The CYA test should not be affected by the high FC.
Did you shower after being in the pool?
Did you shower after being in the pool?
Pressure up from 15psi to 25psi in an afternoon
- Thread starter Desiato
- Start date
Really? Well that's very odd then. I could tell as soon as the pill had dissolved that it was much clearer than usual. How can it have gone down 33% with only one backwash? I would need to have drained 5000 gallons for that to happen.
Yes I did shower straight after and I've been washing my hands ever since, do you recommend anything in particular I should use on my skin?
Well, I know the Taylor CYA test is unaffected ... maybe the LeMotte is messed up? Although I think the idea is the same for both tests.
I just did two tests with the same sample and both times it came out to 55 so it would look like I had a duff tablet. That puts my FC level to 22 instead of 24 so I'll keep an eye on both to be sure they are both in range.
You know, I recall a discussion with Dave who was thinking of changing the TF-100 CYA test from the liquid to tablets (to greatly reduce shipping costs). But he said he could not get reliable results with the tablets so he did not switch. Just thought I would mention it.
Useful to know. Fortunately, the CYA test is not one that needs to be done daily so as and when I do test it, I'll do two, or even three when things have really settled down, to see if there are any discrepancies. I'll let you know as and when I find any.
Looks like we can put this thread to bed 
FC dropped 0.5 overnight two nights ago and dropped the same last night. CC had been 0 for the last week, 0.5 crept in 2 nights ago but is between 0.2 and 0.3 (hard to tell with the 0.5 drop test but I think I only needed half a drop to get the faintest hint of pink back to clear).
Pressure has been holding at 16psi (starting point 15psi) for 48 hours so the topic of the thread has well and truly been solved.
I've found a couple of pool places that sell liquid chlorine but after doing the math, it's still cheaper to use my weak bleach (and for anyone in Spain needing to know, a 5L bottle or regular bleach with 37g of sodium hypochlorite raises my 15,500 US gallon pool by 2.75ppm). A 25kg bottle of Liquid chlorine with 127g per kilo for €24 equates to 17 bottles of bleach for €20. If you don't do regular school runs past the local store, you might want to opt for the 25kg LC and hang the €4 expense.
On this journey I discovered I had misread the pool filter. It said 100kg of sand so that meant 80KG of glass media (as per bag instructions) but beneath the 100kg on the filter it said 50kg of gravel and an email to Certikin confirmed the capacity to be 150kg (or 12Okg of glass media) so two more bags have been added.
I found an Ebay seller in the UK (filterbagman2) that adapted his 1 micron filter bags so I could attach them to 3 ½ inch plumbing parts I've fitted to the returns. 4 bags for £15 including postage (to the UK), cheap as chips! (good old English saying there). After the initial white dust coming through them they have settled down and are catching the tiny particles the sand filter doesn't. I guess now that they have a thin film of dirt that doesn't want to wash out they are filtering a bit better. I've had to take one of the bags off as two creates too much back pressure (PSI went up to 20 from 16) and a Jacuzzi effect was happening around the returns. I figured the tiny particles will eventually find their way to the single bag after a few rounds so I'm happy with that for now. The pressure of the water coming out of the returns is much greater than it used to be. You can now see the ripples half way down the pool (you could hardly tell the pump was on at all before).
One of the lights had blown some years ago and in pulling them out to clean behind, I had the opportunity to change it for a multi-coloured LED. Whilst testing the light remote on the new LED, the other one blew so now I have two LED lights which look amazing at night as they scroll through their colour range (€76 each from Leroy Merlin).
The LaMotte test kit is expensive but has proved invaluable in getting the pool crystal clear. I had issues with some broken parts by the service from Tim has been excellent, he has even said he would throw in a couple of reagents I was offering to buy (fingers crossed they are in the post). I couldn’t find the test kit on the Sword Scientific website (Welcome to Sword Scientific) so he sent me to LaMotte.com (FAS-DPD Commercial 7 Kit - 7022-01 - - LaMotte) and I’ve just spotted that his emails address changed from [email protected] to [email protected]).
