Question about adding. CH to keep it at the high end for SWG

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chem geek

TFP Expert
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Mar 28, 2007
11,919
San Rafael, CA USA
This post moved to this thread from another by request. (Dont know how it ended up on top like it did).
Pogueld is the OP of this thread.
________________________________

Evaporation and refill will only add CH from the fill water. It will not lower the CH. If your CH is getting lowered, then that can only happen with water replacement (or precipitation of calcium carbonate as with scaling). Perhaps you have a water leak (see Leak Detection)? Or do you have summer rain overflow? According to this link, you had 8.2" of rain in May and 4.8" in June. Unless this rain all came in a small number of days, it usually wouldn't overflow and instead it would just raise your water level and then evaporation would drop it down.

Perhaps your brother-in-law can explain why he sells calcium at all. If he says it is to protect plaster surfaces from dissolving their calcium carbonate, then just say that's why you are maintaining the CH level. If he wonders why the CH level is dropping, then tell him the reason (i.e. you have a leak or you've had summer rain overflow diluting the pool water). It is NOT from evaporation and refill as that can only increase CH, not decrease it. Evaporation only removes water (volatile chemicals can also evaporate, but that's not anything in the pool with calcium).
 
This question is related to Chemgeeks recommendation of maintaining a higher CH level for a saltwater pool. Since becoming full on TFP in April, I have been adding calcium to keep my CSI in check for my SWG. My fill water ranges from 150-175 CH, so with Texas evaporation and refilling, I have been adding to keep up the higher limit. Thankfully, my brother in law sells pool chemicals, so I've been able to get a reasonable prices and I don't mind adding because I want my pool to be TFP perfect. My brother-in-law says no one buys it unless starting up a pool so he has my husband questioning my judgement and TFP standards. Soooo my question: is there away to explain to them in laymans terms the importance of my regular calcium additions?


[emoji176] Lisa P.
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Lisa,

Can you please post a full set of test results with a current CH level?

I am concerned that you are adding calcium to your water for no good reason. Given the CH of your fill water, your pool's CH will naturally increase on its own. I know you folks in TX got deluged there for a few weeks with rain and significant water exchanges will definitely lower CH. But in general (I'm a south westerner myself), you really don't need to add any CH to your water.
 
Here is my CH history:
97d1764d1b686f22d9fc152ab1f15b54.jpg


You can tell when I raised and then retested . It goes up and then it goes bake down. I have had to drain the pool several times this season - sometimes two days in a row. I wish I had kept track of that. I backwash once a week, sometimes twice.

Does the calcium depletion seem abnormal to where you would recommend my husband and I leak checking?


[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
OK, so none of your CH numbers are really all that bad. I would definitely NOT add any extra calcium to the water. Your fill water + evaporation will be sufficient.

Can you give me ALL of your numbers? FC, pH, TA, etc?

And perhaps you can elaborate on why you're backwashing so frequently and draining? I get it if the rains filled your pool up, that's normal. I would say though, if it does rain and your water is not up at the coping, then you can actually leave the excess water in your pool and just let it evaporate back to normal. I often do that but then again I've never gotten more than a 2" rise in water and that only happened once in 3 years.

But backwashing twice a week??? That's little too frequent? You only backwash when your filter pressure increases by 25% over your clean pressure.
 
I do only backwash when the pressure rises. We have two dogs that are in and out of the pool and we get lots of leaves, pollen, bugs, sandy soil, you name it. I can tell from the waterfall flow usually and then go check the PSI -And it's up.

My pool actually flooded over three times this year from rain because I didn't drain it in time for the next monsoon. I don't know if it's the location or what, but some of my rose bushes died from being too wet as well.

I had never drained our pool before this spring. I didn't even know how - lol.

I had been reading some of Chemgeeks advice on keeping the CH higher 350-400 for SWG which is what prompted my question.

Yes I will post other numbers.


[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Two thoughts -

1. What size is your sand filter?

2. I always defer to chemgeek's advice, but, depending on your other water parameters, I still don't think you need to add any excess calcium.

My water is currently at 750ppm CH so next time you drain your pool, please consider sending some of that low CH water of yours down a pipeline to my house ;)

- - - Updated - - -

What's your pH?
 
I don't always record my daily checks in the spreadsheet. I just did a complete test, but it's at home in the notebook ;-). I'm trying to keep my CSI at about -.2ish as suggested by chemgeek. And I'll admit I may a bit of a "helicopter pool mom."


[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
It's weird the PH isn't showing up. I think I might have accidentally deleted it. I'm working on the phone while at my daughters volleyball practice. [emoji6]. What better time to TFP? right?

It rises and I drop it. I'll have to check the size of my sand filter when I get home. I know it's a Triton. I think maybe Triton II.




