Year 2: Avoiding the Sophomore Slump

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Didn't feel like starting a new thread, but still alive and kicking. Opened the pool May 9th, still slogging through my SLAM. Not sure why it always takes me 2-3 weeks when I watch green algae pools get done in 10 days, but hey, is what it is. PH about 7.5, CYA at 50, just fighting through it. Opened crystal clear, minus a bunch of dead worms as always. Couple immediate chipmunk suicides, but it's been a quiet killing season this year aside from a couple frogs; I usually get a ton more chipmunks. maybe all the dumb ones died out and I killed off that whole lineage!

Stopped getting the dead algae dust on the liner seams, so know I'm close. But still down about 4-5 FC overnight on average, so little bit hanging around. last year I had to take my lights out and get in the niche, so pretty sure that's what I've got to do again. Hopefully will get that this afternoon, gotta be where the holdout is because I can't see any other issues.

Anxious/ready to turn this over to the SWG, this whole 'bleach' thing is annoying and expensive. Best part of a salt pool is not having to do much to take care of it, I'm ready for that part!

Also, dumb discharge hose blew about 30 different leaks in it when I used it for the first time, that's fun. Bought a new one last year, and it exploded on its very first use, so went back to the old one that just had pinpricks. They are pinpricks no longer :) On the plus side, I found a 100' fire hose (brand new) on craigslist for $20, so once my brother brings it over next week, I should be good for life. Can cut it in two, maybe 3, and never worry about it again. Hopefully that does the trick, the cheap ones are useless and the reinforced ones are expensive and have long shipping times at the moment. Fire hose is same inner diameter, should be perfect...
 
And since I got a 100' one, I can cut it in half and it will last TWICE forever! :)

Got the lights out, wasn't much of note in the niche. Was hoping that would explain it, but no dice. Used the toilet scrubber on it all anyway, and then the 30 minute process of trying to get that one stupid screw back in the light while hanging over the side of the pool. Looks easy to install from IN the pool, takes forever and good luck to get in while on the decking.

Looks like a loss of about 3 FC overnight, so still not there, but also don't see much more dead algae on the liner anymore, so just waiting for that arbitrary good OCLT I guess. Day 16 of the opening/SLAM, hopefully will resolve shortly...
 
tko said:
I'm in my second year too. Opened the cover to greenish water, and dirt at the bottom (so much dirt, did it come through the mesh cover I suppose?). I vacuumed and am SLAMing (day 4). Water is much clearer, and I only lost .5 overnight, but the sun seems to be burning off the chlorine. My CYA is around 25-30 so I have to pull out the sock and stabilizer. Not going to lie - I'm considering throwing in dichlor to shock since I want CYA up, but can't find any locally.

I'm happy with BBB, but here's my question: My daughter says two of her friends in the neighborhood just "took off their cover and swam immediately in clear water". How can this be? Is that normal - or maybe they put a cover on but never really closed their pool? Maybe and elf (aka a parent) was adding chemicals over the winter? Did I do something wrong in closing (disconnected everything, shocked, and put on safety. We had lots of snow (for Portland, OR) this winter and freezing temps so I don't regret it - but I feel slightly like a loser cuz our pool isn't ready yet.
Click to expand...

Last year in April my swamp (pool) had snakes, frogs, and thousands of tadpoles. Took me over a month to pass the OCLT. This year I closed the pool when it started getting close to freezing temperatures in November. Then I covered it for the first time, and when I looked under the cover in March, April, and May, it was clear. No swamp! I know it still had to be SLAMmed because of contaminants, but it only took 2-3 days to pass the OCLT. I have no idea what I did right. No leaves or dirt. I started using my robotic cleaner right away to scrub the walls and bottom.
 
I close mine in early October once it’s below 60 for good, and open first week of may generally. Looks perf ct minus the dead worms and slight algae, but it always seems a 2-3 week job to finish slam. Guess I could open earlier, but not much, not really. I always get a heavy pollen drop in mid may anyway, which I’m sure hurts my progress.

Plus side, water said 77 degrees today, so second it passes oclt, I can jump in to celebrate
 
Jump in now! If the water is clear, you will not hurt it and it will not hurt you! Just be sure your FC is at or below SLAM level.
 
Ugh, just can't quite get over the hump. Sitting around 17 or 18 most mornings (should be 20), so I just keep running the cleaning robot, little scrubbing, and adding bleach again. Hopefully over the weekend; I opened the pool on 5/10, so it should really be done by now. And it looks perfectly clear/clean, not even getting anything of note in the robot. By end of the weekend, I may call it a day and try to stop SLAM and go for it. If it gets worse, can always restart I guess...
 
Scout it has been a weird Spring with some people saying the same thing............pool SLAMed........clear as can be but cannot pass the OCLT for a long time. We are trying to find the reason but nothing has jumped out to us yet :(
 
Definitely weird. Mine always (sample size of 3 years, I admit) takes about a week after it looks basically done, but this year it just wasn't getting there. I was SLAMing based on CYA of 50, and it would get between 16-18 in the mornings no matter what. I scrubbed, vacuumed every other day with a robot, removed and scrubbed the light niches, nothing got me there. Retested CYA again and got 40, but always seems like a flaky test anyway. Plus side, that meant I really was looking for FC of 16, but extra bleach should have killed things off even faster...

Long story short, I caved and just set up the pool yesterday. If I have to stop and re-SLAM later, so be it, but there was no progress in 2 weeks, water looked perfect, and was pouring about $10/day (plus the electricity for 24/7 pump operation) down the drain to no gain. Everything is now up to operating levels, just gotta check CYA again in a couple days and rebalance one more time.

Water was 78, jumped in and swam for a few minutes for my troubles, even though the air was 67 yesterday. Water felt nice.
 

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So far, looks like I did fine to quit the SLAM where I did. Water has stayed clear/clean, so far so good in that respect.

Of course, right after I finished everything, pump started leaking a TON, so had another thread in that forum to straighten all that out. Bag of new seals and O-rings, and looks like I'm back in business there with only about 36 hours downtime. And then the multi-port valve on the filter tried to fail on me when the pump started back up (coming out the discharge hose at a decent clip when NOT in discharge mode), but after a painful disassembly and lubrication effort, that's back up and running too.

Love this site, you guys are the best! Had about $700 in part failures that I'd have probably spent if I didn't know any better (new pump/basket, new multi-port valve), this forum got me good as new for about $30! :)
 
Great to hear!

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