Trying to start BBB...please help

[bryanw9]

I have recently drained my vinyl liner pool to the 50% level and refilled with new water twice in the last 2 days. I started with a CH of way over 1000. I have basically replaced 75-80% of my water. It is now filled and I was hoping to start shocking for the next few days. Here are my results using Tf-100 kit:

Ph. 7.5
Alk 70
FC .5
CC 1.5
TC 2.0
CH 450
cYa below 20 ( would say 0-10)

My questions are:

can I proceed with the CH where it is? I really don't want to spend another $400 on water if I can avoid it.

Should I leave the total Alk where it is or raise it?

Thanks

 

[JasonLion]

TA is fine where it is for now. If your CH goes up more, which seems likely, you may well want to lower TA further, but for now it is fine where it is.

You should test your fill water CH level, to see how big a CH issue you have. I suspect your fill water CH level is over 200, in which case you have little choice but to put up with relatively high CH levels. If fill water CH is actually low, then you have more choices.

The key to managing higher CH levels is to keep the PH from ever getting too high. Make sure you keep PH below 7.9 for now. You will need to aim for lower PH levels if CH levels go up again.

 

[benavidescj]

I thought CH was not a concern with vinyl liners?

 

[bryanw9]

Thank you for all of your replies Jason!

The fill water measured CH of 100.

Maybe with gradual refills throughout the summer the CH will drop? I had been using sustain products for a few years and they are a cal-hypo product. They also had me add a ton of the cal-hypo shock to try and clear up the cloudiness issue that had that got me to this point. I am not going to be using the sustain anymore so maybe the hardness will resolve itself.

I my plan is to start the shocking process now as well as adding the required stabilizer to get me to cya of 30.

 

[bryanw9]

Carlos,

I am new here... but I believe that the excessive CH that I had (300 recommended and I was like 1400) was the contributing factor to the cloudiness issue that I had. The water would just not clear up no matter what did, even though all my other numbers were perfect.

I'm sure somebody can correct me if I am mistaken but I hope not, since that is why I drained my pool

 

[duraleigh]

Bryan,

You hit the nail on the head. Excessive CH is a common cause of cloudiness. The water gets saturated and precipitates calcium.

Carlos,

Too little CH is not good for a plaster pool. (It will actually "steal" the calcium from the plaster) It does not matter in a vinyl pool.

Too much CH is not good for either type pool and frequently results in the issues Bryan is having.

 

[benavidescj]

Ah, thanks for the explanation. Still learning here...