New Pool, New Plaster, New-bie, oh my..

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Oct 3, 2011
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Hello people, this is my first post to TFP.com, but already I've learned so much. This is a great resource! I'm very excited to be wrapping up my pool construction project. The plaster crew is coming in tomorrow to apply diamond brite super blue plaster so I should be ready to begin filling the pool tomorrow afternoon.

I've looked at some of the stickies and I guess you will probably need this info:

1) The size of your pool in gallons
Unknown, will have a meter on the hose to get an exact count. Around 20k estimate.
2) The type filter you have (sand, DE, cartridge)
Cartridge Filter by Hayward
3) If your pool is an AG (above ground) or IG (in ground)
IG
4) If it's IG, tell us if it's vinyl, plaster/pebble, or fiberglass
Plaster.
5) If you know, tell us the size pump and the size (flow rate) of your filter.
I bought the EcoStar pump from hayward. Variable speed connected to a hayward aqua plus controller. It should report flow rate, salinity and control chlorination as well via the SWG.


So, with that out of the way, I want to make sure I do everything right from fillup to swim. There is so much chemistry, and I have bought no chemicals or kits yet, but will swing by a pool store tomorrow hopefully with information from this thread in tow.

What I need help with is what to do to properly balance my water from a fresh fill from the hose. I will have new plaster, so I've been told I shouldn't introduce Salt into the pool for 30 days or so. SO, I imagine for the first month i will just manually chlorinate. But to do so, I think I'll need a fair amount of chemicals. Then I'll want to convert to SWG, so I'm not sure of the process there.. You can see I'm a bit in the dark about best practices!

If you had new plaster, is it best to just use liquid bleach to chlorinate for the first month? Keep in mind I have no idea how hard my water is from the hose yet. I imagine the easiest way to do this would be a few pucks of some chlorine, but I know those add hardness I can't get rid of, so I'm not sure if that's the route to take.

Thanks for any help! I want to make sure I don't add any more than the minimum amount of chemicals to get this pool started out right.

-steve
 
First, if you haven't already, get a good test kit. Next I'd test my fill water to see what my baseline is, especially for ph, alkalinity and hardness.
 
Thanks guam and msg... I will go buy a kit from a store today and do some hardness testing on my tap water. I live in Texas, so I think I'm going to have pretty hard water. I'll post those results this afternoon.

I've read every article in the pool school page. I love it! Very educational and good work there. I just have some animosity when taking book knowledge and applying it in the real world. I think what I have to measure first from the fill water is PH and Calcium Hardness. This will let me know what buffers I may need to add to control Ph. From there, I should be able to add the right amount of liquid chlorine. I just don't want to waste money and find out a puck would have been a better way to go than say X gallons of bleach.
 
The first 30 days after plaster is applied are special. You don't really follow the usual rules during fresh plaster startup. There are a couple of different ways a new plaster startup can go, but in all cases it is best to start with trichlor for the first two or three weeks and you need to keep an eye on the PH, while will tend to go up rapidy and needs to be kept at 8.0 or lower, which often requires daily acid additions. One good source of information is the National Plasterer's Council startup card. However, listen closely to what the plaster people or builder has to say, as there are some things they might do that can somewhat change what you need to do during the first few days.
 
What does this mean? (from npconline)

Although optional, it is highly recommended to pre-dilute and add a quality sequestering agent using the recommended initial start-up
dosage and then the recommended maintenance dosage per the sequestering agent’s manufacturer

Thanks.
 
Also, if I go to leslie's and buy some trichlor, can anyone give me some insight on about how much I may need? I'm sure I can measure the chlorine level by hand, but is putting a puck in a sock in the skimmer pretty much the way to go? Or two pucks? Do you remove the pucks after a certain FC level is measured? Will the calcium that the trichlor adds for the 30 days that I use the pucks something I need to worry about? Or am I over concerned with that aspect of things?

So far, I have a few gallons of Meuriatic acid on hand to control Ph, which I've been primed to expect will want to go high. With that, I will use the trichlor pucks to add chlorine. And I think that should be all the chemicals I need for the first 30 days of plaster break in. I'm not thinking I need to worry about lowering Ph during this time.
 
it is highly recommended to pre-dilute and add a quality sequestering agent
Click to expand...
Sequestrants are used to prevent metal staining if you have metal in your fill water. If you do not have metals, they are worthless. I strongly suggest you obtain a test kit that will allow you to test your fill water in advance so you will understand how to adjust it once it is in your pool.

Doing your own testing is by far the smartest thing but, you can take a sample to a pool store and at least get an indicator of the presence of iron. If your iron test is negative, you won't need sequestrants.

What is the source of your fill water?

Sanitizing with bleach is far easier than using tri-chlor pucks. pucks will give you nowhere near the amount of CYA you will eventually need and the release is too slow for FC. Bleach is quicker, more accurate and only slightly less convenient.

I'm not thinking I need to worry about lowering Ph during this time.
Click to expand...
Actually, you will need to lower the pH frequently. That's what the muriatic acid is for.

Post back your questions....lot's of folks here will help you. :lol:
 
My fill water is from the tap, and I have a test kit. From Leslie's. It's the delux poolcare DPD test.. Doesn't test hardness, but tests FC and TC, PH, Acid Demand and Total Alcalinity. I'm not sure if any of those will be the test for iron which would mandate sequestriants, but I can ask the pool store guy as well to test his tap water and let me know of any special requirements. His store is only about 2 miles away from me, so I'm sure we share the same municipal water supply.

I think I'll buy some dichlor tabs for quicker chlorination while starting up. A week or so in I will probably have the confidence to start to do it the better way with liquid bleach. But I know I'm not going to do it right the first time, so the tabs seem like a better way to get a newbie into clean water. They include stabilizer and calcium which with my new plaster, I'm thinking I need to add some to the water anyway. I don't want the fresh water leaching the calcium out of the new plaster because it doesn't have enough.

Oh Yeah.. And I meant to lower my Ph.. :) I'm still getting used to the lower number = more acidic. My brain wants to think the other way.
 
I would still suggest bleach rather than tri-chlor tabs. They will not give you ANY appreciable CYA and very little chlorine. You seem to be set on doing so so that's certainly your call.

Very few municipal water sources have any appreciable iron content so you should be in good shape and not require sequestrant.
 

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