[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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Pogueld said:
I don't always record my daily checks in the spreadsheet. I just did a complete test, but it's at home in the notebook ;-). I'm trying to keep my CSI at about -.2ish as suggested by chemgeek. And I'll admit I may a bit of a "helicopter pool mom."


[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Well that all sounds good. I was going to check your CSI. Your water should be fine then. I really don't think you need the extra calcium so perhaps chemgeek can chime in at some point and set me straight.

I get the whole dog hair / dirty pool thing as I have a mesquite tree that is the bane of my existence (there's a chainsaw in that tree's future)...but could your filter be undersized for your pool needs. Having to backwash every two days or so is just a major waste of your time and money. Just thinking out loud here...


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I can vouch for all the rain and need to drain the pool here in Texas this spring. There were many many days where it would rain enough in a few hours to raise the water level entirely above the skimmer mouth.

And the days where we weren't draining water daily, then it was every 3 or 4.
I estimate I replaced my 15K gallons by about 75% in May and June.
 
JoyfulNoise said:
Well that all sounds good. I was going to check your CSI. Your water should be fine then. I really don't think you need the extra calcium so perhaps chemgeek can chime in at some point and set me straight.

I get the whole dog hair / dirty pool thing as I have a mesquite tree that is the bane of my existence (there's a chainsaw in that tree's future)...but could your filter be undersized for your pool needs. Having to backwash every two days or so is just a major waste of your time and money. Just thinking out loud here...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Usually it's once a week, every so often, it's been twice a week.

Knowing what I know now, based on environmental factors, I do think we could have bigger equipment. When it goes out I will have more knowledge to choose something - lol! I will be armed and dangerous.

I do try not to add CH unless it gets below 300.


[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ok, here is a link to all of my test results with PH https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B__cjrzU6yBYX2Q5d3pZZkRJOHc/view?usp=sharing

According to pool math, my CSI yesterday was -0.7. I added baking soda to increase my TA. If my TA is at 70, and my PH 7.7, then the CSI is -0.2. I did just check and the TA is up to 75 (using the 10ml sample) and the PH is 7.6.

And yes my sand filter is a Triton II TR100. According to the manual, you could do 4 turns per day on a 26, 640 gallons (assuming I'm reading that correctly). I'm guessing those specifications are if you run your filter 24/7, which I do not.

So yea, I don't know. I guess I'm just a perfectionist; I want the pool chemistry to be the best it can be and I do NOT want another algae outbreak or to mess up our pool or its equipment.

Your thoughts anyone?
 
chem geek said:
This post moved to this thread from another by request. (Dont know how it ended up on top like it did).
Pogueld is the OP of this thread.
________________________________

Evaporation and refill will only add CH from the fill water. It will not lower the CH. If your CH is getting lowered, then that can only happen with water replacement (or precipitation of calcium carbonate as with scaling). Perhaps you have a water leak (see Leak Detection)? Or do you have summer rain overflow? According to this link, you had 8.2" of rain in May and 4.8" in June. Unless this rain all came in a small number of days, it usually wouldn't overflow and instead it would just raise your water level and then evaporation would drop it down.

Perhaps your brother-in-law can explain why he sells calcium at all. If he says it is to protect plaster surfaces from dissolving their calcium carbonate, then just say that's why you are maintaining the CH level. If he wonders why the CH level is dropping, then tell him the reason (i.e. you have a leak or you've had summer rain overflow diluting the pool water). It is NOT from evaporation and refill as that can only increase CH, not decrease it. Evaporation only removes water (volatile chemicals can also evaporate, but that's not anything in the pool with calcium).
Click to expand...

Sooo, this is our fourth summer in the pool. I have NO Idea if they added CH when they started up the pool originally. My first CH reading after my SLAM was 180. That was in April. That's about right with my fill water. There have been times I've used cal-hypo, but not very much. Looking back over the history since April, it does look like significant drops were during rainy times and flooding and draining of the pool. I guess it just came at a weird time for me to be trying to get my water in balance. I've posted a link to to my levels. Do you think I should still be concerned about a leak? Based on your observations with CSI, should I leave the CH as is or try to get it to the higher level? Just curious of your opinion.
 
Were those pH values at 7.4 intentional? There's really no need to go that low unless you are intentionally trying to lower your TA. If you kept your TA up at 80 and your pH target at 7.6-7.8 with only doing acid additions when you go above 7.8 I think that would be just fine. You could also consider 50ppm borates to help with any pH rise.

As for the filter, the TR100 is a pretty hefty size but you do have an environmental issue and a quadruped problem ;)

Dumb question - skimmer socks, are you using them?


