Hi all,
Our pool is finished at last after various delays - just in time for the
kids to go back to school! Anyway, due to the drought and the
spring/well nearly running dry, we had to fill it by pumping water from
the lake. It started off as dark green/brown soup and now seems to come
to a full stop at a palish green colour. We have used algicide in the
highest recommended dose, twice, used chlorine shock treatment and are
running the salt machine for ongoing chlorine generation. On the advice
of a friend we slung in a load of bleach as a further chlorine shock. We
have used a flocculant product twice which the first time gave a huge
improvement, the second time a tiny one. The sand filter is running
nearly all the time and being backwashed as necessary. pH is a bit high
since I overdid the alkali a bit, but refilling with acid water is
bringing it back down again.

Anyone have any experience of this sort of situation please? We are
planning a big pool party on Saturday, and whilst the water is just
about acceptable I'd rather have it crystal clear. Ideas anyone??

TIA

--
Holly, in France
Holiday Home in Dordogne
http://la-plaine.chez.tiscali.fr/

Barley straw is said to work with ponds - you just chuck it in and
remove several days later. Probably no good for Saturday though.

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:25:36 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:

Hi all,
Our pool is finished at last after various delays - just in time for the
kids to go back to school! Anyway, due to the drought and the
spring/well nearly running dry, we had to fill it by pumping water from
the lake. It started off as dark green/brown soup and now seems to come
to a full stop at a palish green colour. We have used algicide in the
highest recommended dose, twice, used chlorine shock treatment and are
running the salt machine for ongoing chlorine generation. On the advice
of a friend we slung in a load of bleach as a further chlorine shock. We
have used a flocculant product twice which the first time gave a huge
improvement, the second time a tiny one. The sand filter is running
nearly all the time and being backwashed as necessary. pH is a bit high
since I overdid the alkali a bit, but refilling with acid water is
bringing it back down again.

Anyone have any experience of this sort of situation please? We are
planning a big pool party on Saturday, and whilst the water is just
about acceptable I'd rather have it crystal clear. Ideas anyone??

Yup, had the same problem with our pool this year, just wouldn't clear. In
the end it took about 5 or 6 weeks, although it's crystal clear now.

Use liquid chlorine - it's the stuff farmer's use, I think a 22% solution
or similar. I added half a 25l drum of the stuff. That should turn the
water nice and milky cloudy. I use Goldiflock tablets with the filter,
running it more or less continuously for a couple of weeks, backwashing
regularly, although any flocculant should work OK. Took three or four weeks
to get to the stage yours seems to be, then a further two or three weeks to
completely clear, so you're probably out of luck for crystal clear this
week end! Unfortunately, there's no magic wand solution to sort it out
overnight.

Get the wine flowing copiously, if it's hot nobody will care after a few
glasses.

Go easy on the stabilised chlorine granules or tablets, if you're using
those. The stabliser (cyanuric acid) doesn't break down in the same way
that the chlorine does, so the concentration builds up and you finish up
with 'chlorine lock', where there's so much stabiliser in the water that
the chlorine isn't released. The only solution to that problem is to part
empty the pool and refill to reduce the stabiliser level. Stabiliser levels
are normally kept under control with regular cleaning, backwashing and
topping up, together with rain water.

Liquid chlorine doesn't have the stabiliser, so there isn't the same sort
of problem. I use a mixture of liquid and stabilised chlorine. Liquid
chlorine breaks down much quicker, usually within 24-36 hours, depending on
water teperature and amount of sunlight.

--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:25:36 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:

We have used ... chlorine shock treatment

The best way is to really shock it really hard.

First backwash the filter, then get a 25 litre drum of liquid chlorine
of about 10% - 15% and bung it all in.

After a few hours, replace flocculent. If Cl level too high when you
want to use it, use Cl remover.

BTW, you mentioned "bleach", do you mean domestic bleach?

--
Nigel M

Yebbut would you want to swim in this chemical soup? The "dark
green/brown soup" from the lake sounds a lot more enticing frankly!

The Wanderer wrote:
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:25:36 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:

Our pool is finished at last after various delays - just in time for the
[snip]
week end! Unfortunately, there's no magic wand solution to sort it out
overnight.

Get the wine flowing copiously, if it's hot nobody will care after a few
glasses.

.... and the risk of someone getting drowned or injured is considerably
increased!

