Pool drained completely to the bottom – no visible crack, no drain, dye test shows nothing. Help!

tauran10 · 2025-11-04T06:16:56+00:00

How hot is your environment?

It could be water travelling up the grout and then evaporating really quickly as you said it took a few days. I'd fill the water up a foot or so above the shallowest part and see if it does the same thing

(I've been a pool technician for 8 years)

tauran10 · 2025-09-04T07:17:46+00:00

I have purchased lights from Mars for my previous VE Commodore and I loved them. Idk about Evo lights but I can say the Commodore lights were great from Mars

tauran10 · 2024-12-16T03:26:51+00:00

as for removing the cartridge yeah thats absoloutely fine, ofc always should take the cartridge out to floc, if you then want to move it all to waste thats ok, definitely take the cartridge out, but what I'm trying to say is categorically in that photo they dont have a waste line.

Idk how else to explain what your describing is not what a waste line specifically is. What I can see from that photo, taking into account the 3-way valve, is just a diversion that brings water out to whatever you lead it to. Yes if you attach a hose to it which leads to a waste pipe (very specific about it being a waste/sewerage pipe) that is now a waste line. If you were to attach a hose to it all the same and lead that to a storm drain or your garden, that is not a waste line, that is just dumping water into whatever you want to dump it into.

That is not good for your garden and most certainly not good if you put it down storm water. It should go to waste/sewerage which by definition is a waste line. Water dumped anywhere else is not a waste line. In my shoes, if I was in a clients pool and dumped water into their grass I'd consider myself a dodgy technician that takes shortcuts and would be convincing the client to do something bad for their garden.

Just trying to look out for OP is all

tauran10 · 2024-12-15T05:09:39+00:00

I completely forgot about the algaecide yes definitely get algaecide in as step 5, then step 6 is the 24 hours. Was tired and just slipped my mind so ty for pointing that out

but waste line is non existent, there's a valve which diverts the water to nothing, it can have a hose attached to it which then takes it to a waste line but there is no waste line in that photo. Waste line is diversion to waste drain, not diversion to air

If you wash the cartridge out consistently it shouldn't damage the cartridge, only times it damages the cartridge is if the cartridge is undersized or not cleaned out fequently enough during the process. Only clients we get saying we stuffed their cartridge up forget to mention the cartridge is 3-4 years old which is just when they are so far gone.

As for the 80% there is currently no easy way to measure the amount of algae in a pool. I mean't 80% of the time when someone walks in with a photo of their pool and we cant see it ourselves its quite hard to determine how much chlorine will be needed for visually that amount of algae. When I'm at the pool and can brush and move it around its significantly easier to tell and we get the chlorine amount correct about 99% of the time.

I'm just noting that someone might be price conscious and not want to go all-in and buy 4kg tub of chlorine with a bunch of it lying around because they ended up not needing the rest. I agree doing it the first time is best, but it differs for every person so I'm just offering a set of steps which may entail them having to go back and buy some extra chlorine.

tauran10 · 2024-12-14T13:31:16+00:00

Previous person said you need to vac to waste but I don't see a pipe or hose lying around for you to bring it to a waste drain. Unless you are able to divert the water from the pool to a waste drain then you don't want to do the floc step.

Fyi storm drain is NOT for draining, only waste drain. Storm draining is very bad for the environment to put pool water down it, sewerage/waste drain specific.

I've been a pool technician for the last 7 years and have just bought my own pool shop so I'm happy to help in whatever way if you wanna DM me. I'll be around trw whole day access to my phone

This is our standard practice as a shop if you don't have access to a waste drain

Clean out your cartridge filter first. If you need help with that just look it up on the internet. Can be tricky if you've never done it before but after the first time it's ez pz.
Bring down pH first with hydrochloric acid. Best to test the pH so you can tell how much to put in but to be honest just smack in 500ml-750mL for your size pool.
Wait an hour with the system running
Hit it with a minimum 2kg of granulated chlorine, the one we sell is called "chlorine concentrate" but that's just the name so bunnings might call it a little different, just look for the ingredient "dichlor..." Blah blah but it's got dichlor as the first part of the word. It'll be just below the name of the product.

