Above Ground Intex Pool won't clear

[mary]

Hi

I have an 15 foot round Intex pool. I drained the pool down at the end of the summer and it filled up with the rain over the winter and spring to a foot off the top which I filled up with mains water. 12 days ago I added chlore choc, all the algae has gone and the water is pale blue. We have had the Intex Pump on 24 hours a day since adding the chlore choc and also added 3 x Floclent sachets, but it wont go clear. It is a cloudy milky colour. When taking a sample out, it looks clear in the glass, but not in the pool. I can't see the bottom or anything much below 1 foot. I took a sample down to our local pool supply shop, and all the readings are spot on. I am cleaning the filter every hour. There is some yellow\cream coloured residue on the filter, but nothing great. Is the pump/filter big enough to cope with a drity pool from the start, and should have enmpted it fully or half and started from here. It's getting so frustrating. I hoover the bottom twice a day and nothing is in it other than the odd dead fly. It's getting to be full time job!!

Any suggestions greatly received

Thanks, Vida

[Frederick]

Empty it ..clean it ..re fill it ..you could be messing about for days it holds about a fivers worth of water !

[mary]

Edit:- sorry, 15 foot not Inch, holds 17,000 litres of water..

[Polly]

At the price we paid for water last year, refilling your pool would cost me 52€70 TTC - so cheaper than a lot of messing around with expensive chemicals.

(note : we are on mains drainage so we pay for water in plus treatment of all

used water, whether we water the garden with it or flush it down the loo)

[RicandJo]

You have the same pool as I do.

My advice - disconnect your intex pump and throw it over the hedge. replace it with a proper sand filter pump and never look back. That's more or less exactly what I did last year, the pump supplied by intex just isn't man enough. I even left mine full of water over winter and was able to bring it back to cristal clear in an afternoon with the sand filter + pump I currently have fitted.

This is the exact model I fitted - the supply and return hoses fit straight onto it. 

http://www.piscines-online.com/filtre-piscine-groupe-filtration-sable-axos.html

[Polly]

litter louts!!!

but I do agree re the pump & filter!

[RicandJo]

...I didn't really throw it over the hedge!! Went straight in the bin.......

[Théière]

I agree with RicandJo, the pump and filter are crap, get rid of them now and have better quality water forever after.

AnOther did the same to his pool and hasn't looked back.

You can't polish a turd!

[AnOther]

I will confirm that.

I had exactly the same thing last year with my pool and after chucking I don't know how many € worth of chemicals in it and going through 3 or 4 filters @ €9 a pop I finally gave up and bought a proper sand filter for about €150 which cleared it overnight and with the occasional backwash kept it crystal clear for the rest of the season.

I also threw away that daft salt machine and dose it manually, far less grief.

[RicandJo]

I think it was AnOther who inspired me to go that way.

Seriously the pump in my earlier link (smallest one - Axos4) will filter 4 cubic metres in an hour. I swear - it's like going from black and white to colour the difference is so noticeable.

[mary]

Thank you everyone for your replies, very helpful. Looks like I will be buying a sand filter ASAP.

[AnOther]

I gurantee you won't regret it [;-)]

[Théière]

Oh and don't throw the other pump anywhere execpt into an advert, there is alway someone who didn't winterise and broken/burnt out their pump so it will help you offset the cost of your new pump/filter.

[mary]

Thank you everyone for your comments. I am now the proud owner of a sand fliter and I can't believe how in 24 hours how much of a difference it has made. In 3 days I now have crystal blue and very inviting water. The Intex paper filtre would have never got it clean. It struggled to maintain it last year.

My only concern, is I do seem to have sand on the botton each time it cleans in the night. I would say about 1/2 a tea cup. I assume it is normal and perhaps the sand is settling. It asked for 75KG and that is what I put in. I have now put a skimmer basket net bag I bought from the pool shop over the jet where the water comes out and It collects it all. Is this normal pls

Many thanks again

Vida

[Théière]

Glad the water has improved, you have done the right thing with the skimmer sock, when new that can happen, I just wonder if you put in any gravel in first to cover the laterals? providing the laterals are not damaged this should stop shortly as it finds it own level. A backwash can often discharge sand as it lifts the filter bed and if not put into rinse afterwards will often also discharge sand into the pool.