The hardest part for me was water blasting between the tiles to remove the build-up of dirt/algae which had happened over the last 10 years. The lack of a proper pool cleaner contributing to that I guess (one for the shopping list, along with looking into SWG and Ozone and Other?).
So there we have it, the FC dropped from 16 yesterday morning to 11.5 this morning which is high for a pool without any use but the PH is still holding at 7.8 which could be causing the increased loss of FC. Once the FC is down to 6/7 (with my CYA at 55) I’ll monitor it to see what the loss rate is then. I've read in many places that 7.4 is the ideal number but I read somewhere on here that 7.8 is the preferred level but now that I look for it again, I can’t find it. I've also just read that a CYA level of 60/70 could also help with slowing down FC loss with sunny pools. I guess it will just have to be a case of trial and error.
I can’t do the BBB method as Borax is not available in Spain in large quantities (only in 6g packets so enough to do a 15k gallon pool would be a few thousand Euros) but I need to find a way of keeping FC in the pool so if there is something that could be substituted for the borax, that would be good to know.
Right, enough waffling, I’ll hang around with further additional tiny updates on getting it finely balanced and try to help others where I can with my limited knowledge. This site and it's polite and professional contributors has been a massive help but my suggestion of a Non-American section would have made life a little easier, one for the suggestion box.
Cheers Guys!
FC dropped 0.5 overnight two nights ago and dropped the same last night. CC had been 0 for the last week, 0.5 crept in 2 nights ago but is between 0.2 and 0.3 (hard to tell with the 0.5 drop test but I think I only needed half a drop to get the faintest hint of pink back to clear).
Pressure has been holding at 16psi (starting point 15psi) for 48 hours so the topic of the thread has well and truly been solved.
I've found a couple of pool places that sell liquid chlorine but after doing the math, it's still cheaper to use my weak bleach (and for anyone in Spain needing to know, a 5L bottle or regular bleach with 37g of sodium hypochlorite raises my 15,500 US gallon pool by 2.75ppm). A 25kg bottle of Liquid chlorine with 127g per kilo for €24 equates to 17 bottles of bleach for €20. If you don't do regular school runs past the local store, you might want to opt for the 25kg LC and hang the €4 expense.
On this journey I discovered I had misread the pool filter. It said 100kg of sand so that meant 80KG of glass media (as per bag instructions) but beneath the 100kg on the filter it said 50kg of gravel and an email to Certikin confirmed the capacity to be 150kg (or 12Okg of glass media) so two more bags have been added.
I found an Ebay seller in the UK (filterbagman2) that adapted his 1 micron filter bags so I could attach them to 3 ½ inch plumbing parts I've fitted to the returns. 4 bags for £15 including postage (to the UK), cheap as chips! (good old English saying there). After the initial white dust coming through them they have settled down and are catching the tiny particles the sand filter doesn't. I guess now that they have a thin film of dirt that doesn't want to wash out they are filtering a bit better. I've had to take one of the bags off as two creates too much back pressure (PSI went up to 20 from 16) and a Jacuzzi effect was happening around the returns. I figured the tiny particles will eventually find their way to the single bag after a few rounds so I'm happy with that for now. The pressure of the water coming out of the returns is much greater than it used to be. You can now see the ripples half way down the pool (you could hardly tell the pump was on at all before).
One of the lights had blown some years ago and in pulling them out to clean behind, I had the opportunity to change it for a multi-coloured LED. Whilst testing the light remote on the new LED, the other one blew so now I have two LED lights which look amazing at night as they scroll through their colour range (€76 each from Leroy Merlin).
The LaMotte test kit is expensive but has proved invaluable in getting the pool crystal clear. I had issues with some broken parts by the service from Tim has been excellent, he has even said he would throw in a couple of reagents I was offering to buy (fingers crossed they are in the post). I couldn’t find the test kit on the Sword Scientific website (Welcome to Sword Scientific) so he sent me to LaMotte.com (FAS-DPD Commercial 7 Kit - 7022-01 - - LaMotte) and I’ve just spotted that his emails address changed from [email protected] to [email protected]).
