Doing 5 gal bucket method. Checking every two hours.

Fill water
TA 150
CH 200
PH 7.2

1st Check
TA 180
CH 225
PH 7.5

2nd Check
TA 140
CH 225
PH 8.0

Do I base my calcs on 2000 gallons of water. I believe 1K went in at 2 hr. So, I am thinking 1K every 2 hrs. Then I would assume I need .98 lbs of baking soda. How do I determine acid needed?

Thanks

So my pool plumbing runs up my house to the roof for solar heating. I need to mount it to the side of my house which is stucco. I want to avoid any vibration because my bedroom is on the other side of the wall. Any suggestions?

Pebble finish was installed Thursday. Acid wash and pressure wash today and ppool is filling. Far from done. Sheer wall is leaking. Guy showed up now to fux after a year and is cutting rock adn all teh dust is flyign into my new pebble. Should I stop him!!!

Hi everyone

I've had this pool for a couple years now, built new by me. I have a TF-Pro testkit that I test constantly with. My problem is that, my salt test kit has been reading and still does read 3600 for over a year now. The ONLY thing I've done to my pool in the last year is added (I'd have to check exactly) 50 or so pounds of boric acid to my pool. That was the fall of 2022. My salt has been reading around 4100 for the last couple months and today it hit 4600 (on my screenlogic app). Is this thing faulty, or is it somehow reading the boric acid in the water and messing up the reading? I can't find much info on this anywhere, but now my chlorine is only around 5 and I have CYA between 70 and 90. I live in Las Vegas and today is the first real day that it's gotten hot enough to get my pool above 78 degrees (I don't have a ton of direct sun exposure. Sun doesn't fully cover my pool until around 1pm and then it's only full coverage until 5pm).

In the meantime, is my pool generating chlorine at 4600?

I'm redoing my pad plumbing and trying to decide where to put check valves. I have a pool and spa combo where the spa is above the level of the pool and the level of the spa is also slightly above the pump. The suction side has three lines for the spa, skimmer and main drain. The return has 2 lines for the spa and floor cleaner that goes to the pool. I have a heater, a salt cell, a pump and a filter. The spa return currently has a check valve but if any spa valves are open when the pump is off the spa will drain down to the inlets.

I plan to plumb a heater bypass, so I will install a check valve on the heater outlet before the bypass and the salt cell. Should I keep the spa return check valve? Should I put a check valve anywhere else?

I'm ready to drain & refill (or maybe just fill in) I can't figure out what is happening. I thought it was mustard algae, so I did that version of SLAM, passed all the hurdles, then kept my FC 8-10. Everything was fine, until I woke up one morning and it was 5. Then the mustard spots showed up again. I caught early and it didn't take off like last time, but it's still not quite sparkly and there's still algae eating the chlorine. I'm wondering if it's black algae? Or whatever type trapped in a place I can't reach? Our light screws stripped, so we had to have someone come in last year to repair, and he permanently affixed them - they can be removed but not with any equipment we have. Was our best option at the time since no one really likes to see a light float to the top of the pool while you're swimming. I get they're still safe, but it's also still really unsettling: electricity/water. Our phosphates are crazy high as we never cover the pool which is surrounded by landscaping which sits and decompose through the off-season, plus everything that falls in through out the summer. We've treated with phosphate remover but not made much headway. Knowing that's a fuel for algae, wondering if it makes more sense (time, energy & $$) to just drain, clean & refill? We have a black bottom pool, so it's really hard to tell if maybe there's black algae somewhere. Even during summers when the pool did sparkle, any time I brushed small plums of dust (?) would rise & settle. I feel like there's just so much gunk imbetted in our pebbletec that just needs to be acid washed or however you clean it and then start fresh. I could replace our stripped lights once & for all as well. We also have a raised waterfall with a 3ft deep well. I do brush that when I'm SLAMing, but I just noticed how yellow the rocks behind (hidden by japanese maple) are. Could that be the source? We also have a bunch of black dots on the diving board - maybe that's the problem? They don't seem slimy. A pool toy or suit?

