Baquacil and Algae

[b2001]

I went thru 2 years of fighting with bacquacil before I converted in April when I opened my 14,300 gallon AG pool. My sanitizer level was always between the recommended 30 to 50 ppm. I always put in the weekly pro-team and algistat treatments. I usually put in 2 to 3 bottles of the premium algistat treatment in the course of a summer. I was told to put in phos-free to combat the white mold. I was sold flouculant to combat the cloudiness. I usually put in 3 gallons of shock at a time - it was ALWAYS immediately consumed. I know now that it was just being consumed by organic matter in the pool. My pool was pretty much cloudy for those 2 years.

I always had issues with brown algae, green algae, white mold, and cloudy water. I had to continuously maintain my cartridge filter - it would build up pressure in less than a week, and I had to always scrub my pool sides and bottom a minimum of once a week, usually every 5 days to keep the green algae from building up - it always grew.

The second year, I finally got pretty good at it, but my pool turned green every time it rained, as it rained. After several storms, I got behind in the cycle, and fought cloudy water the rest of the season. I rotated several cartridges to try and stay on top of the filtering. I ran my filtering at least 12 hours a day, and 24/7 when I had problems. Of course, I ws dumping the 3 gallons of shock in at least weekly or after every rain - at $50 a pop.

Here's the deal with bleach from about the 3rd week in April until now. The pool is as clear as it has ever been the entire period this year - in fact I can't believe how clear it is. I've not taken the cartridge filter out once to clean it - it remains at a steady 10 psi. I've not yet scrubbed the pool sides or bottom since I converted - I vacuum out the dirt on the bottom once a week. I have absolutely seen no evidence of algae this entire period. There have been several thunderstorms, and the pool has remained crystal clear.

The cost, the high maintenance, and my personal issues with bacquacil and metals vs. chlorine in combating viruses - that I read about on this site - led me to convert. Heck, one of the reasons I went with bacquacil to begin with was it wouldn't "smell like chlorine does" (of course the other is the pool store told me it would be easy to maintain), but that's not the case either. I'm finally living what Ben said was the intent of this website - I'm enjoying my pool. All I'm doing is vacuuming, performing my own chemistry measurements with my own kit, and keeping the chlorine ppm wihin recommended ranges with bleach.

When I converted, I let my sanitizer level go down to about 15 ppm. It took about 30 gallons of bleach over 4 days to completely convert, running my filter 24/7, and cleaning the bacquacil crap from it often.