Hello - I find myself in the curious position of lurking and learning after buying a house with a wild 90s pool. The previous owner had a laissez-faire approach to most things related to maintenance and the pool was no exception. The pool was surrounded by crazy shedding trees. The weir door: missing (now replaced). Looks like epic blue copper stains, tannin stains and heavily abused pebblecrete that either had multiple acid washes along the way OR it's the original 1992 pebblecrete and it's a mess. There has been a repair of the step and they appear to have chosen the pebblecrete colour for that step repair from a crazy wheel. It is currently on the acidic side because I am making my way down to try citric acid for this copper but I think it's been there so long we're past the point. I found the previous owner's stash of copper algaecide so I suspect... it was that. I suspect they drained it half way down for the step repair then the copper went wild plating all around (guessing). I am resigned to a pool renovation in the not too distant future. I have become obsessed about the stains and I will mostly like continue to play my stain removal games until I commit to a facelift for it.
I managed to dodge pool duties in all previous addresses in my life so I came in cold at this place. I had a pool guy come round and talk absolute BS "you can't really ever have too much chlorine in this heat" he said. Oh also that I need to hurry up and buy more salt. Would have been nice if he told me I had CC. I discovered TFP and have since bought a Taylor kit. I play with the pool more than in the pool.
Now I can say:
FC: 3.5 (still coming down after SLAM - checking to see if these stains were organic... they are not)
CC: 0 (no pink on the test today)
PH: 7.2
CH: 250
CYA: 33 (I have been diluting after the chloramine scandal)
TA: 50 (came down after messing with oxalic acid stain remover... was too impatient to wait for FC to come down so I know I played myself there).
The water is so clear so the stains are making me extra mad.
I have been on a murdering spree of the shedding trees and am in the process of finding and re-planting pool friendly items. Also found an algae blob hiding inside the lower surface of the pool light! There was no other visible or brushable algae anywhere else so it explained the weird numbers (when I had guess strips).
Thank you to everyone who contributes here, it's forced me to do it right and learn the things. It's true what they say: you don't know what you don't know. Blissfully clueless. Now I'm out here like Harry Potter in potions class having flashbacks to what kind of craziness was in my water!!!
I managed to dodge pool duties in all previous addresses in my life so I came in cold at this place. I had a pool guy come round and talk absolute BS "you can't really ever have too much chlorine in this heat" he said. Oh also that I need to hurry up and buy more salt. Would have been nice if he told me I had CC. I discovered TFP and have since bought a Taylor kit. I play with the pool more than in the pool.
Now I can say:
FC: 3.5 (still coming down after SLAM - checking to see if these stains were organic... they are not)
CC: 0 (no pink on the test today)
PH: 7.2
CH: 250
CYA: 33 (I have been diluting after the chloramine scandal)
TA: 50 (came down after messing with oxalic acid stain remover... was too impatient to wait for FC to come down so I know I played myself there).
The water is so clear so the stains are making me extra mad.
I have been on a murdering spree of the shedding trees and am in the process of finding and re-planting pool friendly items. Also found an algae blob hiding inside the lower surface of the pool light! There was no other visible or brushable algae anywhere else so it explained the weird numbers (when I had guess strips).
Thank you to everyone who contributes here, it's forced me to do it right and learn the things. It's true what they say: you don't know what you don't know. Blissfully clueless. Now I'm out here like Harry Potter in potions class having flashbacks to what kind of craziness was in my water!!!