For now, I'm planning to just try to maintain the high FC. Should I continue to let it drop and do it's thing during the daylight and bump up again when it's dark? Or raise now knowing I’ll lose a lot just to sun? Should I do a phosphate treatment to try to cut food source? Or quit and find a new hobby?

I'm attaching a few photos from yesterday to hopefully better explain (plus one from when it’s “normal”) Will try to add a current shortly

FC: 23
CC: 0
TA: 90
pH: 7.5
CH: 300
CYA: 60 (<--had been 40 and after I "finally" cleared the last algae outbreak few weeks ago I slowly started to raise, aiming for 70-80, but have stopped now)
Salt: 3700
Phosphates: over 4000 (yes thousand)

Hi there! Here is the interesting scenario that happened:

• In the fall (due to other repairs going on), all my lines were pressure tested and passed, all good.
• The pool company closed the pool and blew out the lines.
• In the spring, there was a leak in one of my return lines (stair jets). Water could be seen and pressure test confirmed it.

The pool company said they would repair the leak at no cost if it turned out to be freezing damage. They just repaired it today and the guy said that a fitting had "popped off" (exact words). I believe the repair was just to re-secure the fitting. (99% of the work was digging and locating the line!)

Question: do you think a fitting coming off like that could be due to freezing damage (lines not blown out properly)?

I guessing they will say no, and I will have to cover the repair -- and I'm okay with that if it was due to something else (ground movement etc.). Where it gets tricky is if it MIGHT have been freezing damage but no way to be sure; maybe then I can bargain for a small discount or something.

Thanks for any advice! I appreciate it.

Mike

Pump motor comes on and switches off at random times. At one point when I noticed this I tried to turn the switch off and on but the motor wouldn't move. Then, I let it sit for a while and and tried again. It came back on. I thought it was the capacitor so changed that. Same behavior. Now, I'm wondering if it's the motor. Is this a common failure mode? It's a Ceturion single speed motor from 2003.

Hello all

I'm stuck. We have a 13,000 gallon above ground 24' pool in Southwest Ohio that gets direct exposure to the sun for every second the sun is out (which is a lot in the summer). Last year we had an unusually hot summer and we sat in the upper 80's. This year is a different story. We're camping around the low to mid 80's and with the solar cover (16mil gray) we're floating 75-77 degrees.

Our goal for a heat pump (propane is not an option - too expensive to run) is to be able to get the pool to sit at 80 degrees or higher for ALL of June through September. Hayward indicates that I need a pump around 65,000 BTU. Unfortunatley, the only ones I can get my hands on are 47,000 (for $2,299) or a 90,000 (for $4,000). I really would prefer ot not spend the extra $1,700 (especially since it's 4-6 weeks out on delivery and the smaller one is in stock).

Anyone have any experience trying to heat a larger body of water with a slightly undersized heat pump? If I could get my hands on the HP70HA2 (70k btu unit) I would but I can't find it in stock anywhere.

I have a Jandy 2 way 4724 valve that has leaked around valve cover since installation. It’s a new valve that I just installed. I installed a 4717 and 7305 at the same time with no issues. I’ve taken apart checked oring and even replaced oring with a new one with no luck. I’ve lubricated the oring with magic lube also every time. I’ve tried tightening the cover evenly in a sequential pattern with no luck.

There’s no cracks or damage to the sealing surfaces but it still leaks.

Leak is 100% not coming from the stem.

Any ideas? I’ve emailed Jandy support with no response.

Is the air bleeder just a piece of PVC pipe with a screen on top? Mine clogs up constantly.

Pentair Quad DE Quad 60

As i get further into this self testing I have a question about daily fc loss.
Based on what i read here there may be a daily fc loss on average(key word) of 3FC.
Does that mean I must add that much daily?
How much LC would that be in a 15000 gal pool?
Am i going to need a tank truck of LC?