The hardest part for me was water blasting between the tiles to remove the build-up of dirt/algae which had happened over the last 10 years. The lack of a proper pool cleaner contributing to that I guess (one for the shopping list, along with looking into SWG and Ozone and Other?).
So there we have it, the FC dropped from 16 yesterday morning to 11.5 this morning which is high for a pool without any use but the PH is still holding at 7.8 which could be causing the increased loss of FC. Once the FC is down to 6/7 (with my CYA at 55) I’ll monitor it to see what the loss rate is then. I've read in many places that 7.4 is the ideal number but I read somewhere on here that 7.8 is the preferred level but now that I look for it again, I can’t find it. I've also just read that a CYA level of 60/70 could also help with slowing down FC loss with sunny pools. I guess it will just have to be a case of trial and error.
I can’t do the BBB method as Borax is not available in Spain in large quantities (only in 6g packets so enough to do a 15k gallon pool would be a few thousand Euros) but I need to find a way of keeping FC in the pool so if there is something that could be substituted for the borax, that would be good to know.
Right, enough waffling, I’ll hang around with further additional tiny updates on getting it finely balanced and try to help others where I can with my limited knowledge. This site and it's polite and professional contributors has been a massive help but my suggestion of a Non-American section would have made life a little easier, one for the suggestion box.
Cheers Guys!
we do not use the BBB name anymore because most people never need baking soda or borax. The key to the TFPC method is accurate testing and adding only what the pool needs.
You don't need borax and it has nothing to do with keeping chlorine in the water. Did you mean stabilizer?
You don't need borax and it has nothing to do with keeping chlorine in the water. Did you mean stabilizer?
I was reading this thread So you want to add borates to your pool--Why and How and in the opening post it mentions 2) Algaestatic properties and 3) reduced chlorine usage. When my chlorine was being used up overnight by unknown organics this looked like a possible solution.
My latest stats are:
CYA - 55
PH - 7.6 to 7.8 (they look the same colour to me and the wife on the sliding scale)
FC - 9.5
CC - 0.0
CH - 560
TA - 150 to 160 (when it says the colour changes from blue/green to red, do they mean the first drop that turns it a little pink or the next drop that turns it a little darker pink or the next drop that turns it a pale red? (I could go on until it turns a darker red?)
I read on here that it is not good to have the PH, CH & TA all on the high side so I guess I need to add some acid to get the PH and TA down a little. I'm waiting until my FC has dropped back to 6/7 which is likley to be tomorrow to see how the correct level of FC affects the PH.
Not much I can do about the CH apart from another drain as the water from the tap is 380, apart from trying to divert rain water in that is.
My latest stats are:
CYA - 55
PH - 7.6 to 7.8 (they look the same colour to me and the wife on the sliding scale)
FC - 9.5
CC - 0.0
CH - 560
TA - 150 to 160 (when it says the colour changes from blue/green to red, do they mean the first drop that turns it a little pink or the next drop that turns it a little darker pink or the next drop that turns it a pale red? (I could go on until it turns a darker red?)
I read on here that it is not good to have the PH, CH & TA all on the high side so I guess I need to add some acid to get the PH and TA down a little. I'm waiting until my FC has dropped back to 6/7 which is likley to be tomorrow to see how the correct level of FC affects the PH.
Not much I can do about the CH apart from another drain as the water from the tap is 380, apart from trying to divert rain water in that is.
That post about borates is 6 years old and no longer a sticky because we think it over-sold somethings.
Again, I would not say that borates reduce chlorine usage to any significant degree.
With the high CH, you need to keep the pH lower to avoid scaling.
All tests are done until the last drop causes no further color change and that drop does not count.
Again, I would not say that borates reduce chlorine usage to any significant degree.
With the high CH, you need to keep the pH lower to avoid scaling.
All tests are done until the last drop causes no further color change and that drop does not count.
At 150-160 your TA is much higher than the TFPC recommended goal of 70-90. The high TA will tend to cause your pH to increase rapidly. It will also shift your CSI towards the positive, not necessarily a good thing with your high CH.
I found the best way to lower TA was to take the pH down to 7.0 and then let it drift back up. The first time I did this the TA went from 90 to 70.
