u/fighttobreathe

I don’t know if crosses are allowed here, but I thought this community might appreciate my Shood Pound, Shar Pei/Bloodhound. I’m stuck in the hospital with my father today, and figured this was the time to introduce her to her relatives!

I’ve rescued Shar Pei’s my whole adult life through North American Shar Pei rescue. But four years ago this little girl (who later, to no one’s surprise, tested to be Shar Pei/Bloodhound) was found roaming the local state park with her mother, a beautiful Shar Pei.

I had a friend who works at the local rescue and she knew that my last Shar Pei had passed the month before from bloat. It was horribly traumatic. She was only four and died on the operating table. When the mom and baby were found the rescue didn’t want to put them up for general adoption due to all of the health problems Shar Pei’s are known to suffer from… so she called me.

I didn’t want a new dog yet, and sadly I could even look at the mother without crying, she looked exactly like my girl I had just lost… but I did agree to drive mom to the Houston brand of NASPR (she IMMEDIATELY found a forever home) and take on the weird little mix, who I named Ella. The last pic is her puppy photo taken in the shelter. 💕

Two days after she came home, my relationship of 8 years ended. I moved him out and prepared myself for oncoming depression… but let me tell you… this “little” dog had other ideas! 😂

I’m used to Shar Pei’s. They sleep the huge majority of the day and night, would rather die than get their paws wet or muddy, if it’s raining they have to be drug out to pee… I had one who would literally hang her butt over the side of the deck and pee just so she wouldn’t have to leave the shelter of the deck roof!

The first morning after my breakup it was raining and I was prepared to sleep all day… all week… whatever.

But Ella said NOPE.

She stood in front of my face, licked my forehead, pawed my pillow, and started barking… incessantly. I got up thinking she just needed to potty, I opened the back door, and she RAN to the first puddle and dove head first into it. Next, she applied that sniffer and proceeded to inspect every square into of our huge back yard. Every. Square. Inch. I coaxed her back inside, dried her off, and tried to go back to sulking in bed. NOPE! The barking and prodding began again. The slobbery chops. The big, sad eyes. The floppy, floppy (but still Shar Pei shaped 😂) ears.

I give in to her every single time.

I’ve had to learn a lot. Shar Pei’s are generally pretty quiet dogs… oh. my. goodness. The full chested BORKS that Ella lets out! AT EVERYTHING! She doesn’t howl on her own… but I can get her to and it’s the sweetest howl I’ve ever heard.

If my Shar Pei’s got out of the fence, they wouldn’t wander more than a few yards before running back. If Ella gets out… good luck! That nose takes over and she is GONE. She’s on the scent and won’t stop till she’s either caught or has found the thing she’s looking for, normally a neighboring dog or the kids playing soccer at the park. But it’s hilarious! She finds them but instead of playing with them, it’s like “Yep, there you are. I found you. What’s next” and she moves on to the next smell that needs to be found.

She hunts CONTINUALLY. Lizards. Mice. Rabbits. Possums. Skunks. (OH, THE SKUNKS!!!) It’s doesn’t matter, she’s after them.

Regular leashes were a nightmare, she’s 80 pounds of muscle and nose and has pulled me down hills on my belly. I finally got her a 15’ lead and a great harness and it was a revelation. She wasn’t pulling to get away, she was pulling to cover a greater sniffing area. Strafing left and right and left and right. She’s not pulled me down once since.

We live in central Texas and it’s a million degrees right now, but as soon as it cools I think we’re going to start doing some canicross training. I think she’ll love it and god knows I could do with some more human interaction! 😂

I care for my 86 yo father, and it’s a lonely life. I could have not gotten another dog. I could have gotten another sleepy dog. I could have slept for a week, or a month, or a year, but I didn’t. I got a judgmental, bossy, loving hulk of a Shood Hei. Sometimes you don’t get what you think you want, you get exactly what you need.

I’ve never built a deck before. I’ve also never used SketchUp. Eek.

The goal is a shallow sitting ledge that is two levels.

