Received my TF-100 kit!

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806pool

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LifeTime Supporter
Apr 4, 2015
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So. Cal.
Again, first time pool owner tryi g to mKe sense of it all. So i did all of the tests on the pool according to the directions that came with the TF-100. We were using the floating pucks and ready to install an offline chlorinator until i came across this site. The pucks have ran out and now showing no chlorine assuming i tested correctly.
Test results as follows:

Chlorine: showing zero on the daily test in the test block, just clear water color.
On the weekly test obviously water just stayed cludy and never turned clear.

Calcium Hardness: bright pink after 3 drops of R-0011L. Then 44 drops of the R-0012 = 1100ppm.

Total Alkalinity: 16 drops of R-0009 = 160

CYA : 50ppm

pH: 7.4

That is where i stand as of today. I took the pool water from near the skimmer about 12" under the surface and after the pump had been on for a few hours.

The auto cover is on pretty much any time the pool isnt in use. Pump runs about 5 hours a day. Single speed.
Thank u for the help! Any and all advice is appreciated!
 
What does the water look like?

Well the good news is that your CYA seems reasonable. The bad news is that CH (if correct) is much too high to avoid calcium scaling. Only way to reduce the CH is to replace water ... you might have the Reverse Osmosis option by you, which is not cheap.

Can you describe exactly how you did the CH test and what colors you saw?

You should also get bleach in the water ASAP based on your CYA level. See the FC/CYA Chart.

Use PoolMath to calculate dosages.
 
That CH test - ouch!

Did you, by chance, purchase a speedstir when you bought your kit? It makes a HUGE difference with that test. My readings went down from 700 to 500 or thereabouts when I started using the speedstir. It's been so long, I can't remember the exact numbers. So if you were swirling by hand it might not actually be that high, although it's not beyond the realm of possibility. The next time you do that test, try adding a bunch of R-0012 first, say 10 drops. Swirl that for a minute, and use a watch. Then add the R-0010. Give that a minute. Then use five drops of R-0011 instead of three. The color will be deeper. Then another 10 drops of R-0012 and a full minute of swirling. If it starts to go lavendar at all, give it another minute of swirling before you start adding the drops slowly. As high as your CH is, you might want to add the drops 2 at a time until it goes purplish, and then individually until it goes sky blue. It's going to take a long time to run the thing to completion. Easily 15 or 20 minutes. The speedstir will cut that down to less than five.

Since the rest of your parameters are okay, you can reduce the CH at your lesiure. I use pool water to irrigate the lawn. If your pool is 45", your water is probably only something like 40" deep. Replace 2" of water, and you've lowered CH almost 5%. It sort of depends on how high the CH of your fill water is. Still, as an example, if the fill water is 200 and the pool is 1100, replacing 2" of water will drop the CH to 1055. 4" down will get it to 1010. Your actual numbers will vary. It will be a slow process, but it beats getting penalized by the water company for exceeding your allotment. Also note that if you replace 5% of the water, you have not only lowered CH, but also CYA. Which isn't always a bad thing. It buys you some room to use the chlorinator when you leave town for the weekend without driving CYA through the roof.
 
jblizzle said:
What does the water look like?

Can you describe exactly how you did the CH test and what colors you saw?

You should also get bleach in the water ASAP based on your CYA level. See the FC/CYA Chart.

Use PoolMath to calculate dosages.
Click to expand...

Water looks ok. Maybe not crystal clear, but not cloudy either.

As far as how i did the CH test...i followed the directions with the kit (10 drops of R-0010, swirl...then 3 drops of the R-0011L then swirl. Whiched turned the water bright pink, but definately not red. I then added R-0012 one drop at a time until the color changed to a definate blue. It was purple for a bit until it was an obvious blue.

As far as draining the pool a few inches and retesting...do u do that with a pump straight out of the pool, or from the plumbing or?

And would it be wise to do a test on the fill water?

There is no issue draining a vinyl liner pool as long as its only a few inches at a time?

And i did not get a speed stir. I swirled it by hand. I will do the test again like u suggested, and look into a speed stir i guess.

And ill grab some bleach tomorrow from Costco. No green stuff growing yet! We'd like to keep it that way too!!

Thanks!
 
