Frog Filled Green Swamp to Oasis---Work in Progress!!!

[drdough]

Hi Guys,
My name is Chris and I have been checking out the site in order to try and get a handle on my pool. Me and my family moved in the house last year. This is my second season with the pool and let the pool get out of control towards the end of last season and just left alone without properly closing not even covering the pool.

I have spent several hundreds trying to get the pool ready to swim because my two kids love the water. At any rate, a couple of weeks ago I had this local guy called the Pool Doctor come look at my pool and the guy just told me to pour some Algaecide in the pool and take a water sample to the pool store. I had been reading up in Pool School and I knew that didnt sound right. I though what a joke, how can you call yourself Pool Doctor and give such poor advice. I figured that he didn't want to fool with my pool. He could have made a killing on me. Business must be good for him! In all actuality it was a blessing to disquise. I would have to handle this myself so I continue to read up in Pool School and ordered a TF100 test kit.

Well I got the test kit in this past friday and I had been stocking up on my chemical for the BBB technique.

Note: I had already been getting out tons of leaves and dead tadpole since I didn't cover or properly close the pool. I had only been using Sam's Club Tricore Pucks, Shock, and baking soda. The only water testing was done with some 5-6 way test strips.

So my first reading Sat. 11Am was:

Ph 7.2
FC 1-1.5
CYA 60
TA 140
water Temp 82 degrees

So to get to shock level of 24ppm I added liquid bleach I think 9 gallons


2nd reading at 12:30pm
FC 1.5
CC 8
TC 9.5
so I added more liquid bleach to get to 24 ppm shock level (9 gal)


3rd reading at 1:21pm
FC 1.5
CC 12
TC 13.5

note: I start to see a lot of organic material float to the surface I continue to get leaves and debris out the pool and backwash as need.

4th reading at 2:17
FC 2 wow a slight improvement
CC 9
TC 11

So I continue to add bleach to get back to shock level. At this time I had almost depleated all of my liquid bleach supply I had used almost 40 1.4 gallon jugs of liquid bleach so I called it the day.


These are pics before getting started Saturday Morning.

 

[drdough]

Taken Sunday Morning

After getting a goods night rest. I got up Sunday morning and tested my water with my TF100 test kit. I started to get familiarize with the kit and got some readings.

Results at 9am:
CYA 80 ppm (higher than yesterday, figured that was a newbie test error)
FC 24.5 ppm (much better but now out of my shock range d/t higher cya)
CC 2ppm
TC 26.5 ppm
CH 30 ppm
TA 150 ppm


Note: So my new Shock level is 31ppm so I needed to add 3.5 gallons of liquid bleach. Also Ph is low. I didn’t do anything to it for right now.


Test Readings at 10:41am:
FC 34.5 ppm (finally in shock for my CYA levels)
CC 2 ppm
TC 36.5 ppm

Note: continue to remove leaves and debris from pool. I was unaware of how many Dang leaves were at the bottom of my deep end. As the bleach was breaking the organics down leaves were just floating to the top of the water. Amazing and scary that I let my pool get this bad!

Test Readings at Noon:
FC 31 ppm (Still at Shock)
CC 2.5 ppm
TC 33.5 ppm


Test Reading a 8pm:
FC 20 ppm
CC 2 ppm
TC 22 ppm

 

[harleysilo]

Is this a salt water pool?

Have you considered partial drain to lower CYA?

 

[drdough]

So I got up early this morning to get some more test results

FC 33 ppm
CC 2.5 ppm
PH 6.8 I know this is way low!
CYA 70-80ish ---Think it's 80 but not sure on testing.
TA 140ppm
CH 30 ppm

Here are a few pics from this morning!

Now this pic puzzles me with the froth on the water. Do I need to adjust my ph up now or continue to shock. I know my CYA has been up from using the Trico Pucks. Also My TA is on the high side. This is were I need some expert advice . I feel I'm on the right track!

My son infront of all the bleach used so far! He has asked me a thousand times when will the pool be ready! LOL, I keep telling him hopefully soon!

 

[drdough]

@Harley, No it's not a salt pool and yes I have considered a partial drain. I wasn't sure if I need to continue shocking first. It probably would save on the amount of 6% bleach needed.

 

[harleysilo]

Dang that's a lot of bleach!

Do you still think there are tons of leaves and such on the bottom? Do you have a multi position valve that allows you to vacuum to waste, i.e. by passing your sand filter? If you do you could kill two birds with one stone, get rid of leaves and CYA.

The advice I've read here is not to drain more than 18" of water, unless you absolutely know that you do not have a high water table. You don't want your liner to be exposed and dry out during the process either. Do you know how old the liner is?

You can do the CYA test a few times in a row by just reusing your mix, so that you can get used to preforming it accurately, maybe get your sons young eyes involved LOL, my 5 year old and i now get the same readings.

You can actually calculate what your CYA will be once you drain X amount of water and re-fill (I don't know how to do it however). You can also refill your pool with a hose place in the bottom while siphoning water off the top with another hose (assuming the fill water is colder than the pool's water) without every changing the water level of the pool (if worried about liner) you'd have to match siphon rate to fill rate but you could do that by setting up the siphon, measuring it's output in a 5 gal bucket, and then turning the fill hose on enough to fill the same bucket in same time.....

 

[drdough]

From my understanding when I bought the house last year is that a new liner was recently added within the past couple of years.

I do have a siphon to waste which I was planning on doing it. I did it last year after my water started clearing up. But as you can see I can barely see the bottom in the shallow end, let alone in the deep end.

