Pool in new house, need some tips

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D

DJ13

0
Aug 21, 2014
28
Ottawa, Ontario
Hi all, I just did my first water test and want to get my pool ready for the weekend. I don't have the ALEX results in front of me but essentially my pH is too high and alkalinity too low. I have a 100,000L (~25,000 gal) pool and the recommended treatment is 31 pounds of Balance Pak 100 and about 4 pounds of Lo'N Slo. I assume I do not need to use the BioGuard products the pool store stocks and am fine going with other brands, would they all have the same proportions of ingredients? I.e. is 5 pounds of the balance pak 100 the same as 5 pounds of the Lowe's AquaChem brand?

I will be reading through the other articles on this site to continue to learn but thought I'd maybe get a quick answer to this first.

Thanks.

Pool size: 25000gal inground Vinyl
Hayward DV4000 vacuum
Hayward Super Pump
320 inline chlorine dispenser
Jacuzzi Laser sand filter
 
Last edited:
:wave: Welcome to TFP!!!

You most certainly do not need the BioGuard over-priced products. Check of the Recommended Pool Chemicals article for alternatives.

Also use PoolMath to calculate the amount of chemicals required to achieve a desired level.

I highly suggest you invest in one of the Recommended Test Kits and stop trusting the typically poor pool store test results.
 
Thanks, being in Canada it seems it's tough to get those test kits for a reasonable price. I'll probably just use the PoolMath tool to get into the approx right pH and alkalinity since the season is probably short lived at this point and maybe invest in a kit next year. For what it's worth the PoolMath results are very similar to those suggested from the local pool store free water test, which is good because I was wondering if 30+ pounds of baking soda was correct!

Does it matter which order the chemicals are added? Should I boost TA first and then reduce pH? The pool store recommends waiting two hours after increasing TA before reducing the pH.
 
For now I have an inline chlorinator using 3" BioGuard pucks that were left over when I bought the house but I also have a unit on the shed wall that is labelled as a So Kleen chlorine generator but it does not appear to be connected. I have read a number of the documents here and have seen the FC/CYA charts and am somewhat familiar with water chemistry, albeit from an aquarium point of view. From what I've read so far the main change I would be making by following the TFPC method would be to use bleach to chlorinate instead of the pucks since the CYA levels would continually increase. I guess I'm resistant to that at first for the extra effort involved as I am still getting settled into my new house and don't have a lot of time for pool maintenance yet.
 
So further puzzled. If you are using trichlor tablets which are acidic, then I wonder why your pH is so high. Usually the tablets will make the pH and the TA drop. They also cause the CYA level to rise and thus the required FC level to rise ... resulting in the need for more tablets to raise the FC, but that also raises the CYA. Vicious circle.

If you are going to use the tablets (and hope that your CYA does not get too high), then you should raise the TA to around 100ppm and then make sure the pH stays in the 7s.
 
I'm not sure why the pH is so high, there has been a lot of rain in the past week but a quick search says that too should lower pH. I have not added anything to the system since we moved in besides topping up the pucks in the chlorinator.
 

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