Your calcium test sounds good. High, but run correctly.

People drain with pool equipment and you can do that a little at a time. If you do a lot, you can rent a sump pump from Home Depot to do a lot. Where you are probably doesn't have high ground water, but that is a concern with any pool, especially vinyl. Never drain it lower than less than one foot in the shallow. 1/2 and 1/3s are safer.

Get your Free Chlorine up, and don't let it fall below 6 when You have 50 Cya. That's going to change with water change, but I would get it up there now anyway. You don't want an Algae bloom. Not sure what the cloudy is, but I'm guessing too that you are about to have one.

You are right, it would be an excellent idea to test your makeup to the pool.
 
Patrick_B said:
Your calcium test sounds good. High, but run correctly.

People drain with pool equipment and you can do that a little at a time. If you do a lot, you can rent a sump pump from Home Depot to do a lot. Where you are probably doesn't have high ground water, but that is a concern with any pool, especially vinyl. Never drain it lower than less than one foot in the shallow. 1/2 and 1/3s are safer.

Get your Free Chlorine up, and don't let it fall below 6 when You have 50 Cya. That's going to change with water change, but I would get it up there now anyway. You don't want an Algae bloom. Not sure what the cloudy is, but I'm guessing too that you are about to have one.

You are right, it would be an excellent idea to test your makeup to the pool.
Click to expand...

So i need to add chlorine. I was reading over some things in the pool school section and one of the topics was SLAMing. One of the problems it is said to be used for is FC of zero...which is my case. So do i need to SLAM? Or am i missing something.

And when i add the chlorine (or any additives), the pump should be on im assuming, and run for a while after chemicals are added? Do i poor the chemicals/bleach straight into the pool or in the skimmer or?

Also reading on the CC and saw this statement:

"In an outdoor pool, CC will normally stay at or near zero as long as you maintain an appropriate FC level and the pool gets some direct sunlight."

How much direct sunlight is needed. As i said most of the time the cover is on unless it is being used, then the cover goes right back on. We've been doing that just to help keep the leaves out and keep the water temp up. Also have read that with the cover on it cuts down on chemical costs because things are not "escaping or evaporating"
So i guess my question is how long each day should the water be directly exposed to sunlight?

Should i be doing these tests in the evening? I did the initial one today at around noon.

Ill do a test on the water used to fill the pool also.

As far as draining the pool....so that can be done through the backwash? At what point should i start the draining process? When i get the FC to what?

Was also reading that the vinyl liner pools dont need calcium...so i have alot of draining to so it sounds like. Water isnt cheap, lol.

Hopefully i can get this figured out now and prevent future issues and headaches.

Thank you.
 
Adjust your FC to 7ppm and start the drain process to correct the high CH. You will have to do several partial drain refills to correct this.
 
Don't use backwash to drain the pool. Every time you backwash, you'll need to recharge the DE. It would cost a fortune in DE. Also, the water is going the wrong way through the grids, and if there is any fine debris in the water, it could load up the insides of the grids and ruin them. If you have a multiport valve on the filter, use the waste setting. That bypasses the filter completely. If you don't have a multiport, study your plumbing. When my pool was plumbed, somebody installed a hose bib on the return line before it disappears underground, and I hook a hose and sprinkler to that. If you aren't so lucky, your best bet is a cheap sump pump. But if you decide to do it in one shot rather than a little at a time, you could rent a high capacity pump for a few hours and be done with it.

Specifics on adding chemicals is in Recommended Pool Chemicals.

As far as CC buildup under the cover, you'll just have to find out by testing. I leave my pool uncovered, so I haven;t got a clue how much sunlight it will need.

Vinyl pools don't need Calcium to protect the plaster, but they are no different than any other pool when you have Calcium. From firsthand experience, it's not too hard to keep things adjusted to keep CSI in the safe zone and not get scaling up to about 800 CH. Beyond that, it starts getting touchy. Above 1000, it's really hard to do. How much lawn and garden do you have? Hopefully you have some place to use the water you drain off so it's not wasted. As I pointed out above, even a couple inches a week will drop things to a more reasonable number.
 

