San Diego Pool Build -- Startup... Here we go! Bicarb?

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maxjar10

0
Feb 25, 2016
28
Carlsbad, CA
Alright, inspection passed this morning so we are ready for plaster tomorrow. My wife and I elected to do Quartzscapes in French Gray because we thought it was much smoother than the mini pebble Stonescapes.

The TF100 arrives today as well as a PH meter. Now the big question is to bicarb or not.

A few questions after reading the "Bicarb startup"


  1. TF 100 does not have and Acid Demand test. Still OK?
  2. How important is the waiting for 6 hours to fill? Super important?
  3. It's supposed to be HOT tomorrow (~80 degrees) in San Diego am I still ok?
  4. How often am I supposed to be checking the levels during the fill?
  5. After fill the chemicals needed are: Acid to bring the PH down, Calcium Chloride, CYA, Dichlor tablets using the PoolMath calculator. All of these get added at once to bring it to target maintenance and then keep watching it every day and adjusting, correct? Should I just have a pool maint guy take over at this point?
  6. Won't adding acid to bring it down to 7.7/7.9 cause the Alkalinity to drop too fast? I know it's supposed to be a moderate drop over time.

My plan would be to use a 50 gallon trash can from Home Depot and outfit it with the appropriate stubs for the hoses with JB Water weld (this was also mentioned in another post). Going to have to find a source for the bicarb (Walmart is my best guess since Home Depot doesn't seem to carry it).

Overall, I'm mainly concerned with not screwing anything up since my significant other will not be too happy if something goes wrong... :)

Finally, how long before we can swim. Yes, I know it's recommended to not get in it too early but my wife really wants to be in before the 4th and hopefully sooner. Doesn't bicarb let you get in quicker?

Thanks everyone!


8800g IG pool/spa, Pentair IC20, Pentair Intelliflo VS, Pentair Whisperflo (Spa), Mastertemp 400k BTU NG, Pentair Load Center with i7 Personality Kit, Solar Pool Heater, Intellibrite 5g pool/spa, SpaCommand, Waterfall port, Two Firebowls
 
Last edited:
  1. It's supposed to be HOT tomorrow (~80 degrees) in San Diego am I still ok?
Click to expand...

I'm sitting in Dallas and it's 95 right now, 80 with low to no humidity I would think you'd be ok.

I lived in Scripps Ranch and then up in Temecula, so I am teasing you about the 80 being HOT! :)

I was out there over memorial day, my daughter just finished her freshman year at The University of San Diego and I had forgotten how great the weather near the harbor can be. I think it was 65 every day.

Good luck on the pool!
 
Yes we LOVE San Diego weather. I grew up in OC and San Diego is a little bit cooler but it's a nice change.

My TF100 arrived and my current measurements are:


FC: 1.0
CC: 1.0
PH: 7.0
TA: 100
CH: 150

So (8800 / 71425) * 250 = 31lbs of Baking Soda to add to the pool for fill.
 
Ok, I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow (my phone storage was full).

Parts List
I successfully made the delivery barrel out of the following:



In addition to the above I also picked up from HD:



Note that the above ASSUMES you have a supply hose already.

For Testing:

I haven't decided yet whether I will have a pool guy do the rest of the startup but I bought the Muriatic acid just in case my PH went crazy and I needed to bring it down. Otherwise I'll probably need to go get:



Baking Soda


  • I literally cleaned out Walmart's stock of 4lb bags of Baking Soda (8 of them is 32lbs)

Construction
For the barrel construction I simply drilled the holes with my hole saw and then used the JB WaterWeld on the fittings (as another poster did). I only bought one of the JB products and in retrospect I felt like I had to be extremely careful because after using it on both the inside AND outside of the fittings it was ALL gone. If you didn't do the inside and the outside it wouldn't have been so bad but I was being overly cautious.

