Cleaning your pool after the Saharan dust: this is what the experts say

This is how you can clean your swimming pool of red Saharan dust from the ‘calima’ in 10 easy steps

1. Turn off the pump. The Saharan dust is so dense it’s almost like clay, and it will clog up your filter. Some of it will even pass straight through the filter and come straight back again without being cleaned. There’s no point in having your filter on yet.
2. Add liquid flocculant. You’ll need about 1.2 litres for an 8mx4m pool but it depends on the brand. Read the label, but the normal amount to put in is 10ml for every cubic metre of water. A standard 8mx4m pool has around 46,000m3, so it needs 460ml of flocculant. However, you may need a bit more than usual for this heavy-duty cleaning.
3. Set the selector valve to ‘Recirculation’ and turn the pump back on for around two hours.
4. Turn the pump off again after two hours.
5. Wait for 8-36 hours for the flocculant to work until you see clumps of it on the bottom of the pool. Flocculant is like a glue that gathers all the small suspended particles together and sticks them into a ball, and as they get heavier, they sink to the bottom.
6. When it’s clear enough to see the bottom, use a pool hoover to suck up all the balls, with the selector valve set to ‘Waste’. If you have a drain valve, now is the time to open it. This makes the sand bypass the filter and go into the drain outside.
7. Do a backwash with the selector valve on ‘Backwash’ or ‘Lavado’ for about two minutes, or until the water runs clear in the small, clear plastic cylinder you can see on the selector valve.
8. Stop the pump and turn the selector valve to ‘Rinse’. Run that for about 20 seconds.
9. Stop the pump. Turn the selector valve to ‘Closed’ and open the top of the basket in the pump. Add a Jolly Gel or similar jelly block of clarifier. This will help to mop up the last remaining pieces and have the water looking really clean. Screw the lid back on.
10. Change the selector valve back to ‘Filter’ and the pump on manual for about 24-48 hours. Once it’s cleared up and looking back to normal, you can flick the pump back to automatic.