words of encouragment!

After using Baq. for 2 years we developed white mold, and made the decision to switch to CL.
We followed the advise of our pool store. Our Baq. levels were at 50. Sunday pm 7 gallons of CL with the filter off, pool looks like the largest pot of split pea soup I have ever seen:eek:. turn filter on in the am. Now it looks like split pea soup with nacho cheese floating on it. Mon pm. 7 more gallons of CL with no filter. Tuesday am turn filter on pool is still soupy however cheese looking stuff is less.
From looking at it I find it hard to believe things will evr be clear again.

Thanks inadvance to anyone that can offer help and or encouragment.
Sorry for the food analogioes

ILHoz
:confused:

I started my conversion Friday, adding chlorine all weekend as levels dipped from testing we did every two hours or so, and ran the filter continuously. Finished sweeping the last of the crud out last night (Monday) and swam for about an hour. So it took less than 3 and a half days (24ft/13500ga pool)

Good luck and hang in there.

Welcome to the forum. Do you have a drops-based test kit? If not, then you should get yourself one. It will help to know what your chlorine levels are so that you can add the right amount of chlorine. The more frequently you test and keep the chlorine up at about 15 ppm, the faster your conversion will go. (An FAS-DPD test would be best for this. A regular OTO test usually only measures up to 5 ppm so you would have to dilute your pool sample with 2 parts distilled water and multiply the result by 3. It's not extremely accurate but it's better than nothing.) You will go through a lot of chlorine so read through the other threads here and you should have a good idea of what to expect. Some threads even have pictures so you can compare your progress.

Good luck

Peter

I started my conversion on Thursday afternoon. And I too thought the pool would never be clear. But by Saturday evening it was clear. I still had some baqua goo on the bottom Sunday morning and found some more last night when I took the steps out of my ag pool.
It just takes a lot of bleach and patience. But I am sure you will be pleased with the results. My pool has never been this clear.


24' ag pool 14000 gallons

Third day into conversion. Water is still green and soupy most of the junk that was floating is gone. My pool is a 24' AG 13500 gal. Our Baq levels were at 50 when we started. In hindsight probably should have waited for baq levels to go down before we started. So far have added 20 gallons of CL.
We are having a real hard time keeping CL levels up. Should I just keep adding CL to keep levels 10-15?
Thanks
Leslie

You need to keep your FC level at 15 a minimum of 3 x a day, the more the better. I added when I got up first thing in the morning, when I got home from work, and before bed. Also, you should run your filter 24/7 and backwash often, keeping an eye on your pressure. It takes a lot of bleach to convert, so keep plugging away. The reason you are having problems keeping your chlorine levels up is because it is being used by the Baquacil. You need to keep adding bleach until you can keep a FC level of 15 PPM overnight. Hang in there, as it will be worth it in the end. Good luck!

Can I cause damage to my liner from keeping my FC levels at 15 ? In another post on this sight it said for vinyl liners to only get my FC levels to 10. I don't want to cause even more problems. My kids hate me already, this has been the hottest week here in Illinois mid 90's all week and we can't use our pool!:(
Thanks to everyone for all the help.
Leslie

Tell your kids that they are lucky, I live in Illinois, and I just popped my left eye, I cannot use the pool for who knows how long. They will be able to use it soon.

You should be able to run the cl level up to 15ppm (on a short term basis, such as your baquacil conversion) with no long-lasting problems. I would not recommend doing it on a long term basis, but for the several days of a baquacil conversion, many (if not most) of us have had our cl levels in the 10-15ppm range.

My liner was virtually new when I did my conversion (shortly after I installed my pool). This is my 3rd summer with chlorine, and the liner is still a nice, dark blue. I normally keep my FC level at the 3-5ppm range.

The only place that is faded is where I dumped in too much cal hypo when I was doing the conversion, and it sat on the pool bottom for about a day. Oops! No harm done, but it's bleached in that area.

As far as the 15 ppm level, as soon as you bring the chlorine level up to 15 ppm, it will start to get consumed and will drop soon so it isn't until you're done that you will actually hold at 15 ppm therefore the liner effects should be minimal. It will improve the conversion time though so keep it up!

Peter

Hi All,
The only test kit I can find only measures CL to 3. What is the process to check levels up to 10-15.

I know this involves dilutingmy pool water with distilled water and multipling your numbers, however I do not know how much distilled water or what I multiply my numbers by.

Leslie

Take a small sample of pool water (shot glass or some other unit) and add the same amount (or more) of distilled water and multiply by the following:

for 1 unit distilled water, multiply result x 2
for 2 units distilled water, multiply result x 3
for 3 units distilled water, multiply result x 4
for 4 units distilled water, multiply result x 5

To get a reading for 15ppm if your scale only goes to 3ppm you will need four units of distilled water added to one unit of pool water.

Peter

One part pool water to three parts distilled water, then mix, take a sample from this in your tester, add the drops, multiply the result by four. This would get you up to 12 if I am not mistaken. You could do one part pool water to four parts distilled and multiply by five to get to 15.

Keep in mind the dilution method is highly innacurate....you would do well to get Ben's kit...no more guesswork.

5 days into this
I now understand why so many people call baquacil (baquacrap, baquagunk, baquabeast and so on)
I am now starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel called my pool. I knew it would take a little longer due to my high levels of baq. so we are waiting patiently.
I was at the pool store yesterday getting CL. while standing there the employees were talking about baq. The one gentleman stated "yeah thats what happens with baquacil our profits go up and it says our customers are happy" I couldn't contain my laughter and stated yes I was happy for the first couple of years until I developed a problem with white mold!

Thanks to everyone throughout thisadventure.

Leslie