Hey everyone!
First time poster here after lurking for a few days. We installed an 11,000 gallon fiberglass pool with a Heyward saltwater system 3 years ago. I do have a local pool company do the annual closing and reopening of the pool and generally the pool is in good shape for the entire summer here in Charlotte, NC.
I do take a water sample to Leslie's every 2 weeks or so just to get them to test the pool chemistry. I know this is not the preferred method around here and I am very aware of the fact they are in the business of selling products, but it was simply easier for the year or two of owning the pool and I have not really had many issues thankfully. I do have a Taylor K-2005 test kit at home and I do use it to validate pH, total chlorine, etc. so I am not totally unfamiliar with taking readings myself.
I took a sample in on June 1 and had pretty high phosphates, so later that day I added No-Phos and followed all the instructions. I even disassembled the filters and cleaned them after 3 days so they were nice and clean again. The problem I'm having is I noticed that over the last week, during which we used the pool quite a bit, the water has become cloudier. Nothing crazy, but just slightly milky and I had my kids complaining that their eyes were burning just a bit. I also noticed that my SWG was showing my instant salt at around 3700ppm at my normal setting, which seemed crazy high, so I backed it off 10% and now it's reading around 3200ppm steady. I took another sample today to Leslie's and got the following:
Free Chlorine: 1.16
Total Chlorine: 1.41
pH: 7.5
Total Alkilinity: 74
Calcium Hardness: 160
Cyanuric Acid: 17
Phosphates: 0
I did use my Taylor kit and got the same readings for Chlorine and pH, so I had no reason not to trust the Leslie reading today. I also know that I had yet to add any CYA to the pool this year, so today I came home and added liquid conditioner. The pool is currently circulating and on Friday I will clean the filters again. I run the pool robot daily and brush/sweep and clean the filter, but I am still seeing this very slight milky hue to my water.
My questions are two fold here as I'm a newbie and really want to learn to do this on my own:
1) what is the general order of operations for adjusting pool chemistry and what should i be doing next?
2) any explanation on my water is not crystal clear like normal? i had zero issues with cloudiness 3 weeks ago.
Thanks in advance everyone.
First time poster here after lurking for a few days. We installed an 11,000 gallon fiberglass pool with a Heyward saltwater system 3 years ago. I do have a local pool company do the annual closing and reopening of the pool and generally the pool is in good shape for the entire summer here in Charlotte, NC.
I do take a water sample to Leslie's every 2 weeks or so just to get them to test the pool chemistry. I know this is not the preferred method around here and I am very aware of the fact they are in the business of selling products, but it was simply easier for the year or two of owning the pool and I have not really had many issues thankfully. I do have a Taylor K-2005 test kit at home and I do use it to validate pH, total chlorine, etc. so I am not totally unfamiliar with taking readings myself.
I took a sample in on June 1 and had pretty high phosphates, so later that day I added No-Phos and followed all the instructions. I even disassembled the filters and cleaned them after 3 days so they were nice and clean again. The problem I'm having is I noticed that over the last week, during which we used the pool quite a bit, the water has become cloudier. Nothing crazy, but just slightly milky and I had my kids complaining that their eyes were burning just a bit. I also noticed that my SWG was showing my instant salt at around 3700ppm at my normal setting, which seemed crazy high, so I backed it off 10% and now it's reading around 3200ppm steady. I took another sample today to Leslie's and got the following:
Free Chlorine: 1.16
Total Chlorine: 1.41
pH: 7.5
Total Alkilinity: 74
Calcium Hardness: 160
Cyanuric Acid: 17
Phosphates: 0
I did use my Taylor kit and got the same readings for Chlorine and pH, so I had no reason not to trust the Leslie reading today. I also know that I had yet to add any CYA to the pool this year, so today I came home and added liquid conditioner. The pool is currently circulating and on Friday I will clean the filters again. I run the pool robot daily and brush/sweep and clean the filter, but I am still seeing this very slight milky hue to my water.
My questions are two fold here as I'm a newbie and really want to learn to do this on my own:
1) what is the general order of operations for adjusting pool chemistry and what should i be doing next?
2) any explanation on my water is not crystal clear like normal? i had zero issues with cloudiness 3 weeks ago.
Thanks in advance everyone.