Please HELP!

[Brysz]

Hello,

Ive been a pool owner for years, but I joined this forum for some advice regarding my current nightmare...

I will try to be as detailed as possible without boring everyone to death. To begin I have a 24' above ground, liner pool, metal consturction, waterway 100# sand pump/filter. I used Bacquacil for years. This year I added the CDX process of Bacquacil. This year was by far my best year for water clarity...I often bragged about my sparkling clean water, too bad I had to eat every word. After years of use I had the process of pool chemistry perfect. I maintained spot on chemistry with little exception and even my pool supplier who often checked my samples was amazed. However, even with ideal chemisrty I would still see algae consistantly in the same small areas of my pool. I could easily bruch them away and the water clarity stayed awesome. Then one day I rolled up the cover and POW! Algae covering the entire bottom and sides...brown, widely spread mustard algae (we think). However upon checking chemistry nothing was out of spec...well I could go through each thing we tried over the NEXT FOUR WEEKS in detail but I dont want to loose your attention so I will compile a quick list...BTW the water turned solid bright emerald green...

triple dose of shock
algicide after algicide
floculant
rebuilt the directional valve
more shock
acid washed the sand
then new sand
different pump/filter
let the water settle and vacccumed to waste for hours

After weeks of brushing and vaccuming and hundreds of dollars we would see some decent progress then the algae would return as bad as ever. I am not exaggerating a bit when I say I was obsessed with getting rid of this algae and tried everything my pool supplier suggested. Well yesterday I threw in the towel and began to pump out the pool. The questions I have for my new friends on this forum are...can I pump it empty and leave it until after winter (in Wisconsin btw) and then clean up the rest of the mess and refill? Or should I leave some water in the pool? Should I plan on replacing the entire liner which is already about 7 years old while its empty to avoid any possibility of the algae returning? If I use the old liner is there a way to clean it to insure the algae is removed?

Thank you for any help you may provide...I apologize for the numerous questions

[aylad]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!!

Are you planning to continue using Baquacil, or are you planning to convert to chlorine? If you're going to continue the Baq route, then I really can't advise you on clearing up the mess, and I'm not sure that anyone around here can, because we really don't support Baq pools, except the ones that come here for instructions to convert to chlorine.I will alert Pooldoc to check in here and see if he can give you any advice regarding the Baq. That being said, the Baq CDX process is a nightmare to convert. I can't explain why, but the handful of folks we've had here that have followed the normal conversion processes to the letter STILL ended up having to drain and refill. So.... the best way to convert it at this point would be to drain and start over--but once you completely drain a pool with a vinyl liner, the liner generally won't stretch back out and be useable again unless it is refilled fairly immediately. And if it's 7 years old, it's probably getting close to the end of its useable life anyway.So....if replacing the liner is a possibility, I would drain it for now, and just replace the liner and start over after winter is over.

But...I'll ask Pooldoc to take a look and see what he thinks...

[Brysz]

Janet,

Thank you for your reply. I have been doing a lot of reading on the BBB approach and I think I may be a new disciple. Unless convinced otherwise my plan is to bring the water level back up to 10" below my jet to prevent any pool damage. (Yesterday I pumped it down to 14" deep). Then throw in my winterizing chemicals , cover and let it sit until spring. Then after an entire winter of researching the BBB process I plan to convert my pool over. My pool guy wants me to buy a new filter in the spring also, but I think I will go with BBB first...I really have no good reason to think my filter is suspect and I think he is saying the filer because 1. he has no idea whats causing my algae problem and 2. he wants to sell me a new filter. Thank you so much for your quick response!

[PoolDoc]

Sounds like a plan to me -- I wouldn't suggest a Baquacil to Chlorine conversion now. But next spring open your pool 2 - 3 weeks before you want to begin using it, so you can do the conversion, and make any needed repairs without losing swim time.

[Brysz]

Thank you!

My pool supplier is blaming the filter, but I have had the head rebuilt in the last month and new sand. I just can't seem to think its the culprit after 7 years of problem free use. I do know that the eyeball jet has extreme pressure/flow. I can hardly hold my hand in front of it. I read somewhere that this could cause the pump to force the junk right through the sand back into the pool.

Thanks again!