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Ok, got the bleach. So can someone explain why my goal is 6-7 and no need to SLAM? Just curious as when i was reading about the SLAM process it said one of the reasons to do it was when you have zero chlorine. I just want to understand ;)

I bought the 121oz clorox 3 pack jugs at costco

According to the pool math if i need to bring the FC to 7, ill need to add approx. 166oz of bleach. Ill do that in a little while and just leave the pump going for a while after.

Will it be good to test again in the morning or is there a time frame for testing after the chlorine is added?

And i have grass and a about 30 rose bushes i could water...but the pool equipment is on the opposite side of the house. Now that i went and looked I dont see any port to drain the water from the pool equipment. Only the backwash port and the air bleeder on top of the filter. I guess i will have to get some kind of pump then i can shoot it to the landscape to water. It wont harm the grass or rose bushes? Thhat would not go over good with the "boss" and her rose bushes, lol.

I assume i drain a few inches...fill it...a few days later drain and fill again and continue until the CH comes down to a reasonable number?

And the "return" i am pouring in front of is the jet where water is "returning" back into the pool correct? Just making sure...

I gotta test the fill water also.

Thanks.
 
Ok, SLAM does say that, but it means if you've had trouble like Algae or high CC, or cannot get off the ZERO mark for FC.

The reason you target is 6-7 is so that you have ample FC for your Cya level. Cya holds some of the FC in reserve as part of its protection of FC from UV light. So, you have a little more in the pool to overcome what it is holding back and protecting.

If you had no Cya in the water, you could keep FC at 3 and do the same job. Problem is, the Sun would take all that away every day. Normal loss is about that daily. With Cya, you have some FC to work, and some in reserve. Cya, also acts as a buffer keeping FC from being as harsh on things like hair, and bathing suits.

Correct on the return pouring, yes.

Test the fill water. Always a good idea to have that baseline number. It tells the story of the pool water.
 
Ok i added 166 oz approx of bleach this morning at 8am pouring if the return jet for about 3 minutes time.

Did another CH test following the directions posted above and took 40 drops for a total of 1000.

Turned on the fill water for about 5 minutes and then took a sample right before it entered the pool and tested that. Took 35 drops to turn it blue, for a total of 875.

Tested the chlorine again at 10am. It did turn pink this time after adding the R-0870 powder. I added the R-0871 drops and the pink went away, but the water never turned completely clear. It was a cloudy color. Definately not pink, but not completely clear as the directions state.
 
If the fill water is 875, you will never be able to get CH lowered to "recommended levels," no matter how much you drain.

Yours is one of the rare cases where you really need to pay attention to the CSI box in poolmath. Plug all your numbers in and experiment with the targets, and don't forget that the water will also warm up. You'll discover that you need to run low TA and keep the pH at the low end of the safe zone. The specific numbers will fluctuate since there are several variables at play.
 
I looked at a test i got from leslies a while back, and it says the CH was 560. How did it double since then?

So what effect will the high CH have on the pool? There is nothing i can do to lower it? Just have to adjust everything else? And then draining...is it pointless to drain knowing i wont get down to the recommended numbers?

Leslies never mentioned the CH, the main thing they had always been worried about was the phosphates in which they had be adding Phos free every week.

Any suggestions for the chlorine test? Should it turn completely clear or is cloudy ok?
 
I would say because their test was wrong. Trust your results.

The point of lowering is to minimize, and you want to do as much of that as possible. Not doing so let's it get way out of control. High CH leads to scaling in the pool. Deposits of calcium scale in the pool and also the equipment. Them leaving CH out of the equation highlights their lack of concern. Wanting to sell you phosphate remover while ignoring a potential bad problem in your pool. Not only will they do this, they will sell you Chlorine products containing calcium that make it even worse. Out of neglect, or ignorance, take your pick.
 
Well i dont plan on going back to leslies now that i have this test kit and this site. Sucks to know i wasted all that $ and still wasnt helping the pool.

Anyways, moving on. So for the chlorine test....lol,
"Tested the chlorine again at 10am. It did turn pink this time after adding the R-0870 powder, which it hadnt done the last time. I added the R-0871 drops and the pink went away, but the water never turned completely clear. It was a cloudy color. Definately not pink, but not completely clear as the directions state"

Need some clarification on what the water should look like when i get to the correct amount of drops.

Thanks!!
 

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