I am a new pool owner and beginning to wish I never started reading the internet on this stuff and just listen to the pool store guys because (at least for now) I would be much calmer. I just bought a house in October of last year and immediately closed the pool (in PA) so have never even been in it yet. I opened it over the weekend and water was in pretty decent shape (I put in algaecide when I closed it and have a safety cover).
When I opened it I dropped in a full 5 gallon jug of pool store liquid chlorine plus 2 bags of shock powder because I assumed the CYA was high and probably needed a little more. I coated my filter with D.E. and ran it for 3 days straight. I did 2 backwashes and re-coats in that time because my pressure went up the 8-10 lbs. I seem to be holding pretty stable now so I tested my water at the pool store. I used some strips a couple days ago just to get a rough sense and things looked in order so I felt ok waiting for stuff to settle out. ... Yes, I know you guys say pool store testers suck and strips aren't accurate. My K2006 test kit is on order.
Anyway, my water is very clear and I'm pretty happy with how the pool looks in general. And if it weren't for reading this forum, I would probably just be listening to my pool store guys and throwing pucks in my chlorinator and going on with my life and being happy. However, according to this forum I need to be very concerned and I'm going out of my mind...
My test results from the pool store indicate: FC-5, CYA-100, TA-80, pH-7.2, CH-200 and their words to me were, "Everything is great except your FC is a little high." Now this forum tells me my CYA is double the acceptable range and ALL of my values are too low. And the calculator tells me my plaster may be being corroded (at least without the salt and borate numbers in there). And while my water looks crystal clear now, I understand that if I continue to use pucks (trichlor) and keep my target FC at 1-4 then eventually I'll run into problems.
If I understand my reading correctly, what I need to do is drain 60% of my water to get my CYA levels down... 30,000 * 60% = about $1,000 in water which will be ridiculous to replace. It would take 4 truckloads (4,500gal each) of water and god knows how long for a garden house. And then I need to return the pucks I bought, start sourcing liquid bleach from somewhere, and start testing my water every day and measuring out exactly how much bleach every day.
Is this accurate?
When I opened it I dropped in a full 5 gallon jug of pool store liquid chlorine plus 2 bags of shock powder because I assumed the CYA was high and probably needed a little more. I coated my filter with D.E. and ran it for 3 days straight. I did 2 backwashes and re-coats in that time because my pressure went up the 8-10 lbs. I seem to be holding pretty stable now so I tested my water at the pool store. I used some strips a couple days ago just to get a rough sense and things looked in order so I felt ok waiting for stuff to settle out. ... Yes, I know you guys say pool store testers suck and strips aren't accurate. My K2006 test kit is on order.
Anyway, my water is very clear and I'm pretty happy with how the pool looks in general. And if it weren't for reading this forum, I would probably just be listening to my pool store guys and throwing pucks in my chlorinator and going on with my life and being happy. However, according to this forum I need to be very concerned and I'm going out of my mind...
My test results from the pool store indicate: FC-5, CYA-100, TA-80, pH-7.2, CH-200 and their words to me were, "Everything is great except your FC is a little high." Now this forum tells me my CYA is double the acceptable range and ALL of my values are too low. And the calculator tells me my plaster may be being corroded (at least without the salt and borate numbers in there). And while my water looks crystal clear now, I understand that if I continue to use pucks (trichlor) and keep my target FC at 1-4 then eventually I'll run into problems.
If I understand my reading correctly, what I need to do is drain 60% of my water to get my CYA levels down... 30,000 * 60% = about $1,000 in water which will be ridiculous to replace. It would take 4 truckloads (4,500gal each) of water and god knows how long for a garden house. And then I need to return the pucks I bought, start sourcing liquid bleach from somewhere, and start testing my water every day and measuring out exactly how much bleach every day.
Is this accurate?