Anecdotal evidence for importance of calcium hardness in vinyl pool

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agentgreen

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Mar 15, 2016
4
Lawrenceville, GA
So just wanted to post real quick about my recent experience. I have a 22k 16x32 vinyl pool, that I've owned for about 8 years now. Over the last couple of years, when opening the pool in summer, I would perform a SLAM, and always end up with clear green water for a week or two and then it would clear up.

Last year I scoured this forum for answers and all roads seemed to lead to metals/copper in the water reacting to the high chlorine levels. Last year I just let the chlorine levels drop, and everything cleared up.

This year, same SLAM process, same clear green water, except this year, the green was a bit cloudy and has lasted for a month plus (Started SLAM beginning of May). I ran the SLAM chlorine levels for weeks, and then let them drop to normal levels, no change in slight green color in water.

I took a water sample to Leslie's (yes I know but I don't have a metal test kit), and they came back with some interesting results. Unfortunately I don't have the read out anymore, but the two interesting results were that I had about .3 ppm metals and 7ppm calcium hardness. The guy even commented on how low my CH was.

The Leslie's guy recommended some metal remover and the remover bags you put in the skimmer, and about 60lbs of calcium chloride. I ended up buying the metal remover stuff right away ($$$$$$$), but ignored the calcium hardness increaser based on the reading I've done on this forum around low calcium hardness not being important in vinyl pools.

Cut to two weeks later, no change in water color after metal treatments. I decided to tackle the CH issue because it was so incredibly low. I bought 50lbs of Pool Mate Calcium Increaser, and added 25 lbs of it last night to the pool.

Woke up this morning to completely clear ice blue water. Literally over night.

I'm heading back to Leslie's in a few to get updated test results, and I'll post those when I get them.

All of this to say that good water chemical balance across all chemicals seems to be more important than you think!
 
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Here are the updated test results from Leslie's:

FC: 0.13ppm
TC: 0.13 ppm
ph: 6.8
TA: 26
CH: 108
CYA: 24
Iron: 0.1
Copper: 0.6 (this went up from two weeks ago!!)
Phosphates: 748
TDS: 1300

Interesting that the copper result went up, but Leslie's guy said to ignore since PH was 'so low'.

Also, I think I know now why the pool got blue overnight: the calcium hardness increaser ate all my chlorine. No chlorine = nothing for copper to react to = blue?
 
FWIW: My Vinyl liner pool is similar volume as yours and my CH concerns relate to maintaining a CSI to protect my SWCG. However, I would never be satisfied if my test results are similar to the trust you have given the store results. Self-testing my water has, so far, served me very well. (I'm not one of the experts, just a guy who switched to TFP and not looked back.)
:lovetfp:
 
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Pool water becomes cloudy for different reasons.
Algae is #1
Another reason is having too much calcium along with a high PH + adding chlorine causes Calcium to cloud your water.
Another reason is having too many metals in your water along with a high PH + adding chlorine causes metals to cloud and stain your pool surfaces.
Another reason is you added a metal remover, sequestrant, ect. (I have added proteam metal magic and it has clouded my pool as it was reacting to the metals and calcium)
Another reason is you added a clarifier or floc and it reacted with something else in the water.

Having low Calcium Hardness would not cause a cloudy pool.
 
Happy Adam Scott GIF by Sky


Dunno what to tell you man haha adding 25lbs calcium chloride cleared my pool up in 12 hours.
 

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agentgreen said:
Happy Adam Scott GIF by Sky


Dunno what to tell you man haha adding 25lbs calcium chloride cleared my pool up in 12 hours.
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Your Chlorine levels are low, and so is your CYA but then again, this a leslie's test result. I'm more inclined to say that you had Algae and the Chlorine was consumed by that. Chlorine does not get consumed by Calcium Hardness.

Without doing proper testing it's impossible to know what actually happened but I do know that low chlorine would cause algae to keep coming back and keeping your pool cloudy. Low CYA would cause your chlorine to burn off quickly in the sun.

And I know for sure that low Calcium Hardness does not cause a cloudy pool.
 
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Dunno what to tell you man haha adding 25lbs calcium chloride cleared my pool up in 12 hours.
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The green tint in your pool is/was from iron. It is possible that the lower pH of the Calcium was enough to put the iron back into solution. taking the green from the water.

That said, you are jumping to all the wrong conclusions. .........the "wrongest" one is going to the pool store and thinking their results are meaningful
 
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agentgreen said:
All my TF-100 test reagents except for CYA and Chlorine are at least 4+ years old.
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Wait... then how could you possibly have attempted the SLAM Process without accurate and reliable results? That is the very first prerequisite for the process. Given that you still posted up pool store numbers for your chlorine and CYA I am highly suspect that you were accurately testing these levels.

So you were ignoring vital steps in the process, it wasn't working because of that, and so you started taking pool store advice and at some point your water cleared up and whatever you added last was crowned as the magic bullet that solved everything? Is that about the short of it?

This sounds to me more like anecdotal evidence for the importance of following directions correctly.
 
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