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GTGallop

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Posts posted by GTGallop

  1. I have a 25,000 gallon in ground concrete / plaster pool. It is an older pool (1998ish) but new to us - we just moved in a few months back. To prepare for the swim season I gave it a good shocking last night. Leslie's recommended 4lbs of Cal-Hypo Shock. I put that in last night at 7:00 PM and now 12 hours later it is cloudy as all heck. Water was crystal clear when I started.

    I'm hoping that time in the sun today (Phoenix AZ 97 deg ambient / 78 deg water temp) will help to clarify but I'm still eager for your opinions and advice. Pool needs to be swim-able for Friday.

  2. No filter traps 100% of everything. Some stuff is bound to get by. In my area we get bad air quality from agricultural fires burning way down in Mexico. Eventually Mexican Corn Soot Particulate ends up in my pool and it is too fine to filter out. When it gets annoying enough (I'm *** about pool water), I just do a very fast vac to waste and get it out of the pool system all together.

  3. We have had some monstrous deluges here. I use to go out and pre-backwash in anticipation (yes, I'm a jackass too...), but some of our storms, especially in the spring and fall will still overflow a pool that is drained a little from the get-go.

    Here recently it actually has overflowed several times regardless of my better intentions. And I learned one key thing... The overflow doesn't really hurt the pool. There it is, plain and simple.

    What you do need to watch out for is erosion. Water spilling over the edges of the pool can erode the dirt below and then you can have a pool failure. This is how the levees failed in NOLA from Hurricane Katrina. They were strong enough to hold back tides at war, but a little trickle over the top and all the sudden the earth eroded and there was nothing to hold up the levee - WHAMO!

    Rather than obsess about the pool level and overflow and storms and stuff, I just make sure I have a good thick bed of pea gravel surrounding the pool to reduce the pounding effects of the water flowing over.

  4. Somewhere there is a formula to calculate how much pressure loss you get per linear foot of pipe and per 90 degrees of bend. I think that will be the main concern, not so much the fact that it is underground.

    I'm in an area of Texas (South East) where the air temp rarely drops below 35 degrees, let alone the ground temp. Does your soil heave? Would you need to bury and run it below the frost zone?

  5. I find a lot of people who have questions regarding nasty water conditions and struggling with recovery, so I thought I'd post my own tale of how I over came that issue.

    My wife has been very interested in learning "how the pool works" but we have never had the time. The arrangement is that as long as she keeps sleeping with the pool boy (me) he keeps the pool clean and doesn't push the issue.

    I was out of town the other week and while I was out the pool "made a funny noise." From what she described it sounded like it was pulling in some air on the suction side. No biggie, but to keep from causing any damage, she shut the pump off - for four days in the heat of summer (98 degrees here).

    Fortunately I'm the Pool Nazi when it comes to keeping the chemistry balanced, so we started down this path with nearly perfect water. By the time I got back from my business trip, the pool was ORANGE (Mustard Algae). Ewwwww!

    Step 1 - I made sure the Pool Frog was full of 1" chlorine tablets.

    Step 2 - I added Super Zappit to shock the pool.

    Step 3 - After 12 hours, I added No Mor Problems to the water.

    Step 4 - I let the Kreepy Krauley run for 8 hours.

    I thought I would be done after that, but Nooooooooo...! The water was very cloudy. Chlorine and Sodium Bromide had effectively killed the Mustard Algae, but the dead algae bodies were still floating around in the pool as they continued to break down. Often times they are so small they will pass through a sand or Zeolite Filter and return to the pool.

    Step 5 - After the water failed to filter clear, I added Pool First Aid. It is an enzyme that gobbles up the dead algae and makes the water so clear it is almost invisible.

    When I back-washed the filter it ran all sorts of junk out. The water started out orange then brown, then grey, then milky white and on to clear. I also noticed a drop of pressure by about 3 lbs at the filter as well. I ended up taking several inches out of the pool to complete the backwash and then rinse cycle due to the amount of gunk that came out., maybe 1000 gallons (est).

    That was it. I topped off the pool and bumped up the Pool Frog to around setting #3 to keep the levels high and then we went swimming!

    I think the chlorine and No Mor Problems do a good job in keeping the pool clear, but the real star was the Pool First Aid. It really helped me recover!

  6. Your pool is haunted. It is ectoplasim - Call Ghostbusters.

    Just kidding. I've never seen this, but my advice would be (with any undesireable foreign matter):

    1. Fill the pool up as much as possible.

    2. Vac it to waste (bypassing the filter all together.

    3. Back wash the holy mother out of the filter.

    4. Don't forget to do a rinse cycle to clear the stand pipe.

    5. Shock

    6. If all else fails add some "Pool First Aid."

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