Well I just want to follow up with a note of thanks as usual... we swam for the first time yesterday, and our kids and neighbors spent close to 6 hours in/around the pool today! The water is still not perfect; my biggest problem now is a huge number of tiny crushed rock fragments on the floor of the pool, each probably the size of a pin head, that my vacuum just isn't strong enough to pick up. Suggestions still welcome on that one.
For anybody who may be dealing with a similar issue, I'll share some more details:
- I thought I didn't have algae, just paving stone debris. I was wrong. Boy was there algae.
- I didn't know this because the water was so dirty, visibility was no more than a few inches. I couldn't even come close to seeing the bottom of the pool. If I could have, I would have realized it was absolutely filled with leaves and rocks, and hay (which was put down to protect the grass seed). Once the pump was running, I started by sliding the net blindly along the floor of the pool, filling up several buckets of leaves and other Crud with each pass.
- First priority was getting the water up to SLAM level and keeping it there. I was burning through about 6 ppm of FC per day in the beginning.
- I tried to vacuum but the skimmer basket would clog almost instantly with leaves. It took several days of dredging the bottom with the net before I could start vacuuming.
- I also used the brush, to brush down the sides and to stir up the crud on the bottom, hoping to draw some of the sediment into the drains. I did one pass with the net and another with the brush every day at first. I tried to brush down the sides as much as possible too.
- My skimmer basket and cartridge filter both needed to be cleaned at least 3 times a day. I would always clean the cartridge (inside and out, using my filter flosser) once in the morning, then again after doing any kind of cleaning work, and again in the evening. Sometimes once in the afternoon as well. The amount of crud coming out of the filter was just mind-boggling.
- At some point the water started to turn from green to milky blue. The visibility didn't improve but I figured at least the algae was finally starting to die off, which meant that hopefully I had gotten most of the leaves. That's when I started using a regular chitosan clarifier, at 3x dosage, once every few days.
- I also replaced my filter cartridge at around that time with a new cartridge, and started using hairnets in the skimmer. Vacuuming was productive at this point, still picking up lots of junk but at least I could get through half the pool at a time before I had to empty the basket and clean the filter.
- After about 2 weeks of this daily routine, the whole time at SLAM level with the pump running 24/7, visibility finally started to improve. All of a sudden one day I could see the second step. And then the third. And finally, like a miracle, I got my first glimpse of the bottom!
- I still had to vacuum daily, and it was tough because I was kicking up sediment and re-clouding the water as I was going. But as long as I moved very slowly, I could watch the bright blue liner emerge on the floor from under a layer of brown dust.
- A few days ago, I decided it was safe to stop SLAMming and start letting the FC drift down. We had a lot of sun and with no added chlorine all week, it got to 5 by yesterday morning which was good enough for swimming. Tonight it was around 2, which means I used up about 1.5 ppm per day with full sun and heavy usage. I'm good with that.
- The water still has a slight cloudiness to it but I expect it will clear up over time, especially if we keep swimming to agitate the water. I'll finish the bottle of clarifier because I have it, and tomorrow I plan to start adding salt and fire up the SWG.
- My first pump start was on June 1st and first swimming was on June 19th. That's 18 days to make it swimmable, and I'm guessing another week of fine filtering before it's 100% clear. Much of that time there was no visible improvement from one day to the next and I was really starting to lose all hope. If you're in this situation, the best advice I can give is: just be patient and keep working it. Sweep/brush/vacuum and clean your filter as often as you can, and keep your FC level up. Slow and steady and you just have to trust that it will get there.
If you're still reading this far, I'll share tonight's test results: FC 2, pH 7.8, TA 110, CH 250, CYA 40, Salt 600 (naturally occurring; haven't added any yet). These are all within the parameters that Jandy recommends for SWG startup, although the pH is on the high side, and the TA is higher than Pool Math recommends. Jandy says 80-120 is good; Pool Math says 70-90. I've read many threads here on TFP about this, and the consensus seems to be: don't optimize for TA. If the pH is continually creeping up, then lower the TA until the pH becomes stable. Otherwise leave it alone.
Assuming that's a correct interpretation, I'm going to add some muriatic acid tomorrow, maybe try and get it to 7.6 and monitor from there.
In any case, I'm very happy to now be dealing with the finer points of water chemistry and clarity and not wondering if the creature from the black lagoon is living on the floor of my pool!
