First Year of TFPC

[rjbergen]

Good morning everyone, I'm Bob from Warren, MI (sits on Detroit's northern city limit). I have a 21' round, 4' deep above ground pool with a small deck on one side. I bought this home on May 15th, 2015 and this is the first time I've owned a pool. Last year, I opened it with help from the prior owners in mid-July because I was busy remodeling the house prior to moving in. It had a lot of debris on the bottom and was green when we pulled the cover. It cleaned up well, but I never took true control of the water because I was only using test strips. It greened back up twice during the 2.5 months we had it open.

Last winter, when we closed it, we vacuumed it, scrubbed the walls, shocked it, and ran the filter for 24 hours before we drained it about halfway and put the new winter cover on. I also added a leaf net over the winter cover and that worked really well to prevent the rotten soup of leaves when we opened it this spring.

We opened it last Saturday, May 28th, 2016. The water was almost crystal clear with very little debris on the bottom. I filled it with tap water, put on the new 16 mil clear solar cover, added two 3" trichlor tabs to the floating chlorinator, and started the filter for 36 hours while I began to test the water with my TF-100 kit with Speedstir and balance chemicals. My first test results were:

FC: 0
CC: 0
TC: 0
PH: 6.9
TA: 80
CH: 125
CYA: 0 (black dot perfectly clear with view tube overflowing the top)

Based on those results, I added 80 oz. by weight of 20 Mule Team borax, 3 lbs. CYA in a sock in the skimmer basket, and 3 gallons of 10% bleach left over from last season. When I tested last night, my results were:

FC: 1
CC: 0.5
TC: 1.5
PH: 7.2
TA: 100
CH: 125
CYA: 25

I added about 25-30 oz. of 10% bleach and let the filter run for 30 minutes before retesting and finding an FC of 3.

My plan for this season is to use liquid bleach. Right now, Meijer has 10% bleach on sale for $9.99/4 gallons, but when that ends and it goes back to $12.99, I will be buying the pool store's 12.5% bleach for $12.99/4 gallons. I will retest tonight and adjust further as needed to reach my goals of:

FC: 5
CC: 0
TC: 5
PH: 7.6
TA: 100
CH: 125
CYA: 40

How am I doing so far? Is there anything I'm missing that I should be doing? What would be considered a normal daily drop in FC between doses of bleach? Thanks!

 

[triptyx]

If you're adding stabilizer separately, I'd go ahead and ditch the pucks and start only using bleach to chlorinate. CYA is a number you don't want to overshoot.

 

[rjbergen]

If you're adding stabilizer separately, I'd go ahead and ditch the pucks and start only using bleach to chlorinate. CYA is a number you don't want to overshoot.

I'm planning to. Those were mainly added because I had 0 CYA and wanted to try to keep a slow trickle of chlorine going until I could get it under control. Those 2 pucks will be the only ones the pool sees this season.

 

[triptyx]

Awesome! I inherited a CYA mess that forced a nearly complete drain so I'm sensitive to people who are potentially risking their CYA ratios.

As for your chlorine plans, they sound spot on. Shop around for the best price and don't forget to check the Julian dates on the bottles if you find a good deal to make sure it's not last year's bleach (now called "water").

 

[rjbergen]

Awesome! I inherited a CYA mess that forced a nearly complete drain so I'm sensitive to people who are potentially risking their CYA ratios.

As for your chlorine plans, they sound spot on. Shop around for the best price and don't forget to check the Julian dates on the bottles if you find a good deal to make sure it's not last year's bleach (now called "water").

Luckily, living on the Great Lakes means cheap water. I pay $7.18/1,000 gallons for tap water. Refilling my entire 10,500 gallon pool would cost about $75. In any case, I'm not adding any more CYA until it's been at least a week since the first dose and I test to see where it's leveled out at. I am beginning to question my volume though because my pool didn't react to the 81 oz. of borax like I thought it would. Maybe I'm deeper than 4' in the middle, I'll have to measure. Is there any reason my PH would take more than a day to level out after adding the borax? If not, I only got about half the PH rise I was expecting based on Pool Math.

The bleach I added at first was 3 full gallons, but it was a bottled-on date of May 2015 and had been sitting in a deck box all summer and winter. I'm sure there was hardly any chlorine left in it. My new batch of bleach for $9.99/4 gallons has a bottled-on date of May 15th, 2016.

