Rookie Questions

[ajulian3]

First off, great site. I have learned so much from just reading!

So I closed on a house in Atlanta on Monday with a 17,250 gallon pool with spa and waterfall. The previous owner was paying to have a company maintain it. I like doing things on my own, or at least attempting first lol.

Anyways, the pool has an automatic chlorinator full of tablets that seems to keep it well chlorinated but from reading here I now realize this is likely raising the cya levels. I tested the water today.

FC 4
TC 4
CH 300
CYA 100
TA 90
PH 7.4

Water is clear and looks great. The previous owner left a decent amount of power powder plus. I assume based on my volume about 2 1lb bags of the powder a week should maintain my chlorine and let evaporation lower my CYA level? Any other advice or should I be doing something different? Thanks in advance, you guys are great!

 

[kwolfe]

Assuming your CYA should be around 40-50, it is going to take the evaporation of 8000 gallons to get to where you want to be. Thats a lot of evaporation!

 

[rick6668]

Couple of questions.

What test kit are you using?
That CYA level of 100 could be suspect, the test doesn't go higher than 100, you may have to dilute 1/2 pool water and 1/2 tap water and run the CYA test to see what the result is, then double it for a true CYA reading.

CYA will not go down via evaporation, it stays in the pool. Only way to lower it is with water replacement.
(Someone correct me if I am wrong)

 

[ajulian3]

I ordered the tf-100, it isn't in yet. I took a sample to Leslie's for them to test everything.

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

Now for the bad news... That CYA is waaaay high, and it's going to just keep getting worse as long as you feed it a steady diet of trichlor pucks. It doesn't go away in any meaningful amounts except by draining and refilling. Bad news continued: that power powder plus is Cal-hypo, which raises Calcium Hardness, and you're already at 300, which is a nice number. If it gets much higher, it won't be so nice. Like CYA, it also doesn't go away except by draining and refilling.

Your Free Chlorine Level is too low for that CYA level - it should never dip below 7, and since you lose some every day to sunlight and oxidizing organics that end up in the pool, you need to shoot for about 10.
pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock

I see your results came from the pool store. I wouldn't trust them. Check out this guy's experience. inconsistency-in-readings-t61728.html

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[ajulian3]

Ok, so I should do a partial drain and refill, then would I be ok to continue using pucks? Or are those also raising my calcium hardness as well?

 

[Richard320]

Ok, so I should do a partial drain and refill, then would I be ok to continue using pucks? Or are those also raising my calcium hardness as well?

Hold off on doing anything drastic until you get test results you can trust. Just raise FC using bleach for now.

And the short answer is No. You cannot use pucks. Why drain it only to start building it up again? The pucks will keep for years if they're kept dry. Save them for vacations.

Now, off to Pool School With you!

 

[ajulian3]

Ok thanks. I'm off to buy bleach. The pool calculator says I need about 107oz to raise fc to 7. Does that sound right? How often roughly will I need to add bleach?

 

[Richard320]

Ok thanks. I'm off to buy bleach. The pool calculator says I need about 107oz to raise fc to 7. Does that sound right? How often roughly will I need to add bleach?

Daily.
pool-school/basic_pool_care_schedule

 

[msgtdan]

And the 7 is the minimum, target for 10 and it'll drop during the day. When you test if it's below 7 regularly then you may need to target for 11.