Water Chemistry while vacuuming to waste

[MichaelJSullivan]

Hey all, I'm a new pool owner and have spent days all over the forum and learned a lot!! Some specifics about my pool.

38,000 gal
vinyl liner
Sand filter
Variable speed pump
SWG system

Pool was installed, water crystal clear, checking my levels and everything right in line with what's been said here.

Well, we had torrential rains and my pool got inundated with run off (mainly fine dirt rather than sand or any type of mulch or leaves/grass etc. Entire pool went "underwater" with a river flowing into (and out of) the other side. Of course the liner floated - in the deep end it was just "pulling away" from the sides (although still attached) In the shallow end,areas that didn't have a return or skimmer came up to the surface, any attempt to "push them down just brought it up again. Needless to say there was huge amounts of water between the liner and the steel frame. Of course all my chemicals are gone as is all my salt. No pool people can help me as they are fully booked with everyone else in the area who is in the same situation. So I'm on my own.

• Okay step #1. Pumped out water so the level was below where the liner hangs (so no more water seeps in behind liner and is trapped there.
• Step #2 turned off the system so the floating dirt could start to settle.
• Step #3 - pumped water out from behind the liner -- I was VERY concerned that if I didn't do this soon it would tear (my neighbors did) because as I said it was on the surface and yet held down by the returns and skimmers and pulling really tightly at those anchor points. Plus I didn't like the liner being exposed to the sun. Things were so bad that I could actually slide a small subpump down there. (I now have a utility pump on order so that if this happens in the future I can slide just a hose down, but hey the subpump thing worked in this emergency situation. I should note that originally I was just pumping it "away" but then realized my pool volume was going away (and would need to be replaced) so I started pumping it back into the pool.
• Step #4 added water back into the pool so I can start vacuuming stuff out. Again from feel (walking around shallow end) I have a lot of dirt in there. I started off by using the filter - but lost vacuum quickly - was able to clear it with backwashing and rinsing but I'd only get a few minutes of vacuuming before having to repeat the process. Now I think the best approach is just to vacuum to waste. NOTE: This will mean a slow process as refilling with hoses and a well isn't fast.

Okay now the question...Should I be putting in any chemicals? Obviously not salt (liquid chlorine would be more efficient than trying to get the SWG running). Water is brown (not green). I don't want to risk an algae bloom, but I also don't want to pour in chemicals just to dump them out again during the vacuum to waste process.

Should I raise chlorine to shock level? And if so, should I "do it all' In other words should I work on getting CYA and PH balancer addressed? Or is that just a waste of money as I'm going to vacuuming out the dirt/water/chemicals when going to waste.

I' going to break out my testing kit and give some levels - but my guess is going to be that there is nothing in the water anymore. I'll report the numbers shortly but wanted to get this post going in the meantime.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

With brown dirty water you'll surely have *cooties* in there that will require a SLAM. But it might be short one once you get the settled dirt out and start.

This is an odd situation, anything you put in there ($) you'll be pulling some/most/all back out again as you vacuum to waste. I sort of want to suggest an odd thing- adding a dose of Polyquat 60 algaecide. Sure you'll sacrifice it out but not all at once. Perhaps that will buy you more time since we know the FC won't last long and will need very frequent replenishing of chlorine during this time. Remember that algaecides don't actually kill algae, they just prevent it. So as I said maybe it will help avoid some?

Try to let the water settle quietly so that the dirt lays down..... a *very* slow vacuum along the bottom.....refill as necessary.

Maddie

Addendum thought!- let it sit quiet overnight so you can vacuum first thing in the AM slowly, then as you get clearer or feel better about using the filter you can do that as long as you can backwash it. Then again, keep the pump off all evening/night to allow it to settle again. Rinse and Repeat.

 

[MichaelJSullivan]

Thanks Maddie, I hadn't thought about the algaecide prevention. That's a good idea. And yeah, we've been keeping the circulation off so things can settle. The problem is the dirt is very fine and is suspended. We are vacuuming blind because we can't see the bottom.

I did dump a bunch of liquid chlorine in the pool last night after the sun went down. Ran it a bit to circulate but then turned it off. Once the sun is up I'm sure that will be gone, but it's relatively cheap to pour in. I'll see if I can find the algecide and get that in.

The good news is that the lining seems to be in really good shape. Now that it's back in place it allows for vacuuming and we were able to smooth it out so no wrinkles formed (there would have been a lot of them had we not been able to feel around with our feet and move stuff while we sucked out the water behind the liner.