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

[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

[Yeggim]

Ok, a 6ppm increase with 12.5% bleach equates to around a 21,000 gallon pool. Pretty good logic you got there. Can you post measurements? I'm sure someone on here can figure it out.

Chlorine loss is more of a percentage function. The higher it is the more you lose. You seem to be at a 30% loss more or less. That ain't bad. I see no harm in bumping CYA up 10ppm. Let's get a solid number for pool volume first.

[CarlD]

Yes, you've used the Rule of Thumb in reverse, and done so correctly. It's not that accurate--you are still fighting bio mass, and an elevated CC. You also don't know if the 12.5% is actually that (you can test it, easily enough) So a gallon of 12.5% raising it 6ppm doesn't guarantee your pool is 21k. It could be as low as 18k or as high as 22K. But the good news is: It doesn't really matter. Just assume 20,000 gallons and figure accordingly. You'll be fine.

To test your LC's strength: you'll need a 10ml measure--Drug stores sell glass eyedroppers marked to 10 ml. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with 10 liters of tap water....that's 5 x 2-liter soda bottles. Test the tap water for FC and CC...if it's city water you'll want to know how much is there and subtract it. Now add 10ml of your 12.5% to the 10 liters and mix. Test it with your FAS-DPD test. Whatever the test shows, minus the chlorine that was in the tap water, is the actual strength of your LC. Mine usually tests at 14ppm, but it may well be as low as 10ppm.

Again, 20,000 gallons is good enough for your reckoning.

Carl

[barma16]

Thanks - +/-20k tallies with my rough calculations based on measurements too, so I'll stick with that as a working number. Pool is now clear of all leaves, and the water looks crystal clear to me, but I'm still losing 2ppm overnight. Last night I was at 16ppm, and this morning I was at 14, so 12.5% loss. The night before was approximately the same (I don't have my numbers in front of me). The filter still needs backwashing every day or two, so there's clearly still something in there that's not visible to the naked eye.

Given that I'm still backwashing fairly regularly, and therefore replenishing water from time to time, would it make sense to leave the CYA until the filter runs for rather longer, instead of diluting it when I top the water up?

At 12.5% overnight loss in an unstabilized pool, can I start letting the level drift down yet?

Thanks as always...!