So we added a heater bypass this last Spring before opening. It's just 2 manual Jandy valves that I close/open basically when I was to enable/disable the bypass. I thought it'd be nice to NOT send water through the heater if I'm not using it for long periods of time (especially as one of my two SWCG's is before the heater, which I know isn't ideal, but ugh, replumbing that one is going to be such a PITA). So, I have had the heater bypass enabled occasionally, but recently started wondering if it's a problem bypassing the heater and having that stagnant water sitting IN the heater?

What's the standard operating procedure when using a heater bypass? Should I also be draining the water in the heater? Or just leaving it there, or doesn't it really matter if my water chemistry is on spec? Thoughts one way or the other?

I am not an expert in electricity and never like mess around with it. I noticed this bonding/ground (I believe this is called "bonding" as oppose to ground) wire somehow broke apart. Is this safe the way I have it "connected". I had to wedge it into the gap, the screw is really not doing anything since the two ends are tightly "wedged" together.

I went on vacation for a week from last wednesday to this wednesday. When I left I added 2 gallons of 10%. Then on Friday and Monday following I had the person staying here add 2.5 gallons. Tested wednesday when I got back and was clear so first thought is added too much. So got chlorine neutralizer to try and lower. Added 1 pound and retested and still clear. So added another pound of chlorine neutralizer and still clear for FC. FC has been clear since testing wednesday. So I went to the pool store and do drop based test and said I have no chlorine. Not sure of the exact test but they did a drop based test that if goes brown then it is too high but still clear. They said phosates were around 200 so not to really worry.

So I added some chlorine today and should have bumped from 0-6, and still getting clear.

I have tried to replace about 1/4-1/3 of the water to lower the level. So I have a hard time believing it is all gone. There is no smell of chlorine and not sure if the neutralizer is removing the cholorine I am adding. Pool is not green at all. So just at a loss and would appreicate some advice.

I thought my CYA was 40 but when I tested I got 20 and pool store got 30, but this is after some water replacement so not sure what it was prior.

Any advice would be helpful since if too high obviously do not want to swim. If the neutralizer is just eating up the chlorine I am putting in I have read it should be dissipated in a few days.

Greetings all, great site and very helpful since I had my spool built. Looking forward to learning from all y'all.

Usually I gently set the unit in the pool. But being pretty disgusted with its stupidity (not even random) I gave it a good arching toss into the pool. The thing seems to behave like my old Active 30 now so far. Did I dislodge some orientation mechanism for the better?

Hi, I’ve had a recurring problem as long as I can remember and decided to post it here. I have about a 10k gallon pool with a Pentair 1.5 HP variable speed pump and a Hayward 48 SF DE filter. Right after a thorough grid cleaning and recharge the pump works amazing moving the water but after about 1.5 to 2 months after nominal use with regular chlorination and cleaning, it loses its ability to efficiently move the water and then the cloudy water and algae start. When I see this happening I’ll grab the hose for the skimmer and after I hook up the hose to clean, the pump won’t clear the air from the hose which it normally does fine. At this point I generally know it’s time for yet another cleaning. I could do a backwash but that seems like it only does a so-so job at getting me back in business. This issue seems to crop up quickly meaning one day the pump just stops working efficiently.

Any ideas what this might be? It seems like it’s filter related but I just don’t know. It seems like I should be good for 4-6 months.

Thanks for listening.

I opened the pool around memorial day weekend. Found out my old DE filter was leaking at the dirty water intake. New filter was installed about a week ago. Since pool was open for long time it's been really diety. Lot of algae and leaves at the bottom. As you can see the pics, this is the condition of the water. Lot better than what it was 3 days ago. I even open3d the filter yesterday and hosed down th3 grids. I added around 6 cups of DE to recharge. Now it's doing the same thing. Pressure goes up within hour or tow max. I end up backwashing and start again. Same cycle.
What I started now is stop adding DE after backwashing. I know that's not good for the grids. Chances are higher for grids getting damaged. I also added hair net at both Skimmer baskets to control the gunk getting to the filter. I am following the SLAM process but trying to understand why it's getting clogged so quickly.

