1st year with a loop-loc cover...Yikes! Water is black

[TomC]

Hi guys, this is my 1st year with a loop-loc mesh cover. Upon opening my pool yesterday I found that my water was black. This is quite a unique experience for me, as for the past 11 years I had a solid tarp type cover. So when I opened my pool in the past, my water was pretty much always crystal clear.

So I headed to Costco and bought 30 jugs of 6%, 182 oz bleach. Last night I dumped in 7 jugs, enough to bring my FC to about 15 ppm. This morning the water is clear, but the bottom of the pool, especially the deep end, is blanketed in algae. Since I have a cartridge filter, I was thinking of vacuuming to waste before I employ my trusty aquabot. Does this sound about right? Or should I just brush the sides and pool bottom to agitate the algae and get it into the water so it can be filtered out?

This is a new experience and challenge for me, and I know it sounds crazy but I'm looking forward to the task of clearing this up. I think I can have my pool crystal clear in about a day or two. Thanks for any advice.

Tom

[Watermom]

If you can vac to waste and keep from stirring up the water too much, I'd try that first to get as much of it out as possible before gunking up the cartridge.

Glad to see you back around here again this year!

[TomC]

Thanks watermom, I vacuumed to waste today, but only got about half way done before my water level got to low. I'm going back out there at about 7pm to finish vacuuming. Then I'm going clean the cartridges. Thank goodness for teenage sons Then dump another 7 jugs of bleach, run the aquabot, and and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be mostly there.

Oh yeah, we'll be swimming tomorrow!

Tom

[TomC]

Well, just to update this thread and put it to bed, I was wildly over optimistic with the amount of time it would take me to clear my pool. After vacuuming all the debris on the pool bottom to waste, my pool was the typical " blue but cloudy" color. I kept my FC levels at about 15 ppm for 3 days, even though my CC was less than 1. My pool was cloudy for a full week! It surprised how long it took to clear, I almost felt as if the particles were too small for the cartridge to filter out. So I went ahead and just adjusted the rest of the pool chemistry, and after bringing my TA up to about 100 ppm using baking soda, my water is finally crystal clear. I'm back to running my pump on low for 18 hours a day. I'm rethinking my mesh cover, and when the time comes to replace it, I'll probably opt for the solid cover with a pump.

Tom

[Watermom]

Glad it cleared up. Thanks for the update!

[aylad]

I was wildly over optimistic with the amount of time it would take me to clear my pool.

I was afraid of that....glad you got it all cleared up.

Happy swimming!!