Swimming Pool Free Chlorine, Chloramines, Skin Rash, and Natural Enzymes – part 2

After becoming convinced beyond reasonable doubt that my traditionally chlorinated swim spa was giving me a horrendous skin condition, it was time to proceed with making the switch to natural enzymes for sanitation. The first step was to drain all the water out, which I mostly did by myself after getting some verbal review on how to set up several garden hoses as syphons. This was both easy and hard. It was easier than I thought it would be in that it the hoses practically filled themselves with water as I snaked them into the still full pool. Then, I had to bend the end of the hose to keep the water from flowing out while I raced downhill in the yard to place the end at the lowest place possible compared to the swimming pool. This drained all but the last couple of inches of water, because the pool is set about 2 feet below ground level where it is. My husband used the shop vac to get that last bit of water out. (click on any photo to enlarge)

If chloramines had been the only problem, that might have been all that we needed to do, but we had the additional problem of a build up of purple crystals, even though I had been keeping the pH under control. Further research indicated that the additives in slow release chlorine discs are a common problem. Truth be told, we did not realize how bad it was until we proceeded to clean the sand filter. It contained several huge, hard chunks of purple crystals, looking like misshapen loaves of purple bread. If only they were worth money! They were pretty, too. But they were also going to potentially redissolve in my water as it ran through the filter, as well as clog things up.

 

Fortunately, my husband seemed to see all of this as an engineering investigation. I would have been quite overwhelmed without his help. He did a lot more reading and showed me these two articles:

The Truth About Pool Conditioner or Stabilizer
Purple Stains in Pools – Chemistry and Prevention

And then I was his apprentice/side-kick while he cleaned the sand filter. This involved syphoning the water out of it first, by way of a hose down the center pipe of the sand filter that keeps the sand from traveling into the swimming pool. Then, while he scooped and dumped the sand out, I wiped and washed off the top piece of the filter. He also disassembled the sand filter pipes to thoroughly wash the purple crystals off of and out of them. Following a robust rinsing of the main filter body, I sat and filled it with sand, the central pipes having been reinserted and covered to prevent sand from accidentally being poured into them. Because the opening in the top of the filter is relatively small, I used an old quart yogurt container as a scoop. This allowed for controlled filling and keeping it within the limits of how much, since it was only supposed to be filled with 150 lbs (one and half bags) of 30 grit sand. Happily, this only cost $8 per bag at a local building supply store.

We removed crystals from every other nook and cranny we could think of, including the PVC pipe that is part of the set up that stabilizes the Fastlane against the end of the pool. I wiped the inside of the pool dry, then shop vacuumed up a remaining layer of purple glitter insider the now dry swimming pool vinyl liner. It was time to fill the pool with water again!

That was three weeks ago. While I know that long term evaluation will be important, I can say that so far my swimming pool has been incredibly pleasant to swim in without the chlorine smells. It seems only very, very, very slightly cloudy, but NOT smelly, dirty, or green by any stretch of the imagination. And not even anything like what it got like even when I was using chlorine, but got behind on application.

We are learning to adjust pH in a new direction, since the natural method tends to cause the water to become more alkaline over time, and the pH needs to be lowered for maximum effectiveness of the enzymes that are breaking down organic matter. I have a new bottle of enzyme concentrate produced just for swim spas, to keep up the enzyme levels on a monthly basis. I am very hopeful.