With only a safety cover on our pool, I usually have an abundance of green algae, dirt, and sediment to deal with on opening. After balancing and shocking and killing the algae, I usually have about $400. worth of chemicals in the pool before the water clears. Then, I'm left with the bottom covered with what looks like brown carpet needing to be vacuumed to waste. By the time I vacuum this out to waste, I've serially emptied the pool. All the re-filling and re-doing seems so wasteful, especially with the cost of chemicals these days!
Here are some things I'm considering to avoid this:
1) some sort of DIY filter system that would allow vacuuming to waste, but having the waste water hose run through a drum or bucket filter and then back into the pool. Has anyone successfully done this? I know that you can buy 10 micron filters for 5 gallon buckets and 55 gallon drums...anyone tried it yet?
2) making a skimmer sock out of 1 micron filter fabric to pre-filter the water as I vacuum. I realize this would take a lot of monitoring. Or, possibly a different method of pre-filter that will catch fine silt at the skimmers. Anyone ever tried this?
3) Trying the slime bags or Duda bags to vacuum to waste then filter through the bag to return the water to the pool. I've seen where people use them for vacuuming, but I'm also assuming that they probably aren't dealing with the volume of crud that I always have on opening. I'm guessing that's more for routine maintenance.
4) shutting off two of the returns, and put slime bags on three of the returns, and just keep the floor brushed until it filters through the filtration system.
I'm planning to utilize filter bags once the pool is clean for polishing the water. I am using the SLAM procedure to shock the water...my values are all correct. I'm testing constantly. My question is really just about finding a way to vacuum, filter, and recycle the water instead of vacuuming to waste. If anyone has a DIY set up for this purpose, please provide details! I have an 18 x 36 inground vinyl liner pool with Hayward 1.5 hp pump, 2 skimmers, 5 return jets.
Here are some things I'm considering to avoid this:
1) some sort of DIY filter system that would allow vacuuming to waste, but having the waste water hose run through a drum or bucket filter and then back into the pool. Has anyone successfully done this? I know that you can buy 10 micron filters for 5 gallon buckets and 55 gallon drums...anyone tried it yet?
2) making a skimmer sock out of 1 micron filter fabric to pre-filter the water as I vacuum. I realize this would take a lot of monitoring. Or, possibly a different method of pre-filter that will catch fine silt at the skimmers. Anyone ever tried this?
3) Trying the slime bags or Duda bags to vacuum to waste then filter through the bag to return the water to the pool. I've seen where people use them for vacuuming, but I'm also assuming that they probably aren't dealing with the volume of crud that I always have on opening. I'm guessing that's more for routine maintenance.
4) shutting off two of the returns, and put slime bags on three of the returns, and just keep the floor brushed until it filters through the filtration system.
I'm planning to utilize filter bags once the pool is clean for polishing the water. I am using the SLAM procedure to shock the water...my values are all correct. I'm testing constantly. My question is really just about finding a way to vacuum, filter, and recycle the water instead of vacuuming to waste. If anyone has a DIY set up for this purpose, please provide details! I have an 18 x 36 inground vinyl liner pool with Hayward 1.5 hp pump, 2 skimmers, 5 return jets.