After 1.5 hour of cure time on the WaterWeld I tested the barrel and it worked great (no leaks). The remnant hoses had some pinches/kinks that I had to "counter-pinch" to open up a bit more but the flow worked. BTW, to test I just set it at the top of my driveway and stretched the hoses down to the street.

So tomorrow I'll ask the plaster guys NOT to fill the pool immediately and we'll give it 6 hours before using my barrel. I'm also going to go out and read my meter pre the fill to get an idea of gallonage.

I'll post an update then.
 
IMG_1349.jpg
Pool with net on before plaster.

IMG_1350.jpg
Barrel with fittings installed.

IMG_1351.jpg
Inside view. I used the JB Weld on the inside first then did the outside. Doing both sides may be unnecessary but I didn't want a leak and thought this might work the best.

IMG_1353.jpg
Water meter check. This is pre-fill for the day. I'll check it again right before the fill. Once the pool is filled I'll have some idea of the *REAL* volume of the pool.
 
maxjar10 said:
  1. TF 100 does not have and Acid Demand test. Still OK?
  2. How important is the waiting for 6 hours to fill? Super important?
  3. It's supposed to be HOT tomorrow (~80 degrees) in San Diego am I still ok?
  4. How often am I supposed to be checking the levels during the fill?
  5. After fill the chemicals needed are: Acid to bring the PH down, Calcium Chloride, CYA, Dichlor tablets using the PoolMath calculator. All of these get added at once to bring it to target maintenance and then keep watching it every day and adjusting, correct? Should I just have a pool maint guy take over at this point?
  6. Won't adding acid to bring it down to 7.7/7.9 cause the Alkalinity to drop too fast? I know it's supposed to be a moderate drop over time.

My plan would be to use a 50 gallon trash can from Home Depot and outfit it with the appropriate stubs for the hoses with JB Water weld (this was also mentioned in another post). Going to have to find a source for the bicarb (Walmart is my best guess since Home Depot doesn't seem to carry it).

Overall, I'm mainly concerned with not screwing anything up since my significant other will not be too happy if something goes wrong... :)

Finally, how long before we can swim. Yes, I know it's recommended to not get in it too early but my wife really wants to be in before the 4th and hopefully sooner. Doesn't bicarb let you get in quicker?
Click to expand...

1.) No issue, Pool Math works out these details for you. I'd really suggest take a reading on the water meter so you know nearly the exact gallonage of the pool.

2.) Wait at least 4 hours. Doesn't QuartzScapes get acid washed the following day? If so, you'll have waited over 24 hours...

3.) I wouldn't want it much hotter than 80. You should be fine.

4.) The more often, the better. Shoot for every 2-3 hours

5.) The pH should be maintained between 7.8 and 8. Keeping it on the higher end of the scale limits the acid needed and helps to slow the pH rise from the TA being so high. I prefer trichlor over dichlor. Are you not planning to maintain the pool afterward?

Here is some LENGTHY reading on the process.... Getting ready for O/B Bicarb Startup. You can see from that thread that my process is a little different from Kim's (OnBalance).

DO NOT ADD ANY CALCIUM CHLORIDE
 
OK, so my PH from the fill tank is 8.1 and the PH from the pool is about 8.44. Anything to be concerned with?

PH: 8.44
FC: 1.0
CC: 1.0
TA: 320
CH: 125

My Quartzscapes was installed and hard troweled but I can see very little aggregate. The plasterer said they would do an acid bath to expose more aggregate but this would obviously have some consequences defeating the bicarb startup a bit. I would *PREFER* to really brush and see how well that brings out the aggregate before doing the bath.
 
Brushing will do little good. If they are going to do an acid bath then abandon the bicarb startup. The two processes conflict one another very much and I never would have recommended the bicarb process had I known this was the plasterers intention. It's going to take double the acid to drop the pH.

Maintain a pH of 7.6 to 7.8 and call the rest good until they drop the pH. We will be here to help balance it afterward.
 
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