Any idea of how many ppm of FC I should expect to lose in a typical day? I seem to remember hearing that about 3 ppm loss is a guesstimate and nothing to be concerned about.

 

[triptyx]

The challenge with draining a vinyl pool is that you risk the liner if you drain below 1 foot in the shallow end. Draining is a pain, and there's lots of rebalancing and chemicals you need to readd after doing so to bring your pool into balance. If you can avoid it, it's a good thing.

I believe 2-3ppm of loss per day is "normal", though it entirely depends on your CYA levels and how "strong" the sun's rays are, how much shade the pool gets throughout the day, etc. Obviously, my living in a very sunny environment at a lower latitude with very little shade on the pool will create a different daily "burn" rate compared to your pool up in Michigan.

Someone in a nearby area can likely give you a better idea.

 

[rjbergen]

I wasn't home until about 10PM tonight, but I tested my water with the OTO and pH tests and came up with:

FC = 0
pH = 7.2

I added roughly 96 oz. of 10% bleach and 24 oz. by weight of borax, and then waited 30 minutes while the filter ran.

I retested with the TF-100 and came up with:

FC: 7
CC: 1
TC: 8
pH: 7.2
TA: 110
CH: 125
CYA: 30

I'm planning to check chlorine in the morning for the OCLT. Tomorrow or Friday I'll add more Borax if my pH is still low.

 

[rjbergen]

I checked the chlorine this morning to find that I only had 0.5 FC. So I've failed the OCLT. I brought it up to an FC of 12 this morning to correspond with the recommended shock level for my CYA of 30. I will check again tonight when I am home.

I also plan to vacuum the floor and sweep the walls tonight to clean it out since we didn't do that after pulling the winter cover because it looked quite clean.

 

[Davejavu]

Hi from a fellow Michigander. I'm an hour drive from you (Milford) and am currently loosing 2.8 ppm FC each day with CYA=30 and absolutely no shade. It looks like you are keeping to the plan. Just a reminder, SLAM is recommended if your FC ever gets to 0.

 

[brownhound]

Another Michigander chiming in (it's a party now!) - I'm around 30 CYA (after having to drain 4 ft. last year due to high CYA that I inherited) and losing about the same amount of FC each day as well. Very little shade on my pool also. I started TFP method last year. This year it is C-R-Y-S-T-A-L!

 

[rjbergen]

I measured chlorine after work today with the K-1000 part of the TF-100. FC had dropped from 12 this morning to somewhere between the 0.5-1 and 1-2 shades of yellow. I added 10% bleach to bring it up to an FC of 9 according to the FAS-DPD test. Later this evening, I added additional 12.5% bleach to reach an FC of 16.5 to continue the SLAM. My CC is still at 0.5. I'll retest FC again in the morning.

Stats going into another OCLT:
FC: 16.5
CC: 0.5
CYA: 30
pH: 7.2

I didnt have have a chance to vacuum the floor and scrub the walls today, so I'll do that tomorrow. I'm sort of at a loss of what's using all of my chlorine as my water is crystal clear and there's barely any debris on the floors or walls. I'm hoping it due to me not vacuuming and scrubbing yet since opening last Saturday.

 

[rjbergen]

I appear to have failed another OCLT.

Last st night after dark:
FC: 16.5
CC: 0.5

This morning at 7AM, no direct sun yet:
FC: 11.5
CC: 0.5

I'll be vacuuming and scrubbing today to hopefully help clear up whatever's happening.

 

[Davejavu]

You are doing it right. CC should go down after the SLAM.

 

[rjbergen]

Had an interesting thing happen this morning. I didn't do an OCLT, but when I ran an FAS-DPD test this morning, my FC had gone up from 16 to 17.5. I'm wondering if my heaping scoop of powder wasn't enough last night.

In any case, my water is clear, my CC is 0, and my chlorine appears to have been stable over night. I'll perform and OCLT over night tonight, but I think my SLAM may be finished.

 

[rjbergen]

I performed an OCLT overnight, and have finally completed my SLAM. My results this morning were:

FC: 8
CC: 0.5

I lost 0.5 FC overnight. Now I'll see how much FC I burn off in the sun today.