Another new pool owner!

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Newbpooler

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May 3, 2013
29
York, Pennsylvania
Hello everyone. Me and my wife bought our first house last month which also has a pool. Well we opened it up to a green swamp. Apparently the old owners never had chemicals put in upon closing last season. Our pool company (which im not fond of lol) opened up our pool and shocked. Me and wife ran our de filter and bumped, backwashed, replaced de and repeat. Also took filter apart 3 times and cleaned all the fingers very good. Pool cleared up. We found out there is a leak under the concrete in our return lines. I noticed after leaving the filter on all night, i awoke to an unprimed pump because the water level dropped 2-3 inches. So needless to say concrete needs ripped up and lines replaced. They have a single temp line across the concrete into the shallow end. We couldnt add chemicals for atleast a week until the temp line was in place.

After everything was setup, took a sample into pool store and results were as follows:
Sat index -.05
TDS 525
CYA 13
Total chlorine 2.6
Free chlorine .6
pH 7
Alkalinity 91
Hardness 259

This was with no chemicals other than the shock they used upon opening a week earlier. They sold me 5lb of granular dichlor, 2 1lb of stabilizer and silk smart sticks. All bioguard lol. $150. Fast forward 2 days i have another sample tested. Results were:

Sat index -0.7
TDS 550
CYA 100! (I didnt realize about the cya with dichlor and trichlor until it was too late lol)
Total chlorine 2.5
Free chlorine 0.6
pH 6.9
Alkalinity 102
Hardness 259

So ive been lurking on here for about a week and decided i want to use the BBB cause ~$400 later im in no better shape. I have a Taylor K 2006 on the way. Wont be til next week. I found a 5 gal of liquid chlorine at a pool store thst is closing but i cant find it anywhere else. I also used 2lbs of cal hypo yesterday, 5lb liquid chlorine today. Took a sample to another pool store and they didnt test as many parameters as the other store but free chlorine turned out to be 1.4 but combined was 5.2!! So just 20 mins ago i shocked with 2lbs of cal hypo again. Im going to let it run all night and take a sample in tomorrow to see where were at. Im sorry for the lengthy post but i know you guys need all the info you can get lol. Thanks for your time :).
 
Welcome to tfp, Newbpooler :wave:

It is great you are getting your own kit, the results you got from the pool store could be misleading you, for sure their advice was (what they sold you).

First when you FC drops below 10 ppm (or if you only have a OTO, when you TC drops to 5 or less) get your ph up using borax to at least 7.2-7.4. Be careful to wait until you FC is low, since high FC causes high ph readings.

Next, if you haven't read it yet, review the poolschool article on the shocking process. There is a ton of information in poolschool (link at upper right of page).

Ignore TDS.
 
Thanks for the reply :). Im just hoping that kit comes early next week lol. The only thing i have here at the house right now for testing is...you guessed it, strips. I know there basically worthless thats why im relying on the stores until i get the kit in the mail. Whats weird is even 10 minutes after shocking, i still gant get any color change on the free chlorine tab of the stick. I know in time i can get the hang of all this :). What really has me bummed is the estimate to replace the return lines. About $2700. So i have another place coming out monday to do an estimate for a second opinion.
 
I might not do anything more until that test kit comes. We already have a swamp. It won't hurt anything leaveing it like that. Don't let that pool store sale you anything.

Get the test and get some real results then we can start fresh. Read pool school and the shocking process so you understand everything.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Sorry if I'm brief.
 
Im sorry i should have said something earlier. The pool is crystal clear. I mean i could read newprint in the deep end lol. It only took two or three days to clear all the dead algae up when the pool store shocked it. My main trouble is getting the fc to stay and lower the cc. I noticed a slight slime feel on the walls before i brushed and vacuumed today also.
 
I would try to keep some liquid chlorine in there till that test kit comes. You need to know the CYA level to get a shock level. You'll also want to get the PH in line prior to the shocking process


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Sorry if I'm brief.
 

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Cool. Maybe try to keep 3-5 ppm of FC in there until the test kit comes. If water stays clear till test kit comes we're not going backwards.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Sorry if I'm brief.
 
Back from 2 different stores with results. One store uses a strip then puts it in a machine and the other uses drops and reagents. So...store with strips gives me a printout as follows.
CYA 100
Tot chlorine 3.1
Free chlorine .6
Ph 6.8
Total alkalinity 109
Hardness 256

Now the store with drops
Free chlorine 4
Total chlorine 4
Ph 7.2
Alkalinity 160
CYA 30
Calcium hardness 300
TDS 1950 (other store was 600?!).
Phosphates 300

I know tds was mentioned to not be important but just wanted to list the differences between the stores.
 
Sorry for digging this back up to the top but my test kit came in and i have results :)

FC .4
CC 1
TA 130
pH 7.2
CH 160

As before pool is crystal clear, the only thing i seem to be having trouble with is when i use the pool calculator to measure for liquid chlorine, i put in the dose and wait for about an hour and it only goes up by .2. I added 1 gallon then retested an hour later, it was at 1.4, then another gallon and just tested again and its at 2.8. Im not sure if im missing something or not lol. It just seems like im needing more than the pool calculator is requiring.
 
That makes sense lol. Cause i added the recommended dosage to raise by 10ppm and only got barely 1ppm. I gotta stop and pick up some liquid chlorine tonight. The only place i can find it is ollies lol. The other pool store that sells it in 5 gal containers is going out of business. Sorry CYA is right around 60
 
The .2 1.4 2.8 FC indicates to me you're either using 25 ml line or testing wrong. If you're using 25 ml of water you're wasting reagents, use 10 ml which will give you steps of .5 instead of .2. Your reagents will last longer and .5 ml is plenty of precision. If you've confused the test, 25 ml vs 10 ml, you could be counting the drops the wrong way and that can throw off your reading. IE counting each drop as .2 when you should be counting them as .5.
 

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