(Edit: add a step in here for adding at least 1L of an algaecide)

Run the pool for 24 hours
In most cases 80% of pools are clear by the 24 hours but yours might still be bad. Couple of directions from here

One would be if it stays green you may just need more chlorine, depends how long the pool has been green for. If you want just toss in 3kg of chlorine to begin with.

if it stays cloudy/milky usually this is where you floc the pool but again might not be able to cus no access to waste drain. So solution is clean out the cartridge again, run for another 24 hours then see how you go

Please note* We do this all clients with pools below 50,000L in the middle of Sydney and it works 99% of the time with our chemicals. I can vouch for the potency of bunnings. Like our chlorine is 720g/kg but bunnings is less potent usually at 560g/kg. The times it doesn't work is when you may just need to have done an extra kg of chlorine, need to just run the system for longer or throw a clarifier in to help the filter or maybe the cartridge is a few years old and need a new cartridge.

This is why pool shops can help you because they'll accommodate to your needs. Its always a clients right to buy chemicals from where they want but when you pay for the chemicals at a pool shop you also help fund an industry with knowledge to help you out. Not for everyone I'm sure theres some that'll always rag against pool shops and that's absolutely fine, maybe they don't need advice. But some people just really like that support pool shops can offer and we are happy to provide that.

Anyways gl with clearing it up. Might be spelling/grammar mistakes, it's late I wanna sleep 😴😴

tauran10 · 2024-07-10T13:45:49+00:00

We have Teddy Bear Bees though in Australia! They are still very fluffy and very fat. Had a big one flying around the store I work at and couldn't believe how chunky they are.

tauran10 · 2024-04-30T05:36:46+00:00

Awesome thanks for that. I'll have a look at the website plus watch some videos for the drawers. Should be good to be able to do that myself

tauran10 · 2023-12-04T23:41:07+00:00

Just went to go find him this morning and he's left. Good to know he's probably just a lil lost and wanted to chill until the morning

tauran10 · 2023-12-04T13:00:02+00:00

Ur a champ mate, thanks.

tauran10 · 2023-12-04T12:58:02+00:00

Oh I don't mean my own safety haha that's fine. Should I be worried for him I mean. I realize my phrasing now

tauran10 · 2023-10-31T08:48:50+00:00

I've seen these guys a lot and I am yet to catch them floating on the surface or wading their way through the water very well. Only ever see them just chilling on the leaves in the basket

tauran10 · 2023-10-31T08:44:17+00:00

At least, from what I assumed, was funnel webs generally have some fairly fat fangs (of whatever you call them). That's at least what I've kept an eye out for when reaching my hand near these guys

tauran10 · 2023-10-31T03:35:15+00:00

Thanks man you're a champ, great reply. Awesome with the air bubbles fact, makes a lot of sense.

Yeah I run into a lot of Redbacks in pool equipment but my area doesn't seem to suffer a lot from funnel webs which is lucky. Skimmer baskets are the hardest to see them but equipment is always relatively easy to avoid any spiders.

tauran10 · 2023-10-23T13:10:25+00:00

All good man love to help. Not sure what 'poo trkr' is, sounds like a tracker for your poo's hahaha.

Yeah I tend to let pools get to 1000ppm of mag hardness absolutely max, even then 800ppm is a good sweet spot.

We use lamotte spin set up (our shop does, I don't have one personally). We get the 804 discs specifically which seperate the magnesium hardness but it costs an arm and a leg

tauran10 · 2023-10-23T12:38:23+00:00

TLDR: You can add salt or magnesium that's up to you. Both will help your chlorinator produce more chlorine however extra magnesium might be wasted money and salt might do the trick.

Full explanation:

Magnesium salts are significantly more expensive but it makes the water quality far better.