--
Chris Green

On 24 Aug 2005 12:50:44 GMT, wrote:

The Wanderer wrote:
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:25:36 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:

Our pool is finished at last after various delays - just in time for the
[snip]
week end! Unfortunately, there's no magic wand solution to sort it out
overnight.

Get the wine flowing copiously, if it's hot nobody will care after a few
glasses.

... and the risk of someone getting drowned or injured is considerably
increased!

Are you on the list for a sense of humour transplant?


--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 12:04:31 +0100, The Wanderer wrote:


Use liquid chlorine - it's the stuff farmer's use,

Arrgghhhh! an aberrant apostrophe! I plead guilty but insane.


--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net

The Wanderer wrote:
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:25:36 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:

re green pool water

Anyone have any experience of this sort of situation please? We are
planning a big pool party on Saturday, and whilst the water is just
about acceptable I'd rather have it crystal clear. Ideas anyone??

Yup, had the same problem with our pool this year, just wouldn't
clear. In the end it took about 5 or 6 weeks, although it's crystal
clear now.

At least it's not just us then.

Use liquid chlorine - it's the stuff farmer's use, I think a 22%
solution or similar. I added half a 25l drum of the stuff.


I added 30 litres as recommended on the container "a glass and a half
per cubic metre" - nothing like accurate instructions :-) But in answer
to Nigel's question, yes, it was domestic bleach which is only 2.6%, so
it probably wasn't much of a shock to anything.

That should turn the water nice and milky cloudy. I use Goldiflock
tablets
with the filter, running it more or less continuously for a couple of
weeks, backwashing regularly, although any flocculant should work OK.
Took three or four weeks to get to the stage yours seems to be, then
a further two or three weeks to completely clear, so you're probably
out of luck for crystal clear this week end! Unfortunately, there's
no magic wand solution to sort it out overnight.

Right, thanks, the magic wand was really just what I was after! Thanks
also for the tip about the chlorine stabiliser, which we are not using
but is well worth knowing about. The water is improving all the time,
the flocculant seems to be the answer. I suspect that a given amount of
flocculant can only coagulate a certain amount of particles, and that's
why it continues to improve it. I reckon that at the moment we could
probably convince people it was very expensive specially imported sea
water, at a pinch. It's visually acceptable though and not too chloriny
or too salty, people seem happy enough to go in it.

Get the wine flowing copiously, if it's hot nobody will care after a
few glasses.

Hmm, I think everyone around here might be pretty immune to the effects
of the wine at this stage of the summer :-) Thanks again everyone, roll
on the party.......

--
Holly, in France
Holiday Home in Dordogne
http://la-plaine.chez.tiscali.fr/

Holly, in France wrote:
The Wanderer wrote:

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:25:36 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:


re green pool water


[deleted]

I added 30 litres as recommended on the container "a glass and a half
per cubic metre" - nothing like accurate instructions :-) But in answer
to Nigel's question, yes, it was domestic bleach which is only 2.6%, so
it probably wasn't much of a shock to anything.


That should turn the water nice and milky cloudy. I use Goldiflock

tablets

with the filter, running it more or less continuously for a couple of
weeks, backwashing regularly, although any flocculant should work OK.
Took three or four weeks to get to the stage yours seems to be, then
a further two or three weeks to completely clear, so you're probably
out of luck for crystal clear this week end! Unfortunately, there's
no magic wand solution to sort it out overnight.


Right, thanks, the magic wand was really just what I was after! Thanks
also for the tip about the chlorine stabiliser, which we are not using
but is well worth knowing about. The water is improving all the time,
the flocculant seems to be the answer. I suspect that a given amount of
flocculant can only coagulate a certain amount of particles, and that's
why it continues to improve it. I reckon that at the moment we could
probably convince people it was very expensive specially imported sea
water, at a pinch. It's visually acceptable though and not too chloriny
or too salty, people seem happy enough to go in it.


Hmm..

When I used to maintain a pool back home flocculant was added at night,
and left to settle. The next day you vacuumed all the crud off the bottom.

Seems to me if you're trying to filter out the crud it will take even
longer (Because you vacuum straight to waste, wheras trying to filter it
you just crud up the filter & require frequent backwashing)

H

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 10:16:29 +0100, Holly, in France wrote:

Hamie wrote:

snip snip..