[AnOther]

Told you didn't I [:D]

75kg for a 15' dia pool though, you must have bought a far bigger filter than required, mine for a 6m x 3m pool, only takes one 25kg bag.

[mary]

I think we did 'another', husband got carried away when ordering, always trying to get the best deal etc. It does clean the water in 4 hours, twice, so yes. Bit of an eyesore, but hey ho....

Thanks again

[Poolguy]

[quote user="AnOther"]

75kg for a 15' dia pool though, you must have bought a far bigger filter than required, mine for a 6m x 3m pool, only takes one 25kg bag.

[/quote]

A filter sand capacity of 75kg should be capable of 8-9m3/hr which will give Vida a water change of just under 3 hours which is right for a small pool because the contaminants make up a more significant concentration in the water chemistry. So her choice of filter is about right and certainly not 'far bigger than required' in my opinion.

Your choice to upgraded from the Intex filter is a good one (well done for that) but the 25kg filter for a 6 X 3 will yield a bit more than 4.5hours for a water change which is too long in my opinion given the fact that bather load and contamination can cause serious concerns about water sterility and quality.  To the contray of your statement above, your choice should have been a filter containing at least 45kg (6m3)but 65kg (7m3)would have been better. You should realise that the sand is only ging you 40 micron filtration so that everything smaler than that such as hair, skin cells, dirt and other organic particles are still going round and round, so keep a close eye on santisation.

Swimming pool filtration is not a matter fo guess work, its a technical matter requiring some detailed considerations.

Andrew

[AnOther]

I bow to your expertise and speak only from very limited experience in a similar situation to the OP however with a modest bather load which does not include children (= no urinating), nor other potential contaminates such as sunblock etc., (nor much hair either come to that!), I think I can live with a water change period of 4/5 hours or whatever it is I'm getting from my particular filter.

If what you say is correct, and I don't question it, I still find it hard to rationalise why, if the water quality and composition is so critical, each season we do we not see bathers dropping like flies struck down by all manner of pool borne germs and diseases. From what you say, given the pathetic, virtually useless filtering arrangement commonly supplied with budget DIY pools, it should be an absolute certainty.

We have I believe had this conversation before though [;-)]

[Théière]

It's a resonably easy question to answer Ernie.  Neither sand or zeolite filters kill bacteria, Chlorine does that and pretty fast. It is reckoned that only 20% of the chlorine in the pool is used for killing bacteria and pathogens, the other 80% is used for oxidising dirt etc out of the water. If good filtration can pull more of this dirt and debris out of the water then less chlorine is required therefore less nasty chlorine byproducts are produced which is better for everyone. As you say with a low batherload you do not require the same as a commercial pool and in the case of some commercial pools that try to filter water too fast to get the turnover time correct dirt is pushed through the filter and back into the pool. The maximum flow rate for good filtration is 14m3/hour and that would still provide Andrews' turnover rates in most casses. 

[Poolguy]

Thanks John for clarifying.

Suffice it to say that Circulation, Filtration, and Sanitization are 3 related but very different things. What we have been talking about is Filtration, which does have an effect on circulation but does not control it (this is done by the design of your pool structure - inlets and outlets etc their position and capability). Bacteria, pathogens and so on as John rightly points out are a matter of Sanitation - test and dose to maintain sterility, but that will not necessarily do anything for clarity, only prevent the water becoming rancid. We are saying that the faster solid organic particles are removed from the water the less decay is happening and consequently less demand for chlorine which is after all rarely consistent in these little pools as most are dosed by hand using very basic and sometimes very inaccurate testing instruments. So 'overdoing' the circulation and filtration is not a waste of effort in my view.

Now I'm aware that many reading this might be tempted to say 'this is absurd - it’s just a kids paddling pool, what is all the fuss'. Well ... I hold the view perhaps unnecessarily, that water - any body of water, be it a kiddies paddle pool or an Olympic aquatic stadium, and everything in between, has the same challenges because its the same media behaving in much the same way, its just a matter of scale. I would rather promote the idea of good water management than the more common approach of simply chucking it all out and start again. Fresh water is after all a precious resource, and in some countries dearer than petrol. And good management need not be any more time consuming nor expensive.

Andrew