I have collected almost 10-12 bags of leaves. I can still feel a few spots of leaves in the deep end but nothing near like when I first started!

I wasn't sure I could vacuum to waste to suck up the leaves. I thought that I would have to get most of the solid waste out first. I will have to look into that this evening.

Thanks

 

[yeggim]

@Harley, No it's not a salt pool and yes I have considered a partial drain. I wasn't sure if I need to continue shocking first. It probably would save on the amount of 6% bleach needed.

If your confident of that CYA reading then I think a partial drain is in order. Have you priced liquid Chlorine at a pool store? It might be cheaper.

Last year my pool store had a 5 gallon carboys of 12.5% Chlorine for around 18 bucks. That's 23 cents per ounce of Chlorine. To match that, a 182 ounce jug of bleach has to cost $2.50. Helluva lot easier to haul too. Four carboys vs. 40+ jugs.

 

[drdough]

@Yeggim, How much should I drain to try and get my cya lower. I was thinking of vacuum to waste to get rid of rest of leaves and dead algae on bottom while running water hose from sprinkler system. I have a high pressure so it should be close to equal hopefully.

I haven't priced any liquid chlorine, I'll check some prices this evening. On a good note I have been getting a good little workout hauling boxes of bleach and fishing out leaves! LOL

 

[techguy]

If you are going to drain some water (aka Vacuum to waste) you may as well use it as an opportunity to suck out the yuck on the bottom of the pool.

Good luck!

If it makes you feel better, mine was worse but I knew I was going to drain it and change the liner this year.

 

[drdough]

Should I try to raise my PH right now or plan on doing a partial refill while keeping the pool in shock?

 

[yeggim]

Check out the PoolCalculator http://www.poolcalculator.com/.

Fill in your present test results. At the bottom in Suggested Goal Levels put TroubleFreePool.com, Vinyl and Bleach as your choices in the drop down boxes.

I put your pool volume in the Calc and 70 in the Now box of the CYA section and 50 in the Target box and got "To lower CYA you replace 29% of the water with new water".

Make sure you leave at least a foot of water in the shallow end of you pool. Do not drain lower than that. Even if you get it to 60 or so, it's better than 80. Some long backwashes and rinse cycles will get you closer.

Edit: Oh yeah, do like techguy says and vacuum to waste as part of the drain. If your Chlorine comes down while you refill check the PH. PH reads falsely high when Chlorine is over 10ppm.

 

[drdough]

Well I did a partial drain yesterday and continue to pull out a few leaves. I think that I got most of the leaves because I'm hardly getting any with the net. I sense there is some kind of sludge or something on the bottom. Everynow and then it feels like the net is catching on something and I have to wiggle to get it to move.

While the water was low down to my last step approximatly a foot in the shollow end I had some bad staining on my steps. I remembered reading something about using vitamin C. I didn't have any tablets but did have some Emergen-C powder Vit. C and put a packet on steps and low and behold were I put the Vit. C powder it was snow white. So I got a few more packets and scrubbed the steps with a deck brush and had them looking new. Today while testing and adjusting my FC. I notice that it was starting to stain again so I may yet have another problem.

After doing a partial pool drain refill. My new numbers at noon today:

cya 40
TA 80
PH 7.2
FC 5.5
CC 1.5
CH 30
Temp 82f

Note: My target shock level is 16 ppm so I added 4 182oz jugs of clorox and retested 30 min. later and got.

FC 23
CC 1.5


Note: I'm not sure why my FC jumped up to 23 instead of target 16 ppm but it's in shock. Will test in a little when I get home.



Here's a pic of steps after Emergen-C Vit. C treatment. My wife was teasing me that it smell like bleach and Raspberries. LOL

My son Christophe' helping me pressure was side of pool ready to get pool ready so he can swim!

Looking a little better. Just a little! Got to keep my faith!

 

[dattia]

Yes, keep that faith! You will be SO proud of yourself when you achieve "sparkling oasis"... and you will... just remember, swamp conditions do take some time and a lot of Pool Owner Patience.

 

[MikeInNH]

Looks like you'll have a great setup when done. It's good to have a helper. ;-)

 

[drdough]

Well I feel like I have the proper knowledge and tools now. And I'm glad I found this site. And yes it's good to have a good helper! ;-)

 

[yeggim]

Note: I'm not sure why my FC jumped up to 23 instead of target 16 ppm but it's in shock. Will test in a little when I get home.

Could be your pool is not 35K. Four x 182 oz. jugs will raise a 20K pool from 5.5 to 23 ppm.

 

[drdough]

You may be right. I got that number from treatment plan from pool store that the last owner had analyze water. I need to take some measurements and confirm if correct.

 

[drdough]

A few pics from this morning. I'm not sure what this froth/suds on surface maybe somebody can chime in on this.

FC 15.5ppm
CC 1.0ppm

note: I added 36oz of bleach, also added polaris last night.

When brushing on deep end of pool, there seems to be something rough on the bottom, like a pile of dirt of something. Normally when brushing it feels smooth. But on the deep end there are a few spots that feel rough. Since I can't down there yet i can only go by feel. I though about getting my scuba gear and flashlight and dive down there to see what it is. Puzzled!

 

[dattia]

I'm not sure what the foam is, but I had it as well when transforming my swamp this year. I thought my go to brand of bleach must have started putting an additive in, so I changed brands 3 times and got the foam with all three. As I neared the end of my process, all the foam disappeared.