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The 7.4 was intentional but not, which doesn't make any sense at all I know. When my TA was higher, I was adding MA like every 3rd day and I don't really like that stuff :). I was trying to get my TA lower so the pH would hold better by lowering PH and aerating, and it worked. If you look at July, it was more steady, and I know I didn't add MA as often. What I think happened now is that the additions of MA that I have had to do (maybe once a week), lowered the TA too much therefore the TA got too low, thus the PH wasn't rising. (I'm still learning here). Another thing, I think I was doing wrong, was testing for the PH in my house. I think the lighting is off a bit and I'm extremely far sighted. I've since started testing outside with the white paper and that seems to work better for more accurate results. We have a spillover spa and a waterfall, so there is constant aeration. The spillover spa is on whenever the pump is on, but the waterfall only comes on for 45 minutes daily unless I manually put it on.

Yea, as far as the environmental issues, I constantly have sand just sitting in the skimmer "shelves." It's not pool sand. We never see sand coming out of the jets. And I guess before the pool was TFP sparkly, I didn't notice that kind of stuff :). But I can see "stuff" on top of the water now. My husband thinks I'm crazy. The pool sits out in the country on a treed lot; it gets a minimum of 12 hours full sun. We get all kinds of critters and plan blow in. I could clean the skimmers 4 times a day. I do use skimmer socks and that has helped. The DE in the sand filter has helped too; but sometimes I forget to add more after the backwash. I"m assuming it's the backwashing that is removing some of the CH as well? When we do backwash, the water is very dark brown dirty and it takes a while to get clear. My "spy glass" is very small so I just watch it come out. Maybe a sand filter just isn't the best option for our conditions, but it's only on it's fourth summer sooooo, it's here to stay for a while. I told my husband I wanted some of those slime bags. He thinks I've lost my mind. :p

Looking at your signature, we have a lot of the same pool "stuff." I might have to pick your brain more often :) Thanks for helping out!
 
Pogueld said:
This question is related to Chemgeeks recommendation of maintaining a higher CH level for a saltwater pool. Since becoming full on TFP in April, I have been adding calcium to keep my CSI in check for my SWG.
Click to expand...
I don't think that he has ever recommended calcium for a SWG pool. I think that you mean CSI for plaster. In that case, I would suggest a higher pH, such as 7.7 to 7.8 to help keep the CSI in a non-corrosive range.
 
Pogueld said:
The 7.4 was intentional but not, which doesn't make any sense at all I know. When my TA was higher, I was adding MA like every 3rd day and I don't really like that stuff :). I was trying to get my TA lower so the pH would hold better by lowering PH and aerating, and it worked. If you look at July, it was more steady, and I know I didn't add MA as often. What I think happened now is that the additions of MA that I have had to do (maybe once a week), lowered the TA too much therefore the TA got too low, thus the PH wasn't rising. (I'm still learning here). Another thing, I think I was doing wrong, was testing for the PH in my house. I think the lighting is off a bit and I'm extremely far sighted. I've since started testing outside with the white paper and that seems to work better for more accurate results. We have a spillover spa and a waterfall, so there is constant aeration. The spillover spa is on whenever the pump is on, but the waterfall only comes on for 45 minutes daily unless I manually put it on.

Yea, as far as the environmental issues, I constantly have sand just sitting in the skimmer "shelves." It's not pool sand. We never see sand coming out of the jets. And I guess before the pool was TFP sparkly, I didn't notice that kind of stuff :). But I can see "stuff" on top of the water now. My husband thinks I'm crazy. The pool sits out in the country on a treed lot; it gets a minimum of 12 hours full sun. We get all kinds of critters and plan blow in. I could clean the skimmers 4 times a day. I do use skimmer socks and that has helped. The DE in the sand filter has helped too; but sometimes I forget to add more after the backwash. I"m assuming it's the backwashing that is removing some of the CH as well? When we do backwash, the water is very dark brown dirty and it takes a while to get clear. My "spy glass" is very small so I just watch it come out. Maybe a sand filter just isn't the best option for our conditions, but it's only on it's fourth summer sooooo, it's here to stay for a while. I told my husband I wanted some of those slime bags. He thinks I've lost my mind. :p

Looking at your signature, we have a lot of the same pool "stuff." I might have to pick your brain more often :) Thanks for helping out!
Click to expand...

For pH testing you are doing a color comparison so strong, indirect lighting works best and putting a uniform background color behind the comparator block helps as well. I actually find that standing in the shade and holding the block up to a bright blue sky works really well for me. The trick I found is to use a background color that makes all of the test colors in the comparator look unique/different and then compare the solution (it's not the actual color that matters, just the differences in shade). Some background colors make all the colors in the block blend together and look like the same shade. Blue sky works the best in most cases for me.

It certainly sounds like you'd do better with a cartridge filter but you'd need a fairly large (aka, expensive) one so you're not having to take it apart all the time. Something to save up for, I suppose.

If the husband thinks you're crazy then just offer him the opportunity to take over the pool care :p

Feel free to contact me anytime, I'm always happy to help if I can.


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