total newb, don't know where to start with my TF-100

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Thanks @kcindc and @jblizzle! Yeah, the pool gets direct sun pretty much all day.

Recap:
I started this SLAM on May 20th and finished on June 24th. (So, 35 days.) I lost about a week or 2 due to the ZeoSand issue. I'm not including the cost of sand, but that was really unfortunate - trying to get a refund from Amazon.

Sooo the grand total: $322.00! It's not exact because for a couple of purchases I think I forgot to include sales tax. That total includes 1 gallon of muriatic acid, a ton of 1-gallon 10% jugs, some 8.25% jugs from our local grocery store when I ran out of the 10% 1-gallon ones, and a few orders of SLAM reagents refills from tftestkits.net. (One of which required express shipping - oops!) My CYA started at about 50 or 60 I think, and due to replenishing water after backwashes (which became a bit more frequent after adding DE I had laying around) and rain, my CYA ended up at 30 at the end of the SLAM. I checked my pH this morning and it was 7.8.

One more question: In the morning my water looks super clear, but when I brush up the bottom I see a little tiny bit of greenish dust trailing the brush. Is that normal?
 
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Agreed. You shouldn't see anything when you brush... especially considering that you have a vinyl pool. Brush daily towards the deep end and use any leftover DE you have so that it gets caught in the filter. Technically, the "dust" you see when you brush means that you haven't technically finished your SLAM as the criteria for completing the SLAM means that you have to have clear water. Cloudiness when brushing=not clear.
 
Okay, I've been brushing it every morning. The water is really clear before brushing, and I did pass the OCLT....... sooo, what should I do? Should I raise the FC back up to shock levels (16 for a CYA of 40) and add DE/backwash several times today in order to try getting rid of the remaining dust? Right now my FC is down to the "normal" target level, at 7.

Thanks!
 
Have you tried vacuuming the dust out of the bottom instead of just brushing it? I am by no means an expert and am just getting ready to do my first OFCLT tonight to see if I am finished with my SLAM, but that is what I would do. Good luck, you have certainly come a long way.
 
jblizzle said:
With the water clear and the OCLT passed, there should not be a need to raise the FC level back up. Seems like you just need to keep stirring up the dust or vacuum it out.
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Ok, will do. Thanks!

sekinkead said:
Have you tried vacuuming the dust out of the bottom instead of just brushing it? I am by no means an expert and am just getting ready to do my first OFCLT tonight to see if I am finished with my SLAM, but that is what I would do. Good luck, you have certainly come a long way.
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Thanks for the idea! I have been indeed vacuuming over the past few days. It keeps coming back in the morning, but I think little by little it's becoming less and less. I'll have to get some more DE in there and finish it off sometime soon.

Good luck on your OCLT!!! Fingers crossed!
 
I had the pool done. The pool was d-o-n-e done. 100% SLAM-complete. Crystal clear water. I had just finished vacuuming a small bit of dirt/dust yesterday afternoon when it started raining hard. It only lasted about 15 minutes, a small handful of thunderclaps... then the sun started coming back out and that's when I noticed the storm drain between our house and our neighbors house started taking a good amount of water. "Good thing we have that drain there" I thought to myself. Then minutes later, the drain could no longer take it, and then this happened:

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We got about 3 feet of water in our finished basement. ServPro is coming today or tomorrow. There are about 10 houses on the list ahead of us. Yikes. Not the 4th of July holiday weekend I had hoped for.

Obviously we'll at least need a new liner. It started coming away from the wall and floor even before the brown water started pouring into the pool. We've had so much rain this summer so the water table must have already been pretty high. Not sure what else we'll need, I don't think the pump was fully underwater, just some water up against the back side of it. Hopefully the concrete under the pool is okay, but who knows. Ugh, what a mess. I had the pool done! :(
 

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jblizzle said:
Oh man, sorry to see this :(
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Thanks, same here. At least I'll know how to SLAM the next time around!

I still don't know what our long-term plan for the pool is. Hopefully insurance will cover any fixes we need to do, but not being a pool/concrete/drainage expert I don't really know the extent of that.

My brother in law said to be careful about draining it completely right now because if the ground around the pool is completely saturated (which it seems to be!) it's possible the pool concrete walls could cave in? So we're leaving it filled with the brown water for now.

This summer was the worst! It's been raining all summer with no sign of stopping. It's sunny today at least, but supposed to storm again later this week. Jeeeeze.
 
Oh man this is heartbreaking! All that work you put in! Hopefully insurance will do their thing and hey, at least you learned about pool chemistry and got your filtration in order. Here's hoping you'll be able to get it fixed soon and get nice TFP water from the start.
 
Thanks everyone. We don't have flood insurance but we do have a sewage/drain backup "rider" (basically like an add-on thingy for $50/year). But there's a "cap" on that at $5k. Most of that will be eaten up by removing all the wet sheetrock and drying up the basement, so the ins. will help a fair amount, at least. Unfortunately though it doesn't include the pool at all, since it's outside the home!We'll get there eventually but we're focusing on waterproofing the basement and fixing the gradation of the dirt around the foundation first. Jeeeze.@sekinkead awesome re: your OCLT! Have fun! :)
 
My pool liner had floated due to neglect and a hole before I moved in. After the excess water was gone, it mostly reseated itself... Just had a few ugly wrinkles and discovered I can't use the automatic vacuum as it tears the liner on them. Other than that it's totally swimable.
 
Fingaling said:
My pool liner had floated due to neglect and a hole before I moved in. After the excess water was gone, it mostly reseated itself... Just had a few ugly wrinkles and discovered I can't use the automatic vacuum as it tears the liner on them. Other than that it's totally swimable.
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Interesting, yeah I wonder if a local pool store would be able to repair it rather than us having to buy a brand new one. Since the water is completely brown though, I don't know the extent of the damage other than the liner is pulling away from the aluminum coping in a couple of spots. We did have a handful of wrinkles in the "old" liner too. The pool robots I was looking into said they were compatible with vinyl liners, but I doubt we'll ever get one of those now that we have to spend our money on the basement instead. Ugh!
 
Soooo I have most of the mud out of the bottom of the pool, I drained and re-filled the pool a couple of times, and I think I'm allllmost ready for SLAM Round 2: The Reckoning.

However this time around, my CYA is at 0. I'm thinking I need to raise that to what, 30 or so? I found a local place that has the Instant Pool Water Conditioner, I don't really care if it's $34 vs. $20 if it saves me a week of waiting for the granules to dissolve... but how long should I wait? 24 hrs? 48 just to be sure? And should I only add half the recommended amount at first or something? I think I read that somewhere about the granules, does that apply to the liquid stuff too?

Thanks all,
-Gary
 
You can dissolve the CYA powder in about an hour or less. Put it in a sock and start squeezing it with your hand while it is in the pool. Sit on a step or assign a younger member of your household the task. Then brush, run the pump, and the CYA is in there in less than 24 hours.

Take care.
 
Thanks for the tip! I had no idea that was doable. However our pool water is really gross, so rather than squeeze a sock full of acid in disgusting green water for an hour I picked up a couple of gallons of this Bioguard Instant Stabilizer 100. Hopefully it'll do the trick overnight!
 

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