Burning eyes

[Vince-1961]

I have a new Intex vinyl above ground pool, 12,600 gallons, SWG with ozone by Intex. Water is clear, beautiful and does NOT smell like chlorine (chloramines?), yet my eyes burn. Very little sunscreen gets into the water. The pump & chlorine/ozone generator run 8 hours in daylight per day. All I have are test strips. A test strip dipped in before the pump came on and the sun rose above the horizon returned the following results:

Total hardness 250
TC 1
FC 3
pH 6.8 to 7.0 (which is surprising since I lowered pH to 7.4 by adding about 3/4 box of Borax 3 weeks ago, but it is early morning and it has been raining a lot lately.)
TA 180
CYA 50 (which is also surprising since I originally poured in about 50% more CYA than was called for)

I know I need a better test kit. All good things in time.

Is the low pH what is causing my eyes to burn? How much baking soda do I add?

MAJOR EDIT: I didn't trust the test strip, so I used 3 different pH tests from my saltwater aquarium and all three said 7.5 - 7.6. Another saltwater aquarium test said the alkalinity was in the 2.0 to 2.3 range measured in Milli-equivalents per liter.

So if it's not low pH, what's making my eyes burn?

 

[PAGirl]

Few things stand out....
a. You are correct, test strips not too accurate.
b. Pump should run before you test.
c. PH is too low, as you guessed.
d. I believe Borax would raise your PH, muratic acid lowers.
e. You chlorine level is too low for your CYA level.

it would be a great idea to order a good test kit and read pool school while you wait for it to get here!

 

[Smykowski]

PAGirl is right. I will only add that if your test results are at all accurate, you do not need to add baking soda.

 

[Richard320]

If (BIG if) those numbers are right, all you need to do is aerate to bring pH up. No chemicals needed. You have high TA, so it should be a fairly quick thing. Low pH will cause stinging eyes. If you use the search box for "aerator" and look for the paper clip icon, you'll find pictures of various homemade things. Maybe something will inspire you.

Also a big IF, if those chlorine numbers are correct, you have 2 CC, which is too high, which can also cause burning eyes. The cure is to raise FC to the appropriate level for your CYA, which it isn't at the moment. Strictly following the TFP dogma, I should say you need to SLAM, but I don't trust the test strip results, and you can't SLAM without the right test kit anyway.

 

[tim5055]

Few things stand out....
a. You are correct, test strips not too accurate.
b. Pump should run before you test.
c. PH is too low, as you guessed.
d. I believe Borax would raise your PH, muratic acid lowers.

it would be a great idea to order a good test kit and read pool school while you wait for it to get here!

I will add, chlorine level never seems to effect my eyes, bad pH level on the other hand does cause burning to me.

Get the pH in line and I think your problem will go away. But, you need a good test kit, not strips!

 

[tado921]

OK, now to the problem at hand: Low pH could potentially cause the burning eyes issue. Pool math says ~6lbs of borax to get it from 7.0 to 7.5 with 12600 gallons. EDIT: With high TA you should aerate to raise pH as stated previously.

However...you also state TC=1 and FC=3, which means CC (combined chlorine i.e.bad stuff) is at 2. This can cause burning eyes as well.

I originally poured in about 50% more CYA than was called for

uh oh...this might nave been a mistake.

 

[Donldson]

Also a big IF, if those chlorine numbers are correct, you have 2 CC

Correction: if those numbers are correct, he has -2 CC. Since this is impossible, I submit it as evidence that those strips are not worth the paper they were glued to.

Proper test results are key, the sooner you get them the sooner your problems can be solved. I say this as someone who put it off initially and realize now that it would have saved me a lot of time and money that season.

 

[Vince-1961]

Thank you for the quick replies.....a little too quick as it turns out, b/c I was editing my original post as ya'll were posting replies. Regarding the aeration, the chlorine/ozone generator includes a fractionator, so the water coming out is seriously aerated (hopefully with ozone)

 

[Vince-1961]

I have a new Intex vinyl above ground pool, 12,600 gallons, SWG with ozone by Intex. Water is clear, beautiful and does NOT smell like chlorine (chloramines?), yet my eyes burn. Very little sunscreen gets into the water. The pump & chlorine/ozone generator run 8 hours in daylight per day. All I have are test strips. A test strip dipped in before the pump came on and the sun rose above the horizon returned the following results:

Total hardness 250
TC 1
FC 3
pH 6.8 to 7.0 (WRONG! SEE BELOW)
TA 180 (Also wrong.)
CYA 50 (which is also surprising since I originally poured in about 50% more CYA than was called for)

MAJOR EDIT: I didn't trust the test strip, so I used 3 different pH tests from my saltwater aquarium and all three said 7.5 - 7.6. Another saltwater aquarium test said the alkalinity was in the 2.0 to 2.3 range measured in Milli-equivalents per liter.

I found a conversion chart and see that 2.0 to 2.3 mql is about 90-110 ppm on the alkalinity scale, so that test casts further doubt on the accuracy of the test strip. Ordered the Taylor K-2006 FAS-DPD test kit. I'll dip another test strip when I get home today.

 

[RobbieH]

As he said above, it's not possible for FC to be 3 and TC to be 1, as the formula is FC+CC=TC.