Got my water tested for the FIRST time ever!

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torontocollegeboy

torontocollegeboy

0
Jul 7, 2015
7
Toronto/ON
Hi all,

I have a question regarding water cloudiness.

Some backgrounds:

I'm a new pool owner and I was doing a lot of test strips and visiting pool store for chemicals. I finally got my test kit arrive in the mail and I tested my water using the kit
FC 17
PH 7.6
CYA 40
Calcium 200

I have a SWG with about salt level at 3200, sand filter with my outdoor in-ground pool with about 30k gallons of water. Usually it's very blue and clear looking, but sometimes it turns a little cloudy after raining. I could see the bottom but its not clear. Generally, the cloudiness cure itself after two three days of filtering. I keep my pump on 24/7 as I'm advise that If I don't run it 24/7 I may have to pay for chemicals down the road and chemicals are not cheap.

My question is: do I have to shock the pool whenever I see cloudiness? or should I let it clear out by itself? Can I enter the pool when its cloudy? Under what conditions will I have to manually shock the pool?

Thank you!
 
torontocollegeboy said:
I have a SWG with about salt level at 3200, sand filter with my outdoor in-ground pool with about 30k gallons of water. Usually it's very blue and clear looking, but sometimes it turns a little cloudy after raining. I could see the bottom but its not clear. Generally, the cloudiness cure itself after two three days of filtering. I keep my pump on 24/7 as I'm advise that If I don't run it 24/7 I may have to pay for chemicals down the road and chemicals are not cheap.

My question is: do I have to shock the pool whenever I see cloudiness? or should I let it clear out by itself? Can I enter the pool when its cloudy? Under what conditions will I have to manually shock the pool?

Thank you!
Click to expand...

Good for you taking control of your pool. The proper test kit is gonna save you in the long run-- both ?? and aggravation??.

The first thing I see, is that with the SWG, you need to raise your CYA up to 60-80 ppm. Check the instructions for your unit, and follow that recommendation. That will allow you to decrease the time it needs to run daily.

What "chemicals" we're you told you would need to pay for if you didn't run your pump 24/7? And who told you that? You said you are a "new owner", but how old is the pool?

The only "chemical" you'll (maybe?) avoid needing by running your system 24/7 is chlorine... But that's not especially expensive...
Electricity usually is, though... :confused:

Nevertheless, a cloudy pool should be shocked-- or rather SLAMmed-- which stands for ShockLevelAndMaintain.

That means you have to take FC to shock value for your CYA (you are there @17) and hold (maintain) it there as consistently as possible, without letting it yo-yo, by testing multiple times a day (the more the better) and adding enough bleach to bring it back above the shock value. You can end the SLAM when your water is clear, and you lose no more than 1ppm FC overnight* and have .5 CC or less.

I usually just leave my SWG going like normal when I've SLAMmed, because I figure it will save me a little on bleach, and act as a cushion maybe, but it's important to turn it off when you get to the point of doing the overnight test.

*overnight= the time between sundown and before the sun hits the pool the next morning.
After sundown (but preferably within an hour or so), add enough bleach/liquid chlorine to get the pool over shock value, allow to circulate for about 30-60 mins then test to get the FC value to start the OCLT {it should still be at or above shock value} ... Before the sun hits the pool in the morning, test again... your goal is to lose 1ppm FC or less and have under .5 ppm CC.

The link to PoolMath the the top of the page will get you to a calculator that will make it easy to know how much of anything to add.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your situation is a little confusing though....:confused:
Is the FC of 17 coming from just running the SWG? Or are you adding additional CL?

If that's the FC being generated by your SWG alone (probably from running 24/7?) then that's why you are seeing things clear with what you are attributing to only filtration. You are in effect continually shocking your pool without even knowing it!

If that's the case, then you have a gem of an SWG! But you are wasting electricity, and diminishing the life of the cell in the process by running it 24/7. And unless you have a multi-speed pump, you are making your utility company very happy indeed.:rolleyes:
 
thanks for the advice, I added another bottle of granular conditioner in the pool thru the skimmer, hopefully it will raise the CYA.

As for the pool itself, its an 10 year old pool that came with the property i bought. the pump is an old unit, and its only got one speed. I had never owned or inherited a pool previously.

I'm not sure why my FC is at 17 either. I shocked the pool hard when I was cleaning the swamp and I added bags and bags of salt (which results in a 3200 salt level). I never turned off the pump ever since and I always keep my SWG on Auto mode with 30% on the dial. I have a clorine puck floater on the pool surface as I was told by the pool store that it's good to keep it there. I myself is very curious of why the FC is keeping at a high level.

As for a SWG, I have a question: if I turn off the pump, do I have to turn off the SWG subsequently? how do the two relate to each other?

Also, if not 24/7, how I should run the pool? I'm now a little scared to turn off the pump cuz it took me months to get the pool clear (I had line leak issue, the swamp, all that shock and readjust, countless hours of running back and forth from pool store, home and work etc etc). I had a pool guy that fixed the line leak issue for me and he cleaned the pool for me. He advised me to keep the pump running 24/7 to avoid the 'chemical' cost. He told me that 'once the pool is clear you want it to be clean forever. You don't want to fight algae every couple of weeks, just keep the pump running 24/7'

Please advise, thanks alot! The electricity bill is not cheap it's eating up my textbook money

thanks so much
 
Usually the SWG should be powered off the same timer as the pump. So both are on or off.

No need to be floating tablets when you have a SWG.

The chlorine is staying high because you are running the SWG non stop and are floating tablets.

You need to pick whose advice you are going to follow.
 
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