First Pool and Glad I found You

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"yet"??????????????? what kind of talk is THAT??? Are you planning something just to see if we can help you fix it???????

John, doc just lost a point on his star! I hope he can earn it back LOL

Oh! I KNOW how he can earn it back! Become a supporting member of TFP so we can still be online IF he does have a problem!

doc look up at the top left. See the oval that says "support TFP"? Being a supporting member has many advantages for you-tax deduction, more photo storage (hint, hint We LOVE pics of pretty pools!), discounts of testing stuff and with inyopool.com. It helps us keep the lights on to help you and others when they need us. BUT no pressure as we all are volunteers that do this so everyone that finds us can have a Trouble Free Pool!

:kim:
 
So we swam a bit in the pool after work, about 2 hours. It was an overcast day with a little rain on and off. While we swam, I also turned on the hose to try to replenish a lot of the evaporated water. The pool registered a loss of 4ppm of chlorine (went from 12ppm to 8ppm). I had accidently set the FC at 12ppm instead of 10ppm last night when I discovered that the second batch of chlorine that I had got from the Pool Store (that I am trying to get rid of since the first batch was so weak) actually registered around 10% Chlorine this time. It is a hit-or-miss with those guys!

Anyway, it appears that the amount of 10% chlorine I need to add each day on average to keep my pool at a constant range seems to be 2 quarts. This is perfect since the measuring cup I purchased from Amazon to add my chemicals is exactly 2 quarts. If the average loss of chlorine continues, it will be very easy for my wife to keep up with the pool by just adding a measuring cup of Chlorine each night. Fingers are crossed!

pH is far from steady seeming to creep up 0.1 each day. I am not going to ask her to mess with the MA, so I will be lowering the pH to around 7.3. Even if it continues its creep up, it will still be just under 8.0 when I return and will be able to bring it down at that time fairly easily.

Still watching the trends and yacking away ....
 
Good plan :)

An option is to call it "half-a-jug" and just float the jug on the water and tip so it pours a pencil thickness stream in front of a return jet. Might take 30 seconds to a minute to pour that much. Next night, use up whatever is left in the jug. Easy-peasy no splashes. Just my two cents. If the upcoming dates are written on the jugs, there's no stress if you happen to forget whether you already added the chlorine or not.
 
I thought I would check in and give you my current numbers. I did have a couple good surprises and one strange observation.

FC = 8 <-- raise it to 10 every night and it seems to go down to 6.5 by the end of the day
CC = 0.5 <-- This seems to be constant
CYA = 80 <-- This went down 10ppm from last week. I am 90% sure that this value is correct since I tested with a known 50ppm solution perfectly so my technique is good.
pH = 8.0 <-- This was a surprise, since yesterday's reading was 7.6. I found that checking this in the daylight is much more accurate.
TA = 120 <-- Value is down from 130. This was a good thing
CH = 300 <-- This was the bad surprise. With only chlorine and Muriatic acid being added per week, this does not make sense to be going up.
Temp = 93 degrees


  1. I will be upping the FC to 12 tonight to prepare for the wife. Approximately 80 oz a day to maintain
  2. I added 64 oz of MA to lower pH to 7.2. Even if it went up 0.1 per day, it will be fine for 5 days while I am gone.
  3. The reset will be left as is.

I will be traveling for 5 days and my wife will be maintaining pool. I think she will be fine adding a half a gallon of Chlorine a day.
 
It would be best to lower pH to 7.2 before you go if it rises over time and your wife isn't going to be testing/adjusting for it. 8.0 is venturing into "bad".

Don't worry about CH in an above ground pool, unless it's crazy high.
 
mr bruce, that was exactly what I did with the pH.

Kim, I placed one of my old shirts at the door for her to throw on.
 

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Ok back from a short TDY and checked the pool. The wife did better than me at keeping up the pool. She added about 3 quarts a day of bleach and when I tested it I got the following results:

FC = 8
CC = 0
pH = 7.4
TA = 100

CYA and CH not tested. Waiting to test CYA when I can do it in the morning light. Last test showed CYA = 80.

Very proud of how good she took care of the pool. She even drained the pool some when we had torrential rain so that the skimmer could work. Everything looked great.
 
Weekly update after brushing pool last night:

FC - 10.5
CC - 0.0
CYA - 60 <-- Woot! Woot! ... Thank you so much rain!
pH - 7.6
TA - 100
CH - 270 <-- Interesting since it went from pink to clear during the test. No blue this time. Counts for me!
Temp - 86
CSI = 0.12

I am very happy with the above results. This means that my new FC levels are minimum 5 and Target 9. If I can get my pH more stable, (i.e., find the right TA), I will be golden.

Thanks again for the support. Things are looking good in Florida. :cool:
 
Good to hear that all is going well.

There's two things you can try in the CH test to get the test to work properly.

One is to add 5 drops of R-0012 before adding the R-0010 and R-0011L. Those 5 drops need to be remembered and considered to be part of the total drops of titrant.

If that doesn't do anything, try adding 8 drops of R-0011L Indicator instead of 5.

Neither of these are urgent, but just something to try when you next decide to test CH.

All the best and happy swimming!
 
So I thought I would just check in and give everyone a brief update.

P.S. I know that this is not that exciting for most, but being new at this, I still get a kick out of the testing part. :p

FC - 6
CC - 0.0
CYA - 70 <-- /shrug.. No idea why it is higher. Maybe lower water level in pool making concentration higher?
pH - 7.6 <-- Totally stable here. However I went ahead and lowered it to 7.2 to bring down the increase in TA
TA - 110 <-- using the same philosophy here as with the CYA
CH - 230 <-- Um... ignore the philosophy given above for this one? LOL...
Temp - 86
CSI = 0.06

But just as a notation, the pool has had a very stable pH. Water is blue and crystal clear. Water coming out of fountain looks like it was dyed blue it is so pristine. Chlorine addition has been approximately 1/2 gallon per night (except when I added algaecide to get rid of the bottle. That's another story!). CYA started at 90 (25 July) and has crept down to 70 (12 August) just from washout from all the rain. Still shooting for CYA = 50 (looks like about the time I close the pool).

I know you guys can't wait until the next update! ;)
 

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