Hi all,

Just finished building our first pool and keen to learn all the ins and outs of pool water chemistry. The pool has only been filled since mid November 2011 (about 6 weeks) so I believe it's going though a period of rapid change (or so I've been told). Keen to hear some opinions on the current state of the water and especially keen to get opinions about how to best handle the Calcium Hardness levels in the early days. I'm keen to get myself a TF100 test kit but they seem hard to come by in Australia... nothing but "4-in-1" test kits and test strips here in Oz. If anyone can point me in the right direction of a local Aussie supplier of TF100 kits it would be much appreciated. Below are todays chemical readouts from my local pool shop.

TA - 115
FC - 4.2
TC - 4.8
CH - 177
PH - 7.4
Salt - 4050
CYA - 40
Phosphate - 0

The pool shop computer print out says to shock due to the TC reading, but the shop assistants said not to worry just yet after asking how the water looks (fills me with a bit of confidence that they're not just trying to sell me something each visit). Water is crystal clear with no notable smells. They said maybe do it if the readings climb higher next week.

Thanks,
Steve.

When CC is . 5ppm and above, shocking is the correct solution to bring it down.

Your alk is a bit higher that I like to see with a salt cell in place. Letting it settle to about 80 will make it easier to bring down when the time comes.

Get a proper testing kit of your own. You already noticed why pool stores do it. its to bring you back in. We have found those that do it them selves tend to get better testing results. The pool calculator will tell you what you need.

If Strannik is watching, which/where advice to get a proper kit advice will come from him since he's in Austrailia too.

Scott

Thanks Scott, when you say let the alk settle down to 80 do you mean it will get there by itself eventually? I'm having to add a fair bit of acid to bring PH down at the moment which I'm told is normal for a new pool (is that correct?). I assume that in itself should bring the TA down over time?

also... am I right in saying my CC is 0.6 being TC 4.8 minus the FC 4.2? I was initially confused by the term 'combined' chlorine thinking it meant 'all' (as in total) chlorine in the pool i.e. FC plus something else (what that something else was I didn't know). So i was just confusing TC for CC. I was thinking I was WAY over 0.5 (at 4.8) and couldn't figure out why the water still looked so good.

Welcome to TFP!

Your TA will drift down from your repeated acid additions to control pH rise. Just make sure that you keep you pH in check. Your TA will find a happy place to be.

CC=TC-FC...so any CC > 0.5 ppm indicates a need to shock no matter how your water looks.

Thanks for the replies. I found Strannik's website and the physical address is only about 1/2hr drive away so I'll give him a call soon. The home water testing situation in Australia is frustrating. I see K-2006 kits on Amazon for around US$50 but they don't ship to Australia. I found one Aussie online store selling the same kit for AU$270! With the current exchange rate that doesn't make sense...

Does anyone have any opinion on the current calcium levels and at what point I should start taking action to get it right. I read, and have been told that the CH will rise in a new pool so it's not a good idea to start supplementing too soon. It's been about a 1.5 months since water went in and I'm getting a lot of conflicting advice...

I did a shock a couple of nights ago, but don't have any current reliable reading due to the Xmas hols and the shops being closed. I just used a bag of dichlor (Shock and Swim) that the PB left in the startup kit. I now read that dichlor will raise CYA which is probably not a bad thing at the point with my current levels, but I'll switch to straight chlorine from now on and control CYA myself once I have a good test kit. I think that treatment also raises TA through Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate, so I'll be interested to see how that went up too (being that I need to get TA down).

Heading to pool shop today to get some more readings.

You should be able to get a Palintest SP 315C locally that will have all the tests you need though the chlorine test is DPD and not FAS-DPD. Palintest also makes a FAS-DPD test, but I believe it is only available in the U.S. (and of course here we have other choices with Taylor).