Inherited a pond, trying to turn it into a pool!

[BigDave]

I don't know about cleaning your DE filter element or what the procedure would be but be careful - don't just dump it on - wear gloves and safety glasses/goggles, stay upwind of the fumes, avoid splashing. Always Always Always put Acid into Water (A->W). NEVER put water into acid. Muriatic acid can hurt you.
That said, It is great for lowering pH (you don't need to now if your pH is still 7.4). I read a post somewhere here that suggested storing the bottle(s) in a 5 gallon plastic pail with lid fastened to contain any possible spill and store the pail (acid and all) in a cool place out of harms way. It's not a good idea to store it with other chemicals or near metal objects as the fumes can cause corrosion.
To put in in your pool (if you need to), wear gloves, eyewear, stay upwind, hold the bottle in the pool with the lid just out of the water, remove lid, pour acid into pool keeping opening as close to water as possible (to avoid splashing), replace cap, rinse the whole closed bottle (and anyhting else that touched the acid) in pool before removing.

[Yeggim]

I can see leaves!

...I accidentally bought Muriatic acid at the pool shop instead of Cyanuric, and can't return it since the bottles aren't sealed. The woman at the pool store said I could use it to clean the element in the filter (Hayward DE4820) - is this wise?

Thanks,
Mark

You can use the acid to clean mineral deposits off the grids of the filter. But it's the last step in a chemical cleaning procedure. Here's a great sticky on DE filters.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...ng-a-DE-filter

Note the addendum in red by POOLDOC. If and when your grids need more than just rinsing, make sure you degrease the grids before the acid wash.

I gotta hand it to you brother. A lot of folks would have had second thoughts by now or been pool stored and start to dump everything but the kitchen sink into the pool. It would start to sound like a Three Stooges routine. I say that with no disrespect or to mock and I genuinely feel for these people but that's the pattern it forms.

Pool Store Guy: I know what's the matter -- you haven't got enough anna canna panna san.

Mother In Law: Wait a minute, -- what that needs is a mixture of enol, plus anna sanna pacan scram.

[barma16]

LOL, thanks! I'm very glad I found this place early, otherwise I'd have spent a lot more money for a lot less progress, and had really no idea what was going on. You guys have all been a great help and kept me positive. Of course, it helped that the weather was nice over the weekend. Hanging out by the swamp with a beer and a test kit wasn't the worst way to spend the time...

That DE Filter sticky is excellent - from the description I don't think I need an acid wash yet, just more time with the filter running.

FC was 16ppm this morning, and still 16ppm at lunch when I ran home to check the level. Does this mean most of the algae is now dead?

[Watermom]

Sounds promising .......... especially if you don't lose too much the rest of the day and if you don't lose more than 1ppm overnight.

BTW --- You don't need a swamp to hang out by the pool with a cold beer!

[barma16]

BTW --- You don't need a swamp to hang out by the pool with a cold beer!

Who knows - once it's a pool and no longer a swamp perhaps I'll be able to persuade someone other than the dog to come through the gate

[Watermom]

You are funny. You made me laugh!

[barma16]

It's been a while, so I thought I'd stop in and give an update, and make sure I'm still on the right track...

The swamp is starting to look like a pool. For the last ten days I've been maintaining >15ppm FC constantly, and testing often enough to be in dire need of more powder and titration agent (delivery tomorrow, phew!).

The shallow end is now clear, and free of leaves and debris. The deep end is getting clearer, and the leaves are coming out, although this clouds things up a treat, so it's time consuming! The filter has been running non-stop, and a full charge of DE will now last two days or more if I leave the water undisturbed. Less when I pull leaves out, obviously... Either way, I'm not usually backwashing more than a couple of times a day.

pH is 7.2 and TA is 100 - I've added nothing but bleach since my last full round of tests.

I've not yet passed the overnight test - on my best night I lost 1.5ppm FC, and usually lose around 3.

I'll bump the pH back up a bit, but is there anything else I should be doing at this stage? Is there a limit to how long I should maintain shock levels, and when should I be thinking about stabilizing?

Thanks for all the help so far, I don't know what I'd have done without it.

