts?? WIth the price of shock - I am literally in shock!!!
Timing of Things
- Thread starter Undrwtr1
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I would say to try and get as much out as possible. I took my pool cover off in April but didn't turn on the pump and filter until early May. I had a massive amount of worms when I took the cover off and they were eating up any remaining FC so I started scooping them out and running the robot before really maintaining chemicals and while the water temp was still below 60.
I think those organics are definitely eating up your chlorine faster than needed.
I think those organics are definitely eating up your chlorine faster than needed.
What I like to do is nuke it up to slam level with chlorine with the valve set to recirc, let the pump run that way for about 48 hours while maintaining the chlorine at SLAM, then I shut the pump down for about 12 hours to let all the dead stuff and debris settle, then vacuum all that awful stuff out to waste. After that, I start filtering and brushing while finishing the SLAM. Doing it this way has cut down considerably on the time it takes me to get my water clear. I have a mesh cover and by the time I open the pool is usually filled nearly to normal levels with rain/meltwater. Since I have a plaster pool, the calcium almost always starts out much lower than I need it to be, so I tend to do my initial opening SLAM using cal-hypo in order to kill two birds with one stone. I wouldn't recommend this for anyone with a vinyl liner but it sure works for me and saves me a lot of money vs buying separate calcium since I need the chlorine anyway.