Hey Rev,

I too am in the middle of a Bac to CL conversion, but I've had a little better luck. I'm replying to your post re the sand. I started my conversion on Friday, went through the shock of water you could walk across on Saturday, then rejoiced in the clear, blue water on Sunday. On Monday, I replaced my sand. I was amazed at what I found. The sand, 300 lbs worth and new at the start of last year, was packed into the filter and was a real bear to remove. I used my shop vac (on the wet setting) to get a lot of the water and sand out, but I finally ended up scooping it out with my hands. I had multitudes of sand "rocks" that were too hard to break up with my hands. These were laced with green layers of embedded algae and some white stuff that looked like pieces of bone (no family members are missing, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't bone!). I guess thats where all the calcium went that the pool store people kept me replacing for no good reason (I have a vinyl liner). I doubt I would ever completely get rid of the algae without replacing the sand.

Bottom line - replace your sand, but don't have any expectations that it will be easy. My arms look like I was in a cat fight and lost!

About your green water, do a search on copper. I've seen some other posts where people can't get the "algae" out and copper has developed as the lead suspect.

Best wishes,

Doug