Baquacil to Bleach conversion (help needed)

[CAPTCHEMCL]

My recommendation would be to not worry about the other chemicals till you reach the goals of 15ppm overnight with 0ppm combined chlorine. As far as sweeping to waste, I suppose you could do that but I think I would wait and let the clorox do its thing, kill off the baquasil (and anything else), let it start to settle out on the bottom then sweep to waste. Making sure you backwash your filter periodically so that it does not get overloaded with the junk it is filtering out. The rest of your readings may not change much (ours hardly changed at all from the beginning till we were done). The clorine level is the most important thing right now. Check it often during the day and keep it at 15ppm. It will burn off quickly till it eats up the baquasil. (Again, anyone reading this who knows more please correct me if I am mis-stating any information. I just completed our conversion with no problems and that is all I have to go by...that and the multitude of postings I read throughout the process!)

Again, trust me, in a few days you will not believe how beautiful the water will be!

[chemstick]

I just finished my conversion to chlorine from baquacil (we are in CT, by the way). I even started dumping in bleach with my baquacil level around 30. I began on Wed and by Friday evening the pool was crystal clear. I believe it went fast because of the "beautiful" cloudy, cold, rainy weather and I was able to keep a high level of chlorine around the clock (and don't worry about bleaching the liner at these levels). I just changed the sand and it was very gunky; you should probably go ahead and change yours anyway. I found lots of yellow stringy junk floating around and throughout. Keep the faith!!!!

[chemstick]

i forgot to add, we have a dolphin and LOVE it. got it on ebay but can't remember how much it was.

[revhendrix]

Hi - 2nd update....

Still in the process.... I'm checking the levels at least 4-6 times a day from 7:30 am to 11:30 pm. The FC levels have ranged from 6ppm to 12ppm after checking it and I've used the bleach Calc to figure out what I needed to put in for bleach to keep the levels at 15ppm.

The water has gone from merky pea green to clearish green (we can see the bottom in the shallow end).

I clear and rinse the nylon sock (on the skimmer basket), which has had orange muck on it everytime, and backwash everytime I've added bleach.

I would imagine I have a couple days left, but here are a few more questions. Thanks in advance:

1. My Ph was at 8 when I started this...when do I care about it again. Should I test the levels or wait until this is over?

2. When I backwash it's not that dirty...is this because the bacquacil is all being caught in the sock?? I really thought it would be much more dirty and cloudy. I never had the globs of orange or rust baquagunk floating..is this because I started with a low level of bacquacil (10)??

3. CYA - I know I need to do this when my conversion is over. Is the cotton sock method a good way to go and how much do I use to stablize the high levels of chlorine (20,000gal pool)?? How do I keep from adding too much stabilizer??

thanks again...REV

[eyesfinallyopened]

Rev,
I'm experiencing the same clean-looking water when I backwash, too. Very surprising. I really expected to see a lot of solids and at least the same color water as is in the pool, but maybe the water color is so bad because we're seeing the whole depth of the pool compared to the amount in the little spyglass.

I'm taking pictures as I continue the conversion and will post them when I'm done. This is soooooo time consuming, isn't it?!

--Deborah

[revhendrix]

Hi Debroah...thanks for the reply. I've been reading your thread as well. Yea, what a process!! I've been consumed with this conversion - coming home from work at lunch, leaving early...all to get a jump on my FC levels. I'm hoping this is over soon...I'm guessing at least a couple more days.

Sounds like you're well on your way to pool bliss as well!! I didn't have any of the rust water or orange floaters....Hmmmmmmm, I hope this is working.

It must be a bit tougher in AZ with combating the heat and all...good luck and keep us updated on the progress. -REV

[eyesfinallyopened]

Rev,
I can't tell you how many of those little test sticks I've gone through today (I know, I should have a better testing system . . .) but I've never let the FC level drop below 10. It's taking less and less of the ultra bleach to keep up and the color of my pool is now bright Gatorade-like green and it's clearer. I can actually see the bottom drain and the whole ladder and there's no baquajunk floating.

How's this for an added stressor: I just got a contract on my house to sell and have an inspection tomorrow!!!! I am praying hard that there's a huge improvement overnight because this just may spook the buyers off. We did discuss the fact that I was getting ready to switch over to chlorine and the guy was glad to hear it. I doubt he knew how much of a pain it is and how shocking the conversion can look! I'm going to stash the bleach bottles somewhere out of sight. Luckily, tomorrow is trash day so the empties will be gone. My realtor came by twice today. The first time I told him not to even look and to save himself the worry because it's not pretty. Well, the second time I was out back vacuuming the hidden floor of the pool so my son let him in and led him out to where I was working. He's probably having some martinis tonight to calm down!

I hope we both have great things to report in the morning.

--Deborah