I found the best way to lower TA was to take the pH down to 7.0 and then let it drift back up. The first time I did this the TA went from 90 to 70.
Here is the updated Borate sticky.
Borates - Why and How
And here is a link about Pool School - Lower Total Alkalinity
Borates - Why and How
And here is a link about Pool School - Lower Total Alkalinity
I've already read those pooldv but thanks anyway. I've now found out that Boric Acid is available from the pharmacy so once everything else has settled down, I'll have a think whether I go down the Boric Acid route. jblizzle appears to have some reservations so I'll take those onboard.
My latest numbers are:
PH - 7.2
TA - 130
FC - 7.5 ... 8.5 this morning but it's been a grey day.
CC - 0.0
I don't have a spa or waterfall so I've been searching for some 135' to 90' bends to fit to my returns to angle the water upwards but have struggled with the DIY stores, will have to search out a proper plumbers merchants tomorrow (really wished I'd learned more Spanish).
I'm getting there! I also decided to send a few bucks the sites way for all the help I've been receiving.
Really the only technical reason to add borates is to help stabilize the pH rise if you can not get it under control by lowering the TA.
All other reasons are less tangible and are more geared toward perception on how the water feels and looks. Some people notice no difference while others do.
You should focus on lowering the TA and see if the pH becomes stable ... then decide if it is worth it to add the borates.
BTW, thanks a lot for becoming a supporter and helping us keep the lights on
All other reasons are less tangible and are more geared toward perception on how the water feels and looks. Some people notice no difference while others do.
You should focus on lowering the TA and see if the pH becomes stable ... then decide if it is worth it to add the borates.
BTW, thanks a lot for becoming a supporter and helping us keep the lights on
Yep, good plan to figure out how to aerate and lower TA. Keep adding acid to lower PH when it gets to about 7.8 and it will rise through swimming, rain, etc which will slowly lower TA.
If you are not suffering from rapid pH rise then count yourself very lucky, and be patient with your TA.
My pool rises to 7.8 a couple days after acid additions without aeration and nomatter how much acid I add, fortunately it then settles at 7.8 for two or three weeks. I do have 50 ppm borates.
My pool rises to 7.8 a couple days after acid additions without aeration and nomatter how much acid I add, fortunately it then settles at 7.8 for two or three weeks. I do have 50 ppm borates.
The pressure problem has well and truly been fixed so I'm just fine tuning now. A couple of my numbers are pretty fixed for a while (CH and CYA) so I'm just tinkering with the TA and the PH to find out what should be the perfect level for them. As I mentioned before I don't have anything that will raise the PH like a spa or waterfall so I can pretty much pick a number and stick with it. My high CH is the only one really out of whack but I don't seem to be suffering from scaling but I do have a few stains I will look at once I get some vitamin C tablets and a few days when the pool's not being used.
Putting my numbers into the pool math calculator my current CSI is 0. If I tweak up the PH to 7.4 and down the TA to 75 I can also get the CSI to 0 but bearing in mind my CH, what would be my best numbers? My stats are currently:
CYA - 55
CH - 540
PH - 7.2
TA - 90
FC - 7
CC - 0
If I increase the PH to 7.4 and lower the TA to 75 would 75 be a little low with MY CH? If I stick as I am, isn't my PH of 7.2 a little on the low side? As I say I am just trying to do the final tweaks and would appreciate your recommendations.
PS FC loss has settled at 1.5ppm for the last few days so I'm happy with that.
Putting my numbers into the pool math calculator my current CSI is 0. If I tweak up the PH to 7.4 and down the TA to 75 I can also get the CSI to 0 but bearing in mind my CH, what would be my best numbers? My stats are currently:
CYA - 55
CH - 540
PH - 7.2
TA - 90
FC - 7
CC - 0
If I increase the PH to 7.4 and lower the TA to 75 would 75 be a little low with MY CH? If I stick as I am, isn't my PH of 7.2 a little on the low side? As I say I am just trying to do the final tweaks and would appreciate your recommendations.
PS FC loss has settled at 1.5ppm for the last few days so I'm happy with that.
I keep my TA down around 70. That gives a lot more wiggle room with the pH.