Can't figure out my levels at all.

[Helltech]

Hello all, I made a post here a few days ago about the local pool store telling me I needed 105 pounds of Calcium plus.

Well regardless TFP helped me figure out that I only needed 50ppm for my 30,000 gallon vinyl pool. As opposed to the 200-500ppm the store said I needed.

I don’t know much about levels in my pool, we have had the thing for 30 years and for 30 years we never had any problems (has to replace the liner once about 10 years ago), and this year is just giving us grief. So I don’t really know much about how to changed the levels this greatly.

So these were the results the store gave me before I adjusted the water, or tried to at least.

First Test:
6/25:
Test 1: Free Chlorine 0ppm (Low)
Test 2: Total Alkalinity 84.4ppm (Ok)
Test 3: pH 6.8 (Low)
Test 4: Calcium Hardness 0ppm (Low)
Test 5: Cyanuric Acid 52ppm (Ok)

They suggested; shocking the pool, add 2lbs 10oz of pH Plus, add 105lbs of Calcium Plus.

So I shocked the pool more than usual, added the pH Plus, and added 19 pounds of Calcium Plus (which should have brought it up to the 50ppm I wanted).

I did that over the course of two days, and finally yesterday I had it tested again. It should be noted that it did not rain or anything like that over the last few days.

Second Test:
6/29:
Test 1: Total Alkalinity 0ppm (Low)
Test 2: pH 7.2 (Ok)
Test 3: Calcium Hardness 0ppm (Low)
Test 4: Cyanuric Acid 10ppm (Low)
Test 5: Free Chlorine 1.2ppm (Ok)

So notice the tests are out of order. Is that normal? That’s not what I’m really worried about. Why did my Alkalinity drop from 84 to 0ppm and my Cyanuric Acid from 52 to 0ppm? Why did my calcium not raise at all regardless of adding 19 pounds of calcium plus? What’s going on here? I need advice from people that actually know what they are doing. I feel like I’m getting jerked around at the local store. I know I don’t know what I’m doing but they aren’t helpful and won’t explain anything to someone who is truly confused.

I also want to say when I do the test strip myself it looks like my hardness is well over 0ppm, even as much as 200ppm. However I have a hard time seeing these things and can never tell if the colors are right.

EDIT - Oh yeah, I also wanted to add not only do they still suggest I add 105 pounds of Calcium plus, they want me to add 45 pounds of Alkalinity Plus now also. I think tomorrow I'm going to travel into the city and have it tested to see if they are screwing something up in town.

 

[Richard320]

I think I shall bookmark this thread as an example of being Pool Stored

Take the money you saved by not buying 100 pounds of Calcium and spend it at http://tftestkits.net I recommend a speedstir as well.

Nobody will test your pool as carefully as you will, and nobody will care as much about what's being put in the pool as you. As long as you're getting inaccurate tests, you will never, ever add the right amounts of chemicals.

There's just no other way

 

[Helltech]

Thanks, I guess I'll look into buying my own kit. So no real reason for the levels to look the way they do?

 

[Richard320]

It's gotta be testing error. TA doesn't drop to nothing, nor does CYA go down that much, in that short a time.

 

[Helltech]

Jeeze and here I thought I did something extremely wrong this whole time. Thanks for you're help! This is a great forum.

 

[Butterfly]

Like Richard said, those pool store tests are apparently wrong, which is common.

If you really want to take control of your pool, order the test kit!!

Best investment we made in our pool

 

[Patrick_B]

Just more proof they can't be trusted. No way both can be right. Get a test kit, a good one you can trust. It will end your frustration, and give you control.

 

[dmanb2b]

Welcome to TFP

Just to reiterate what was said above a Tf100 from Tftestkits.net will put you back in control of the beast

The PS clerk deserves a . With TA at zero your PH would be below 5

 

[Suziqzer]

Like the others said... get a good test kit and you'll know for sure what's going on. Spend some time here reading pool school and reading the forums and you'll learn a lot.

If you have more questions... people here are quick to help.

 

[Helltech]

Yeah thanks guys! I'm definitely going to order a kit next week. In the meantime I did just get back from the city where they have a real pool store, these tests seem more accurate. Yeah, all of that Calcium I added, I guess was a bad idea and the small in town store was incorrect. Will too much calcium be a bad thing? This is my new test.

TDS: 1000
CYA: 37
pH: 7.2
Tot. Alkalinity: 104
Adj. Alkalinity: 93
Tot. Chlorine: 1.5
Free Chlorine: 1.7
Tot. Hardness: 310 (I wanted it at 50....)
Optimizer +: 15
Copper: 1
Iron: 0

So, my pH is a little low, Adj. Total Alkalinity is a little low, Hardness is high. Copper is high. Everything else looks alright. They said I needed 3qts of Pool Magnet Plus, 15.5 lbs of Balance Pak 100, 0.25 lbs of Lo 'N Slo, Add Sparkle Up, Add 3 Bags of BurnOut3 (I'm not even sure what this is). Then after all that I'm supposed to add 34 lbs of Optimizer Plus and 17 pounds of Lo 'N Slo.

 

[frogabog]

Good Lord...

You didn't buy that stuff did you? No... no of course you didn't. You came back here to give us all a good laugh. Thank you so much!

You're getting nowhere with these pool stores. None of them can be trusted. The results are all over the place.

Test kit ordered yet? Just do that. You'll feel so much better when you are in control of the testing. Promise.

You do need chlorine though. Target for 37ppm CYA is 7ppm CL. Minimum is 3ppm. You have a trace amount of combined chlorine, indicating you could be blooming some algae. Get the pool up to target right away, use the pool calculator set at 40ppm CYA, enter the volume, assume your chlorine is near 0 now after the trip to the city and enter target of 7 (overdoing it by 1ppm today will hurt nothing).

What test kit do you have at home anyway? You can use that tonight to see what the FC level is, then dose back to 7ppm using the calculator. Check in the am, if you lost any chlorine, re-dose to 7ppm. Swim. Check tomorrow night again, and dose back to 7.

You're in better shape than you think, you just need to get the CL in check. And then daily dosing for the rest of the summer. Are you still using pucks/tablets? If so, I'd discontinue them now and just use bleach as the CYA level of 37'ish is just fine. You don't want to raise that much, if at all.

 

[Helltech]

Haha no I didn't buy any of that, not listening to them anymore.

And thanks, I'll cut the picks and use bleach.

 

[Butterfly]

LOL :lol: Yep, what frogabog said

Also, don't worry about the CH until you get your own kit and test it yourself.

Now would be a good time for you to add your pool and equipment specs to your sig.
Go to User Control Panel (top left, below TFP logo), select Profile, then Edit Sig.
This will be very helpful to folks trying to answer your posts.

Just think of all the $ you will save by NOT adding all the pool store 'stuff' that messes up your chemistry and causes you to spend more $ trying to fix.
Not to mention, your time, energy & gas expense! :-D