pool with very basic filtration, will it work?

[jamiesensei]

Hi,

See attached pictures of the pool in the house into which I am thinking of moving. It would be great to have a splash pool in the garden as this house has. And it is big enough to even swim a few laps in.

But am worried it is going to be a nightmare to keep clean.

Here is the filtration system. Apparently this is a three stage filter in which carbon and sand are used. The water flows out of one stage of the filter into the next.

Water is pumped up through the blue pipe you can see at the end of the pool and into the 'filtration system'.

The pool is about 10m long by 1.5 m by 1.5 m deep.

We are in Chiang Mai. I wonder if we buy chlorine and use a brush to scrub the sides of the pool and something to skim the top of the pool will that be sufficient to keep the water clean??

I am not too worried about unsightliness if the water is not perfectly clear. Can algae in the pool be dangerous? Or if it is kept at least fairly well irrigated and cleaned with some controlled ammounts of chlorine I guess it should be safe as a plunge pool and for regular swims??

I am quite happy swimming in Mae Ngat dam for example, the water in a fairly well kept pool should be cleaner than that I assume. Maybe I could think of the thing as more of a swimmable pond than a pool?

What are you guys thoughts, is this going to be a major headache to keep fairly clean??

Jamie

[jamiesensei]

Maybe I could buy some kind of robotic pool cleaner that moves back and forth on the bottom hoovering up water and running it through a pool side filter?

[jamiesensei]

The 'three stage filtration system' is those three concrete troughs from which water flows from one to the other.

Apparently they put a bit of chlorine in there and they have a water tester kit. From what I have read the filtration system needs to be under pressure from the pump. These however are open troughs, from what I could see the water flows out of the top of one tank into the next and would not even be forced through the carbon and sand mix that they say they put in the filter tanks.

I guess I will find out if it works when I move in. If the water does not look to nasty and stays fairly un nasty.

[SantiSuk]

Sounds like a very old set-up or ThaiDIY!

However, algae won't harm you and correct chlorine levels should kill any bacteria. The rest is cosmetic and 'up to you'... except your difficulty is going to be keeping the bottom clear of dirt without any suction pump aided hoovering mechanism (hand wand or robot). Bottom dirt would gradually become a big problem unless you are really serious about wanting to swim in a glorified pond (!) So, yes you would need to find some way of cleaning the bottom (sides you can brush down every quarter). Most simple pool bottom robots feed off a suction inlet linking to the pool pump. If your pool does not have a suction inlet then yes, you would need some contraption like a combined pump/robot hoover if they exist.

If I had such a pool and wanted to upgrade the filtration I would look into bagless systems - there's a guy on the Swimming Pool forum who seems to know a lot about them whereas most of the rest of us know very little.