Mark

[Watermom]

So that we don't have to re-read this monstrous thread, post a current set of numbers including CYA and your volume. You are doing great!

[Yeggim]

I would concentrate on getting everything out of the pool first. If there's a lot of muck in the deep end, it either has to be scooped out and/or vacuumed to waste. What's your plan in this regard?

If you vacuum to waste, any CYA (stabilizer) that you add will be diluted with the added water that you use to refill. That's probably not a big deal (money wise), considering the amount of bleach you've already bought to date for a 45,000 gal 'pond-soon-to-be-pool'.

Oh, by the way, outstanding job so far. I think it's almost swim time. Here's what I would do:

Keep up the shock levels
Keep an eye on your PH
A quick vacuum to waste from the deep end.
Filter 24/7

After vacuuming to waste, let everything settle (still filtering 24/7) and go from there. If you still have a layer of debris, muck, whatever covering the entire bottom--another quick vacuum to waste. You'll be able to judge the amount of muck that's down there on the first round of vacuuming by what's coming out of the discharge. It will pile up at the end of the discharge hose if it's bad down there.

As far as CYA (stabilizer) is concerned, I'd bet dollars to donuts that you have some in there. I remember you saying that you tested in the morning and tested at lunch without losing any Chlorine awhile back. That's would lead me to believe that you're closer to 30 than 20 with your CYA--if it was sunny or partly sunny that day.

Speaking of sun, how much sun is your pool exposed to? Are you losing a lot of Chlorine on sunny days? If I were to decide to bump my CYA up, I'd do it in 10 ppm increments. I'd make sure to test first and have enough R-0013 reagent to test at least two more times after that. And last but not least, make certain I had the right numbers for my volume of water.

At 45,000 gallons, 60 ozs of dry stabilizer will raise your pool 10ppm. That's by weight. About 63 ozs by volume will be the same. If you haven't already, check out the Pool Calculator. Plug in your numbers in the 'Now' columns. You can plug in your target numbers it will giver you amounts to add to achieve those target numbers based on your 'Now' numbers. Down the bottom there's a reverse of 'Now' and 'Target'. You plug in the amount of chemical that you want to add and it will give you the result based on that amount. Every computation on there hinges on the size of your pool, so make sure you have that field filled with your proper pool volume.

http://www.poolcalculator.com/

[barma16]

OK, first things first. I'm now quite convinced that I don't have anything like 45k gallons. That was the estimate I was given by the guy who came to open the pool. 1 gallon of 12.5% bleach adds approximately 6ppm FC based on testing an hour or so after addition, and before there's too much sun. Based on some (probably poor) logic, I reckon that gives me about 21k gallons. Could someone point me to a reasonable methodology for estimating volume? Pool is L-shaped.

This morning's test results as follows:

12ppm FC (added 1 gal 12.5%)
1ppm CC
13ppm TC

pH 7.2 (added 4lb Borax)
100ppm TA
90ppm CH
<30ppm CYA (Dot still definitely visible, even when the test container was completely full).

I tried vacuuming to waste a little (multi-port valve to waste, inlet valve to main drain only), but the basket in the pump got clogged quickly, so I'm back to raking the leaves out, which has been my approach so far.

There was some stuff still in the shallow end that was too fine to be caught by the leaf rake, so I vacuumed that out, which appears so far to have been a success, although when I've tried to get it up before, it's taken a while to settle back down to the bottom.

Weather hasn't been stellar recently. Looking back over my notes, I seem to be losing 4-6ppm FC over the course of the day. I didn't make notes on which days were sunny though! Perhaps I was careless when I tested that day I appeared to lose nothing, or perhaps the weather was particularly miserable...

The pool was looking good this morning - I could see the remaining leaves in the deep end quite clearly. I'm going to carry on raking, filtering and (regular) vacuuming for the time being, I think. Anything else I should do at this stage?

As for swim time, I swam my first length this morning Probably not the smartest thing to have done; we're not there yet, but I was in the water vacuuming and it seemed to be the best way back to the shallow end. Felt great!

Just to put things into perspective, here's how it looked once vacuumed this morning, before I raked some more leaves and clouded the deep end up again.

boardend.jpgshallowend.jpg