I just got Pebbletec put in about 7 days ago, my PB and pebble installer said absolutely no salt for 28 days. Well, my PB also has an independent group balance the pool for the first month.

Today, I saw the tech was there and by the time I noticed the bag of salt, it was in his hands and dumping into the pool.

Is this something I really need to be concerned about or forget about it? I did text my PB to let him know and showed the camera of this tech dumping the salt. I just don’t want anything to happen to the plaster or my warranty.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Hello my name's Greg from Las Vegas.

Hi All,

My sister's pool has long had one of the two main drain covers missing - I hounded her to get it replaced, but she never did.

I found the missing cover in her pool locker. Neither the drain nor the cover looked damaged - she wasn't able to remember why it was open.

Figured would just swim the 5 1/2' depth to replace it ... but I know this isn't going to work without diver weight belts - and, I tried it - just too buoyant . So, how about options for the weights? Figure 10% buoyancy to start, then minus 5 pounds (some reading) = 20-5 = 15 pounds? Was considering a rope belt and slipping in something like a sledgehammer (about 11 pounds) to start. No real chance of drowning since I'm over 6' tall (previously qualified scuba diver).

Have mask and snorkle.

Anyone done something like this?

I noticed yesterday a few bubbles were coming out of jets. I turned off pump and cleaned skimmer and pump basket. Once I did that, water slowly started to stop flowing into pump. Any ideas on fixes? I just had the filter cleaned earlier this week. Was thinking of taking apart and putting the filter back together.

~10000g pool
DE filter
Fairly new construction. Completed in March

My 15.6k gallon pool uses 2-3 ppm FC daily this time of year. We are going to be away for several weeks so for the first time in my 3 seasons of pool ownership, I am going to have to bite the bullet and use tablets. We do have an in-line feeder for 3" tablets, but I've just never used it so I have some questions. Also, I have someone who can come by 1-2x a week to check things, but not more often than that, so sticking with straight LC isn't an option.

I am most concerned about run-away CYA levels while being gone for 4 weeks. My CYA is 50 now, but on the advice of this forum, I have raised it as high as 70 to help with the especially hot Texas summers and it has worked. So I feel like I have at least 20 ppm CYA headroom. But I also don't know how many tablets I will use per day or week when I'm gone. (I hope to experiment this week to find out, but time is short before departure.)

Looking at the "Effects of Adding" in the Pool Math app, it says 8 oz of trichlor (I am guessing this is the weight of one 3" tablet) will raise FC by 3.1 and CYA by 2.1 (yikes!). If I go through one tablet a day (is that crazy?---I don't know---I run my pump about 5 hours a day at 1400 rpm) to get my 3.1 ppm FC, then I'll raise CYA by about 2.1 x 28 = 58.8 in 28 days! Am I interpreting this correctly?

If so, I obviously need an alternate plan. I thought about alternating trichlor tabs with cal hypo tabs (once the feeder is completely empty of course) to try to balance chlorination needs with runaway CYA, but cal hypo tabs are actually hard to find (especially in time before I leave).

Any advice, suggestions, or corrections to the above are welcome! Thanks!

PS Needless to say, this only makes me want a SWG even more!!!

Has anyone had a situation where you have algae on the top of the cover? I think I may have that and it keeps introducing algae to the pool from opening and closing the cover. I've noticed a yellow-ish (more yellow than green) film at the outer edge of the water that pools up around the cover pump after it rains and the same film on the pump and drain hose. At first I thought it was pollen but now I'm second guessing. What's really odd is the same stuff seems to be showing up on the edges of the hot tub cover where it's sitting on the coping. That's another reason I just thought it was pollen and was seeping between the cover and coping with the rain water. So I'm going to assume it's algae and go after it. Any suggestions on a cleaner to use? Coverstar's website says to only use dishsoap but I'm nervous that won't do it and contemplated a low dosage of bleach and water (maybe 10:1 water to bleach). Any suggestions?

