Newbie with hard well water

[PoolDoc]

Actually, you can do #2 immediately -- just get some muriatic acid -- and #1 once the the filter cartridges arrive.

(Good grief, that sounds bad, when I re-read it. )

Anyhow, save #3 to try if the first 2 don't work.

[RaceAngel88]

It looks like I might not need to go to great lengths to "fix" the cloudy water. Last night when I went to test it, I found that the particles had stuck together and settled to the bottom. We can finally see the bottom of the pool--the water is clear! Now I just have to attempt to vacuum to waste to remove the gunk that has settled on the bottom. I'm hoping I can do this correctly, without stirring the stuff back into the water. I haven't used the vacuum yet, so I hope I have the option of vacuuming to waste. If not, are there other ways to remove the gunk from the bottom? I still plan to purchase the better quality filters because the one the pool came with is already falling apart. We've been cleaning it out daily.

[PoolDoc]

Great!

But be careful -- most Intex type pools come with a hose pressure driven venturi type back that drives large debris and leaves into a mesh sack. This type of tool will NOT help.

Go to Walmart, etc. and get a vac head, a pool and a hose long enough to reach from the middle of your pool to 6 - 8' OUTSIDE your pool. Overfill your pool, let everything settle, and then start a siphon in the vac hose that will drain water OUT of the pool, via the vac head. Then move the vac head over the powder (slowly enough to not stir things up) and pull the powder out.

It will probably take some practice to get this right, and not drain too much water.

[RaceAngel88]

So far we have been unsuccessful in getting the gunk out of the pool. We tried the siphon method however it didn't create enough suction, and mainly just stirred up the stuff making the water cloudy again. Then we tried to hook the vacuum up to the pump, but pumped the water out of the pool rather than through the filter cartridge and back into the pool. That removed some of the gunk, but again, it stirred stuff up so that the water became cloudy and we couldn't see what we were doing. I think that it would take several rounds of vacuuming to remove the amount of gunk that is on the bottom. It is tedious work and does not seem to be very effective. At this point, I'm wondering if it would be easier to stir the stuff back up and run it through the pump (after the better quality filter cartridges arrive) in the hopes that the filter will remove the cloudiness. I also considered trying to use the shop vac with some sort of modified attachment on it so that it doesn't suck up quite so much water so quickly. There are some You Tube videos of people doing that.

[PoolDoc]

Nothing wrong with that.

If you do, it will be MUCH easier if you get the Unicel cartridges, but buy a couple of extra, so you can rotate them. As long as you clean and dry them before putting them up, you can store them indefinitely, to re-use later.

There are some tips out there (maybe even on the forum) about using DE filter powder with cartridges: don't do that. Unicel tells me that it damages the fibers in the filter material.

[RaceAngel88]

I've been using the Unicel cartridges for about 1 week now, and cleaning them out every evening. You wouldn't believe the difference it has made! Nearly all of the gunk has been filtered out and the water is clear. I just have to stir it up once or twice a day because the gunk that's left keeps settling to the bottom. It's almost completely out of the water though. I would highly recommend the Unicel cartridges to others with similar problems.

[PoolDoc]

Thanks for the feed back.