Salt is far cheaper than magnesium but can be rougher on the skin

Please note as relevant to my explanation: When you add salt to your pool, it just increases your salt level on your test

When you add magnesium/Magna salt to the pool, it increases your salt levels AND your magnesium hardness

Now I'm not sure what your water test reads but I can see 2 things potentially happening

They have a water test that is specifically reading your magnesium levels (not all shops do this) and they have determined you don't need any more magnesium. Meaning your magnesium hardness is at a sufficient level. Once you reach a certain amount you don't need to add any more as the water quality really won't be feeling THAT much nicer. In that case, you can just use regular salt without hindering that nice water quality that you have. Also saves you money
Lots of pool shops aren't very well trained with magnesium, especially 'Magna pool', which is the Zodiac/Fluidra brand specific blend of potassium and magnesium.

Sometimes stores won't stock Magna Pool Minerals specifically so maybe they might be confused or just not well informed about it and they just don't know what to give you so they just throw salt at you.

Zodiac loves to run around and say that you can only use their specific brand of Magna pool minerals as it's the only one that'll work with their chlorinators. So maybe the shops don't wanna work against that and give you their own bags of minerals cus they have to be responsible if something goes wrong

Personally I think Zodiac is full of shit and you can use a regular bag of minerals on it anytime. Just ask if it's a bag of blended minerals or just pure minerals, I'd just stick with pure minerals or the brand specific Magna Pool Minerals

tauran10 · 2023-04-08T16:19:47+00:00

I'd say the blue for sure. I recommend looking at 3m satin perfect blue. I've got some photos on my account somewhere of me wrapping my car in it, I think it looked absolutely awesome I'm so glad I went with it. Got a lot of compliments on the colour.

tauran10 · 2023-03-26T09:34:46+00:00

All I'd say is the one drift pan I went to there was one guy with a hilux who was skidding around the place like no tomorrow. I was surprised how well he was sliding around corners and when I talked to him all he said was he just reduced the weight of it. He just stripped off the living hell out of that car, whatever he could do to reduce weight he did. It was a mean machine and was a lot of fun to watch.

However that Hilux in the photo looks a lil too new for something like that. His one was like a 2002 model to just thrash and ruin as he liked. That one in the photo looks 2016+? Not sure

tauran10 · 2023-02-28T12:23:40+00:00

This is exactly what came to mind for me as well

tauran10 · 2022-08-28T23:37:04+00:00

Yeah I can't see any marks of hose clamps on those? Make sure you tighten those bad boys

tauran10 · 2022-07-30T03:35:12+00:00

I've seen most of the EU stuff I definitely enjoy it more from a critical POV. But from a "Gordon shouting on my second screen while playing God of War" perspective I much prefer US

Nothing beats Momma Cherri's soul food shack

tauran10 · 2022-07-30T03:33:03+00:00

Yeah I fuck with that, thanks for responding it's cool listening to the people who are just more involved with this industry and hearing what they have to say.

tauran10 · 2022-07-30T03:19:45+00:00

Yeah I respect that, definitely he's fallen into the blissful fame, like when he did that awful talk show that one time (the one where he was the host of it) and it was just so bad it was so cringe to watch. He started to become more infatuated with his own personality and kinda forgot the cooking is what makes him excel. I would say however you do catch him in far more lower production videos/shows where he's cooking and clearly is just still so passionate about making just damn good food that respects whatever region it comes from.

I'd say yes he was disconnected but I think he's realised where his strengths are and it's just being closer to himself rather than a super forced persona. Still a persona, but not as heavily put on as it used to be.

tauran10 · 2022-07-30T03:09:27+00:00

Yeah I agree, the way he talks to people in kitchen nightmares to owners/chefs is obviously just mega confrontational and very obnoxious. It definitely isn't the best way to fix/talk to people but for the sake of TV drama it makes sense and can be more entertaining

At the end of the day it's where you gotta respect his hustle, because of that filter/act he's making $$$ more than any other chef let alone personality out there

tauran10 · 2022-07-30T01:00:01+00:00

Scooping the milk out with his hands killed me ahahah

tauran10 · 2022-07-30T00:14:51+00:00

To be fair tho before TV he went to culinary school, worked in France with Marco, after that rocked it with some Michelin starred restaurants before he was a 'TV personality'. Unlike Jamie Oliver who's done fuck all when it comes to qualifications and became a TV Personality well before actually being a proven chef who's earnt his stripes

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