But here are my questions…

1. Pic one is my SketchUp file in progress without second level. I know it’s not perfect, but I haven’t figured out how to do angled cuts yet, and there’s decisions that have to be made before I can fully render it anyway. But I tried. I’m investigating adjustable plastic footers, but I do have a ton of concrete footers left over from an old project.
2. Pics two and three: which way should my diagonal supports go? #1 or #2. #1 seems correct, I feel like #2 would leave you open to twisting? That’s just my instinct. No formal knowledge! 😂
3. Pic four: for the second level… I can only get the footers with the 4x4’s so close. Choice 1 seems correct to me. More stable. And then I would attach the beam to the higher level with a hanger? The second choice would rely to heavily on the hanger, yes?
4. Pic five: I hope this makes sense! You have choice 1 or 2. The pink boards are the joists, the purple are bracing boards, and then below you’ll see the corresponding decking direction. I know that choice one will end up with either spaces between the decking on the longer side, or I’ll have to do a lot of angled cuts on the decking boards as they near the shorter side. I have all the saws required to do this, but I’m wondering if it’s just too difficult. And which would look better. Also of note, the measurements are approximate. 😂

I have an 18 ft above ground pool and would love to have a small area like this to sit on and put my feet in. I’d really like it to have two levels, like my poorly drawn addition in photo 2.

I have lots of 2x4’s, 2x6’s, 4x4’s, joist hangers, concrete footers and all the necessary tools.

I’ve built tons of small greenhouses, beehives, heavy duty rolling cutting tables for seamstresses, but I’ve never built a deck and am worried about safety.

The pool is 52” high and I’d like a couple of inches of clearance between the top rail of the pool and the bottom of the deck.

These are my levels and the Pool Math recommendations.

I was absolutely green two weeks ago and have been working diligently to get it back to blue.

We’re blue now, but still pretty cloudy after adding clarifier 48 hours ago.

Thoughts?
Suggestions?

Turning of the tide! Update 2: Maybe I should just give up and fully drain it!

We’re having some success! (photo 1)

Reminder: we were still green yesterday (photo 5)

Yesterday I did my normal, vac to waste, backwash, rinse, change sock, brush in the am and pm. In the evening I added 5 cups of ph down and then an hour later added FOUR gallons of liquid choline bleach. Backwashed, rinsed, and brushed.

This morning, we are blue. Opaque cloudy blue. But BLUE.

I took a sample to Leslie’s and my numbers are the second pic. Then I put those numbers into pool math, third pic. The chemicals that I own are in the fourth pic (I also have Leslie’s Hardness Plus and two more gallons of liquid chlorine bleach which are not in the photo)

Leslie’s suggested the following:

1. Leslie’s dry acid: 1 lb, 9 oz. Dissolve into bucket of pool water and add. Wait 4 hours, then
2. Leslies hardness plus: 6 lbs, 11 oz. Broadcast. Wait 4 hours, then
3. Lower chlorine (I will not be doing this. I’m fine waiting for the chlorine to go down naturally)
4. Salt: add 59 pounds of pool salt. Brush in. Wait 24 hours, then
5. Leslie’s Low Phos: add 33 fl. oz. directly to skimmer. Run pump for 48 hours without backwashing or cleaning. After 48 hours, backwash the filter, and then
6. Leslie’s Clear Aid: add 14 oz. Run for 48 hours. Take another sample in for testing.

Pool Math suggests the following:

1. Add 12 oz. ph down.
2. Add 19 oz. of CYA stabilizer.
3. To lower total alkalinity, reduce ph to 7-7.2 with acid and then aerate to increase ph.

These are two VERRRRRY different tracts and I’m not sure which way to go.

What are people’s thoughts?

We’re having some success!

Reminder: we were still green yesterday.

Yesterday I did my normal, vac to waste, backwash, rinse, change sock, brush in the am and pm. In the evening I added 5 cups of ph down and then an hour later added FOUR gallons of liquid choline bleach. Backwashed, rinsed, and brushed.

This morning, we are blue. Opaque cloudy blue. But BLUE.

I took a sample to Leslie’s and my numbers are the second pic. Then I put those numbers into pool math, third pic. The chemicals that I own are in the fourth pic (not in photo, I also have Leslie’s Hardness Plus and two more gallons of liquid chlorine bleach)

Leslie’s suggested the following:

1. Leslie’s dry acid: 1 lb, 9 oz. Dissolve into bucket of pool water and add. Wait 4 hours, then
2. Leslies hardness plus: 6 lbs, 11 oz. Broadcast. Wait 4 hours, then
3. Lower chlorine (I will not be doing this. I’m fine waiting for the chlorine to go down naturally)
4. Salt: add 59 pounds of pool salt. Brush in. Wait 24 hours, then
5. Leslie’s Low Phos: add 33 fl. oz. directly to skimmer. Run pump for 48 hours without backwashing or cleaning. After 48 hours, backwash the filter, and then
6. Leslie’s Clear Aid: add 14 oz. Run for 48 hours. Take another sample in for testing.

