Hello all,
I'm somewhat new to owning a pool. This upcoming summer will be my second with my pool. I bought the house in late 2016 and the previous owner told me the only thing he ever put in the pool was chlorine tabs, and it was always perfectly clean. This worked well for me for several months. However, towards the end of last summer, I bought new chlorine tabs and I guess I made the mistake of buying tabs with CYA in them, because I hadn't really done any research yet. After using these for a while, the pool started growing algae no matter how much chlorine I dumped in. To make a long story short, I drained the pool this past weekend and refilled it. It was pretty swampy so I washed the entire inside with bleach. I've done a lot more research on this forum and elsewhere since then.
After filling the pool, I got to work on balancing it, following advice from online as well as what's on all of my pool chemical packaging. My Alkalinity was around 40, so I added baking soda to raise that. My pH was a little on the high end, around 7.8 so I used Sodium Bisulfate to lower it to around 7.4. My TA is now around 80-120 (using test strips so it's a little hard to tell exactly) and pH is still about 7.4-7.6. I was pretty happy with these numbers so I took some water to Leslie's Pool Supply to have them test it to make sure my measurements were right. This is where my confusion/frustration begins.
First I'd like to say that every trip I've had to Leslie's has been frustrating. I am told something completely different by literally every employee I talk to, and once even had two employees argue in front of me about which chemicals were the best.
The guy working today tested my water for me. The first thing he did was accuse me of adding acid to lower the pH. I said I did, because it was high. He showed me on his test kit that it was around 7.4-7.6 (am I wrong to believe that's acceptable?). He told me my TDS was around 500 (my test strips show my hardness around 500 - I'm not 100% sure of the relationship between the two). He told me to never add acid because it ruins the water. He then told me I should never shock my pool, and that all the other "idiots" working at Leslie's (his words, not mine) tell everyone to shock their pools weekly, which increases TDS and ruins your water.
I asked about alkalinity and he told me not to worry about that or pH because if I keep my chlorine levels controlled, the pH and TA will "follow" and stay correct. I'm no chemist, but this sounds like BS to me. He also mentioned to me (about three different times) that the water in his pool was 20 years old and his TDS was 500 because he never adds chemicals to it. I don't think he even bothered measuring the TA for me. I then explained to him that I had had an algae problem and had just refilled the pool, so he said I SHOULD add shock, but only twice over the next week. He repeated many times that shocking your pool ruins the water, though.
First he said I should use (Leslie's brand) shock which is 99% sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate. Anything else, he said, is junk and I should NEVER use calcium hypochlorite because it adds calcium to the water. He said after 3 weeks of using that shock and keeping my chlorine levels steady, I should switch to their other "chlorine-free" shock which is 38% potassium peroxymonosulfate. He suggested using that once a month during the summer and once every other month during the winter.
I apologize for the long post, but I felt like 90% of what this guy told me is not true and conflicts with everything I've read online and in directions on my pool chemical packaging. Can anyone address some of his claims? Is there any basis to everything he told me? Or should I completely ignore him? Should I stop going to Leslie's altogether?
Finally, what should I be doing during my pool startup? I have the TA and pH balanced to where I think they should be and just started up my pump/filter tonight. I have some chlorine tabs in my chlorine floaters. My pool is about 15,000 gallons, chlorine, with a Pentair Triton II sand filter, and I'm located in the Phoenix area.
I'm somewhat new to owning a pool. This upcoming summer will be my second with my pool. I bought the house in late 2016 and the previous owner told me the only thing he ever put in the pool was chlorine tabs, and it was always perfectly clean. This worked well for me for several months. However, towards the end of last summer, I bought new chlorine tabs and I guess I made the mistake of buying tabs with CYA in them, because I hadn't really done any research yet. After using these for a while, the pool started growing algae no matter how much chlorine I dumped in. To make a long story short, I drained the pool this past weekend and refilled it. It was pretty swampy so I washed the entire inside with bleach. I've done a lot more research on this forum and elsewhere since then.
After filling the pool, I got to work on balancing it, following advice from online as well as what's on all of my pool chemical packaging. My Alkalinity was around 40, so I added baking soda to raise that. My pH was a little on the high end, around 7.8 so I used Sodium Bisulfate to lower it to around 7.4. My TA is now around 80-120 (using test strips so it's a little hard to tell exactly) and pH is still about 7.4-7.6. I was pretty happy with these numbers so I took some water to Leslie's Pool Supply to have them test it to make sure my measurements were right. This is where my confusion/frustration begins.
First I'd like to say that every trip I've had to Leslie's has been frustrating. I am told something completely different by literally every employee I talk to, and once even had two employees argue in front of me about which chemicals were the best.
The guy working today tested my water for me. The first thing he did was accuse me of adding acid to lower the pH. I said I did, because it was high. He showed me on his test kit that it was around 7.4-7.6 (am I wrong to believe that's acceptable?). He told me my TDS was around 500 (my test strips show my hardness around 500 - I'm not 100% sure of the relationship between the two). He told me to never add acid because it ruins the water. He then told me I should never shock my pool, and that all the other "idiots" working at Leslie's (his words, not mine) tell everyone to shock their pools weekly, which increases TDS and ruins your water.
I asked about alkalinity and he told me not to worry about that or pH because if I keep my chlorine levels controlled, the pH and TA will "follow" and stay correct. I'm no chemist, but this sounds like BS to me. He also mentioned to me (about three different times) that the water in his pool was 20 years old and his TDS was 500 because he never adds chemicals to it. I don't think he even bothered measuring the TA for me. I then explained to him that I had had an algae problem and had just refilled the pool, so he said I SHOULD add shock, but only twice over the next week. He repeated many times that shocking your pool ruins the water, though.
First he said I should use (Leslie's brand) shock which is 99% sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate. Anything else, he said, is junk and I should NEVER use calcium hypochlorite because it adds calcium to the water. He said after 3 weeks of using that shock and keeping my chlorine levels steady, I should switch to their other "chlorine-free" shock which is 38% potassium peroxymonosulfate. He suggested using that once a month during the summer and once every other month during the winter.
I apologize for the long post, but I felt like 90% of what this guy told me is not true and conflicts with everything I've read online and in directions on my pool chemical packaging. Can anyone address some of his claims? Is there any basis to everything he told me? Or should I completely ignore him? Should I stop going to Leslie's altogether?
Finally, what should I be doing during my pool startup? I have the TA and pH balanced to where I think they should be and just started up my pump/filter tonight. I have some chlorine tabs in my chlorine floaters. My pool is about 15,000 gallons, chlorine, with a Pentair Triton II sand filter, and I'm located in the Phoenix area.