I got quoted around 7 grand. Seems high. If any body knows of someone trust worthy.

I am having green algae problem after neighbor's tree fall in my pool last year. Since then I tried many things to get the metals out such as copper, alum etc...
My CYA was low like under 10 and CC - 2PPM, and I used chlorine tabs to bring them up, and now has gone up to 85. Looking to find ways to lower CYA now, rather then draining water out.
My Yesterdays' reading shown below.

FC - 2
TC - 2.17
pH - 8
TA - 104
CH - 150
CYA - 86

It appears everything such as chlorine tabs, cal hypo's, conditioner and stabilizer affect CYA, which appears to be an important number to look at.

Any Advice to remove green algae as I can not see bottom of the pool since a month. and if I should use Swamp treat, as I already tried Super 60 Algicides from 2 stores. versus more liquid chlorine.

Have spent weeks trying to get my chlorine levels up in my saltwater pool. Cell is ~5 yrs old. Had very minimal scale but cleaned in muriatic acid mix. No error codes showing. Chlorine production set at 50% then 60% . Still no chlorine in the pool. Have tried Boost 3 or 4 times in the last week but still have the same issue. I cleaned the cord contacts after 120 code came on during one of my attempts (some yellow gunk came out - likely from the WD40 I sprayed during an earlier attempt). Help - I am having to shock the pool every other day

Hey all,

I was out of the country for a month, and a friend watched my pool for me. It’s a SWG that usually runs great without issues. Apparently it went green a week ago and he took a sample to the pool store. They advised him to add 1 gallon of Muriatic Acid and then subsequently another gallon. They also had him hit the superchlorinate button on the SWG. The levels before I left were:

FC: 5
Alkalinity: 110
pH: 7.4
CYA: 50-60

Currently I’m reading:
FC: 1
Alkalinity: 140
pH: 7.5
CYA: 30

I already began slamming and am going to add CYA. My question is how to get alkalinity lower without screwing up the pH. Is that even possible? Am I missing something about why it’s green? To be fair, it’s not a dark green - we can still see the bottom and I think slamming will take care of the issue in a day or two. Water isn’t hazy, either. I’m also a little perplexed as to why it went green in the first place - other than the obvious of not enough chlorine in the water. Thanks for any advice you have to offer.

Hi all,

We have a small 6000gal above ground pool. It came with a pump and cartridge filter but we upgraded to a 14" sand filter kit to not have to constantly wash out the cartridge.

I was going to buy a filter locally but the pool store near us did not carry something that small so I got a pump/filter combo on Amazon and bought the filter sand locally. It calls for 60lbs of sand filled between half way and 3/4 in the tank. I filled it to 3/4.


The issue that I'm having is that it does not seem to actually be filtering the water. The pump is moving plenty of water through the system. There are two inlets, one is connected to the skimmer and the other has the strainer on the side of the wall. These are T'ed together to the inlet of the pump. The pressure gauge reads 4psi.

I have verified that the valve is in the correct position. This one is simplified from the standard Hayward valves in that it only has Backwash, Rinse, Filter and Winter positions.

I've let it run for 40+ hours and it has had no change on the clarity of the water. The chemistry looks good with the correct chlorine and ph levels, yet the water is murky and unfiltered. The pressure never changes from above 4psi even when the filter has run long enough to need to be backwashed. The pressure is the same in all positions of the valve. In reading about low pressure all indications point to restricted flow but the flow is very good to and through the pump.

When backwashing, the flow is good but the water runs clear like nothing was captured in the sand. You can hear the sand moving around in the tank. Rinsing looks the same.

In an attempt to trouble shoot I removed some sand to get it to the 1/2 way mark. This made no change. I even disassembled the valve to check and see if the seals were good or if it possibly had been assembled 180 degrees out of alignment. But everything looked good and the segments of the valve in filter mode line up with sending the water from the pump to the distributor in the top of the tank and then on the standpipe outlet it is sent to the return to the pool.

Any thoughts as to why the filter is not filtering? Thanks!