Using Soft Swim. Cloudy water after adding flocculant.

[PoolDoc]

Do you have to wait until the water is clear before swimming in the pool again? I believe the conversion takes a week from what I've read.

It *may* take a week. If you've used Baquacil for a long time, since you last drained (ie, multiple years), it may take longer. If you have used Baqucil CDX, it *will* take longer, possibly much longer.

The only fast and RELIABLE way to convert quickly, is to drain and refill. But, that may not be an option, if you don't have an above ground pool, or a concrete in ground pool. At least a partial drain and refill is also an important element of any QUICK water mold cure.

However, your Softswim C loss *may* not be a problem with your pool. Apparently, peroxide can be rapidly photolysed by sunlight, just like chlorine can be. And, apparently, DMH (dimethyl hydantoin) can stabilize peroxide somewhat, in a manner analogous to chlorine stabilizer. But (again, apparently) DMH is *much* less benign in pool care than stabilizer. Baquacil CDX introduces DMH to pools (apparently!) to help prevent solar peroxide loss.

There are not any *great* middle-of-the-season solutions to a messed up PHMB (Baquacil, Softswim, etc.) pool.

Please do this:

1. Complete the pool chart, so we know what sort of pool we're discussiong:

Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

2. List all the chemicals you've used in the last 6 weeks, and also whether you have EVER used Baquacil CDX

3. Tell us what the water looks, smells and feels like.

4. Tell us whether there is any sort of slime on surfaces or snot-like globs anywhere in your pool.

[Watermom]

That Ben, he does have a way with words, doesn't he? (In reference to his last sentence.)

[chem geek]

Chlorine oxidizes hydrogen peroxide to oxygen gas (in fact, hydrogen peroxide can be used as a chlorine reducer for that reason) so the advice you got of adding some chlorine to get rid of the white water mold (if that's what you have) wasn't very good. After all the hydrogen peroxide is removed by chlorine, additional chlorine breaks down Baquacil/biguanide/PHMB in a very colorful manner. The problem is that chlorine does not break down DMH very quickly at all (DMH is used in the Baquacil CDX system). If you have used that system, then you either need to do a drain/refill (but as Ben says, that isn't always possible depending on the type of pool you have) or you have to use a more expensive (though faster and less colorful) approach which uses high levels of hydrogen peroxide at high pH by using sodium percarbonate as described in this link. Also, regardless of which approach you use, you'll want to start off with the lowest amount of Baquacil/biguanide/PHMB possible so stop adding it as it will degrade on its own in sunlight over time.

[PoolDoc]

Tell us whether there is any sort of slime on surfaces or snot-like globs anywhere in your pool.

That Ben, he does have a way with words, doesn't he?

Well, how would YOU describe it, briefly and accurately, without using terms only Chem_Geek would know?

[Watermom]

I think you were very clear, Ben. I doubt there is anybody who doesn't have a real clear picture of your description. Good job! (Sometimes you are so funny!)