Hi all, another convert to the BBB process here. So much good information and so far all questions have been answered with a search in forums.
Bought house year and half ago that had a pool. Since was first pool for me, had a service last year (and very end of prior year when bought house). Anyway, during last year I had a couple outbreaks of cloudy water and never really felt that the pool service was doing squat for me ("keep running the pump and backwash"). Missed a few good swimming days due to that. They closed the pool mid October and since I had started reading this site I had bought the k2006 kit and tested the water at closing.
Closing
FC/CC Didn't write down since I thought they were meaningless over winter.
PH 7.2
TA 220
CH 180
CYA Way over 100, would not be suprised if it was higher than 200 or 300. It took very little to hide the dot.
So, starting this year I decided to handle this myself and began education on this site. Opening was a breeze, except for a leaking fitting, but hey, that was easy to replace. When I tested the water it was early April and in the 60's already. The PH was over 8.2, the TA was so high i got as high as 60 drops with no change, the CH was 110 and the cya was a shocking zero.
That test just killed me. To make matters worse, there was stuff on the bottom of the pool that I thought was dead algea untill I stirred it up. From other posts I have read about it, it was scaling. Floating flakes, would break up in my hand etc. Really regret not taking a picture of it. The pool cleaner sucked up a good two pounds of it. Thought it might have been sand, but it would just disintegrate in my hand when I grabbed a pinch and dissolved in the bucket when rain filled it. Very weird. Don't want that again.
Anyway, numbers scared me so went to pool store and they had the same ph, cya and had no idea where the ta was. They recommended a partial drain. I figured there was enough wrong here, that doing a partial drain was going to be best in the long run. Spent the weekend draining and refilling and got to the point where my numbers were PH over 8.2 still, TA down to 280, CH 110 still and cya reading 0.
This made the hand reach to the top and scratch, so I tested the fill water.
Fill
PH 8.2 (multiple tests by me and pool store)
TA 80
CH 100
Decided at this point in time best thing to do was hit it with acid to drop the ph and ta before doing anything else. So spent time with acid until got ph to about 7.4 and TA about 220. I then did liquid stabilizer (yes, probably should have done the cheaper solid route) and started using the rest of my dichlor (just love shooting myself in the foot) to get the chlorine up. (Have since stopped using it)
Long story short, I paused. Spend the next couple days doing just acid and ordering fas-dpd kit. (Did I mention I hate that the kits have .75 oz of the one you use a couple drops of and then .75 oz of the reagent you use 40 drops of?) Needless to say, my over testing of fc ate up my r-0871. More on the way.
So here I am now with the numbers below, thinking that I have a plan. Still more acid to get the TA down to 90. No more stabilized chlorine. Leaving CH at 160 since vinyl pool. When I get my reagent refill, I shock. Was stupid of me to start that when the bottle was low, now have to start over. On the bright side, the water is very clear now and the brushing got all the scaling off the sides and bottom. Was able to swim around in it a day last week feeling all the walls.
Current
FC/CC over 5 (was 21/2 three days ago on my last reagent test)
PH 7.2
TA 180
CH 160
CYA 60
Salt No idea, dont have test for it.
As for bleach, using the germicidal 182oz clorox that I can get at menards, home depot and lowes.
Thanks for taking the time to read my rant and love the info here.
Bought house year and half ago that had a pool. Since was first pool for me, had a service last year (and very end of prior year when bought house). Anyway, during last year I had a couple outbreaks of cloudy water and never really felt that the pool service was doing squat for me ("keep running the pump and backwash"). Missed a few good swimming days due to that. They closed the pool mid October and since I had started reading this site I had bought the k2006 kit and tested the water at closing.
Closing
FC/CC Didn't write down since I thought they were meaningless over winter.
PH 7.2
TA 220
CH 180
CYA Way over 100, would not be suprised if it was higher than 200 or 300. It took very little to hide the dot.
So, starting this year I decided to handle this myself and began education on this site. Opening was a breeze, except for a leaking fitting, but hey, that was easy to replace. When I tested the water it was early April and in the 60's already. The PH was over 8.2, the TA was so high i got as high as 60 drops with no change, the CH was 110 and the cya was a shocking zero.
That test just killed me. To make matters worse, there was stuff on the bottom of the pool that I thought was dead algea untill I stirred it up. From other posts I have read about it, it was scaling. Floating flakes, would break up in my hand etc. Really regret not taking a picture of it. The pool cleaner sucked up a good two pounds of it. Thought it might have been sand, but it would just disintegrate in my hand when I grabbed a pinch and dissolved in the bucket when rain filled it. Very weird. Don't want that again.
Anyway, numbers scared me so went to pool store and they had the same ph, cya and had no idea where the ta was. They recommended a partial drain. I figured there was enough wrong here, that doing a partial drain was going to be best in the long run. Spent the weekend draining and refilling and got to the point where my numbers were PH over 8.2 still, TA down to 280, CH 110 still and cya reading 0.
This made the hand reach to the top and scratch, so I tested the fill water.
Fill
PH 8.2 (multiple tests by me and pool store)
TA 80
CH 100
Decided at this point in time best thing to do was hit it with acid to drop the ph and ta before doing anything else. So spent time with acid until got ph to about 7.4 and TA about 220. I then did liquid stabilizer (yes, probably should have done the cheaper solid route) and started using the rest of my dichlor (just love shooting myself in the foot) to get the chlorine up. (Have since stopped using it)
Long story short, I paused. Spend the next couple days doing just acid and ordering fas-dpd kit. (Did I mention I hate that the kits have .75 oz of the one you use a couple drops of and then .75 oz of the reagent you use 40 drops of?) Needless to say, my over testing of fc ate up my r-0871. More on the way.
So here I am now with the numbers below, thinking that I have a plan. Still more acid to get the TA down to 90. No more stabilized chlorine. Leaving CH at 160 since vinyl pool. When I get my reagent refill, I shock. Was stupid of me to start that when the bottle was low, now have to start over. On the bright side, the water is very clear now and the brushing got all the scaling off the sides and bottom. Was able to swim around in it a day last week feeling all the walls.
Current
FC/CC over 5 (was 21/2 three days ago on my last reagent test)
PH 7.2
TA 180
CH 160
CYA 60
Salt No idea, dont have test for it.
As for bleach, using the germicidal 182oz clorox that I can get at menards, home depot and lowes.
Thanks for taking the time to read my rant and love the info here.