Pool Math suggests the following:

1. Add 12 oz. ph down.
2. Add 19 oz. of CYA stabilizer. K
3. To lower total alkalinity, reduce ph to 7-7.2 with acid and then aerate to increase ph.

These are two VERRRRRY different tracts and I’m not sure which way to go.

What are people’s thoughts?

Okay. Last night I after a lot of wrestling (I ended up using a wood working clamp, a flat head screw driver, and a hammer) I removed the fountain and replaced the original spout director thingie.

Then I:
Changed the sock.
Backwashed for 3 minutes.
Rinsed for 1 minute.
Vacuumed to waste.
Brushed the bottom and walls.
Added three bags of shock.

Went to sleep.

Woke up and:
Changed the sock.
Backwashed for 3 minutes.
Rinsed for 1.
Brushed the floor and walls.

Went to work.

Came home and used the crappy test strips (see photos). I know I need to take a sample in, which I will do tomorrow, but didn’t have time to do today, so I’m just using the strip as an vague picture into what’s happening.

Then I vacuumed to waste… no real crud came out this time, just what I’m guessing is dead and live algae.

Backwashed for a minute.
Rinsed for 30 seconds.
Brushed the floor and walls.

And that’s where I am today.

Thoughts?

TL/DR: Pool is still green after shocking six times, should I just drain it and start over?

Whole story:

18’ round Intex pool with a large sand filter and salt water generator (both upgraded to larger than needed for my size pool), Hayward skimmer.

I went out of town for a film job. I called multiple pool companies looking for someone to check on the pool once a week, clean the filter, brush, check the chemicals, etc. but the second I told them it was an above ground they either said they didn’t service AGPools or they ghosted me. My neighbor said he used it have a pool and offered to keep an eye on it for me. What was supposed to be a two week job ended up being over two months. When I got back home the filter basket was absolutely clogged, no water coming out of the return, and the water was dark green. It’s important to know that I have no clue how long this had been going on. I turned the filter off. Cleaned it out. Put a new sock on. Backwashed it. Brushed the pool, and added shock in a panic then went to talk to my neighbor.

He injured himself while I was out of town but didn’t want to worry me and thought that the pool would be fine. He says he checked on it a couple of days before I came back and it was green but “okay” so he dug through my pool chemicals and added “a bunch of stuff”.

Eventually I discovered he added two pounds of shock and A TON of CYA. There was no use trying to figure out exactly what happened. He is elderly and I should have kept trying to find someone more qualified, but I had no clue my job was going to end up being a nightmare two months marathon.

So I didn’t press the matter and just got a sample and took it to my local Leslie’s.

The numbers were crazy. CYA was 180. Their advice was drain half the pool and refill until the CYA was under 80. I did that and replaced the sock on the filter, turned the filter on continuously, brushed and then backwashed and rinsed the pool. I did all of this twice a day for the next week and here were my numbers:

Free Chlorine: 6.34
Total Chlorine: 6.34
PH: 8.3
Alkalinity: 223
Calcium Hardness: 148
CYA: 83
Iron: 0.1
Copper: 0.2
Phosphates: 996
Salt: 2550

They then suggested the following:
Add 1 lb of Green to Clean, half along the perimeter and the rest flung across the middle.
Wait 5 minutes.
Add 1 lb of Leslie’s Power Powder Plus at dusk.
Brush the pool.
*then I went to bed*
In the morning, I brushed the pool, changed the sock, backwashed and rinsed the filter
Next dusk, add another pound of Power Plus.
*repeated the brush, sock change, backwash and rinse again.
I put my robot vac in and the bottom of the pool (which I still can’t see) obviously has a bunch of crud in it.

I did this whole routine four times in total, changing out the filter sock multiple times a day and the pool is still VERY GREEN.
Last night, instead of the Leslie’s Power Powder I added a gallon of regular liquid chlorine bleach.
It poured rain overnight.

This morning, pool is still VERY GREEN.

I bought a manual vacuum that hooks to the Hayward skimmer and am going to try to vacuum to waste today…
BUT I’M WONDERING….

Should I just drain the whole thing and start over?
I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle.
I called pool companies again, and again have gotten no response.

With the number of times I half drained and refilled, I probably could have just drained the whole thing, scrubbed it clean, and refilled it.

I feel absolutely defeated and exhausted.

Korean > English

Stunning hand finished boiled wool coat found in thrift store in Dripping Springs, TX.