First time water balancer...

[JFB]

Hi everyone. First post, hear hear!! I've been reading the forum since about November 2012 looking for answers in my pool purchasing research... This forum has been a godsend so far. Congrats to everyone who maintains it!

My pool is finally installed and I filled it with city water. They pool guys came over to start it up and added 3x20kg of salt yesterday. Notice kg...

I went to get my water tested this AM and here are my results:

pH: 7.6
TA: 80 mg/L
FC: 0
CH: 90 mg/L
CYA 50 mg/L

The pool specialist made me buy some products to first raise TA to between 80 and 120 (mg/L), then raise CH to between 200 and 300 mg/L and then add 6 more pouches of salt (20kg each) to bring it up to between 2700 and 3200 mg/L. He actually said to first add 4 pouches, measure in 48 hours then add more if needed.

So I bought the products for my first ever start (about 50$), and if I can get this water easily under control, I will switch to the BBB method, believe me.

Now. I am trying to use the pool calculator as many members refer to it, but I'm afraid the units do not match. My TA is 80 mg/L, and the pool calculator says my goal should be 60 to 80. But 60 to 80 what? What are the units?

Would anyone be so kind as to demystify ALL the "goal" units on the poolcalculator.com website? That way, I can compare apples to oranges through the magic of imperial to metric conversion factors!

***on another note, they are asking me to bring the CH up quite a bit to 200 to 300 mg/L. But as I read on the poolcalculator.com website, this is not necessary in a vinyl lined pool. Should I simply skip this step? Should I try and reach a different level?

I thank everyone for their advice ahead of time. I won't add any chemicals until I have received some responses.

Regards,

JF

 

[JohnT]

Right side of the screen allows you to setup your units of The Pool Calculator. Mg/L and ppm are the same thing for most purposes..

You were sold baking soda to increase your alkalinity, and probably not at a reasonable price. Your TA was okay already.

You really only need to get your chlorine up to where it should be. The goals and ideas are explained in Pool School

 

[JFB]

I tried changing the units. But all it seems to do is change the units for the chemicals to add. It doesn't change the goal levels for each item, which is what I am trying to decipher.

I did buy very expensive baking soda, I am sure. But, I kept the bill and planned on returning it if not required.

 

[JohnT]

The goal levels don't change. Your numbers are mg/L which is equivalent to ppm.

 

[Bluechip]

The ppm is parts per million, as in fractions. 1 ppm is 1/1000000 of what ever you are measuring. It could be 1oz per million ozs or 1kg per million kgs, it's the same ratio.

I hope I said that right!