We have tried to open our pool after 2 years of it being closed. We started with lots of chemicals and it would turn blue but then once you vacuummed it would go back green/black. So we decided to use another approach and try to clean out the leaves blindly. There is a large amount of decomposed leaves that we are in the process of removing. The mush that we are scooping out looks like diarrhea, is this normal? It has a very foul odor and is awful to clean out. Should we just drain the pool and start over.

Question:

We have tried to open our pool after 2 years of it being closed. We started with lots of chemicals and it would turn blue but then once you vacuummed it would go back green/black. So we decided to use another approach and try to clean out the leaves blindly. There is a large amount of decomposed leaves that we are in the process of removing. The mush that we are scooping out looks like diarrhea, is this normal? It has a very foul odor and is awful to clean out. Should we just drain the pool and start over.

Answer:

The dissolved organic load from the "mush" that you are describing is going to be very heavy on the chemical demand. It is very likely that you would be better off and save money by draining and starting over.