The water is improving
all the time, the flocculant seems to be the answer. I suspect that
a given amount of flocculant can only coagulate a certain amount of
particles, and that's why it continues to improve it.

Hmm..

When I used to maintain a pool back home flocculant was added at
night, and left to settle. The next day you vacuumed all the crud off
the bottom.

Thanks for that, you're quite right, I didn't explain in detail but that
is what we are doing. Last night's dose of flocculant has cleared the
water completely, we can actually see the bottom of the pool this
morning, but it will get stirred up again in a mintute by the vacuum,
see below.

Seems to me if you're trying to filter out the crud it will take even
longer (Because you vacuum straight to waste, wheras trying to filter
it you just crud up the filter & require frequent backwashing)

We are vacuuming the crud but our vacuum works off the main pool suction
line so the waste, apart from heavy particles which get collected in a
gadget on the cleaner hose, goes into the sand filter anyway. Then the
cleaner sort of judders/throbs as it goes and stirs up a fair bit that
it can't suck up, so this ends up in the water but does seem to get
filtered out eventually.

Ah, sounds like you're using an 'automatic' pool cleaner, like a creepy
krawly or similar. These are fine for on-going pool maintenance, just to
get rid of stray leaves and debris that fall or blow into the pool, and to
suck up any *thin* patches of dead algae, but they're not the thing to use
when your pool is heavily contaminated with debris.

I'm just off out now to try to guide the cleaner round to the worst
bits, since it goes at random and doesn't reach some areas, then I'll
leave it to it's own devices for a couple of hours.

You need to splash out (pardon the pun) on a suitable pole, a length of
vacuum hose, a suitable 'skim-vac' adaptor and either a liner or concrete
pool suction head, depending on the type of pool.

The 'skim-vac' adaptor merely sits over the top of the leaf basket in the
skimmer, fix the vacuum head onto the pole, join the adaptor plate to the
vacuum headplate with a length of vacuum hose, and feed the pipe into the
pool from the vacuum head upwards IYSWIM, to make sure you get most of the
air out of the pipe.

Fill the pool to the brim. Set the multiport valve on the side of the
filter to 'waste'. I'm assuming you've got a proper multiport valve - NEVER
alter it with the pump running, you'll tear the rubber diaphragm inside,
then you've got more expense.

Close the inlet valve from the sump and any other skimmers you might have,
start the pump, pop the skim vac plate over the skimmer basket and you have
maximum suction on the vacuum head. You then manually vacuum everything out
to waste, always keeping an eye on the water level. Takes me about an hour
to vacuum my pool when it's not too dirty! Again, there's no easy magic
wand way.

You might just have a separate vacuum point installed, the pipe goes
straight into this and you're then relying on the debris basket in the pump
rather than the skimmer to collect any large bits of debris, leaves, etc,
but you'll need to adjust the appropriate inlet valves adjacent to the
pump.

HTH.

It's promising to be a reasonable day here, shall probably be in mine this
afternoon - temperature is about 32°C.

--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net

Hamie wrote:

snip snip..

The water is improving
all the time, the flocculant seems to be the answer. I suspect that
a given amount of flocculant can only coagulate a certain amount of
particles, and that's why it continues to improve it.

Hmm..

When I used to maintain a pool back home flocculant was added at
night, and left to settle. The next day you vacuumed all the crud off
the bottom.

Thanks for that, you're quite right, I didn't explain in detail but that
is what we are doing. Last night's dose of flocculant has cleared the
water completely, we can actually see the bottom of the pool this
morning, but it will get stirred up again in a mintute by the vacuum,
see below.

Seems to me if you're trying to filter out the crud it will take even
longer (Because you vacuum straight to waste, wheras trying to filter
it you just crud up the filter & require frequent backwashing)

We are vacuuming the crud but our vacuum works off the main pool suction
line so the waste, apart from heavy particles which get collected in a
gadget on the cleaner hose, goes into the sand filter anyway. Then the
cleaner sort of judders/throbs as it goes and stirs up a fair bit that
it can't suck up, so this ends up in the water but does seem to get
filtered out eventually.

I'm just off out now to try to guide the cleaner round to the worst
bits, since it goes at random and doesn't reach some areas, then I'll
leave it to it's own devices for a couple of hours.

Thanks again


Holly, in France
Holiday Home in Dordogne
http://la-plaine.chez.tiscali.fr/