Purchased home with a pool. Totally lost.

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Ryan,

Based on your water chemistry alone, you don't need a complete drain/refill. A 50% drain will get you where you want to be in terms of CYA. Before considering a full drain, you need to try to identify the cause of your stains. Read up HERE and you'll find some ways to identify common causes of staining. I would also recommend taking a sample to Leslie's to have your water tested. You'll only be interested in metal content. Don't let them sell you anything until you check back in.

The staining is not real evident in the photos. Can you provide a better description? What color, is the stained surface rough, slimey, or the same as surrounding areas?

 

[DorsalSpine]

The weight of the water provides support to the pool walls. With a complete drain you risk having the ground water damage the pool. With a liner pool you might float the liner as ground water seeps in. With a solid surface pool and a high water table you might float the pool shell up out of the ground. A partial drain is your only option to get the CYA level down. Been there, done that. Maintaining a pool with a high CYA is a pain unless you go salt or exchange water.

 

[RyanWendell]

Ryan,

Test your fill water for CH, pH, and TA in preparation for the fill.

CH: 100PPM was purple ish 125PPM was super blue

pH: looks like 8.2

TA: at 120PPM it was very lightly pink, 130 PPM was pretty red, and 140PPM was super red.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

For the CH and TA tests, continue drops until there is no further color change, than subtract the last drop.

 

[mknauss]

To safely do a partial water exchange, consider the following.
You can exchange some water without draining.

If you place a low volume sub pump in the deep end and pull water from there while adding water in the shallow end (through a skimmer or into a bucket on a step so you lessen the water disturbance) you can do a fairly efficient exchange. That is assuming the water you are filling with is the same temperature or warmer than your pool water. If your fill water is much cooler than your pool water, then switch it. Add the water to the deep end (hose on bottom) and pull water from the top step.

The location of the pump and fill hose may change if you have salt water, high calcium, etc.
In my pool, with saltwater and high calcium when I drain, I put the pump in the deep end and hose in shallow end. The water in the pool weighs more per unit volume than the fill water from the hose.

Be sure to balance the water out and water in so the pool level stays the same. Also be sure your pool pump is disabled during this process. Once started do not stop until you have exchanged the amount of water you wish.

 

[jimmythegreek]

Post pics of the stains so we can advise. As said only drain fully if you need to work below waterline. Otherwise a partial drain or a temperature differential drain as stated will work perfectly for you

 

[RyanWendell]

For the CH and TA tests, continue drops until there is no further color change, than subtract the last drop.

CH: 125PPM
TA: 140PPM 150PPM if I'm being super picky.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Great! You just need to get some help with those stains. Can you post a few better pics of the stains? @mknauss also mentioned a potential problem related to the use of Yellow Out...

Welcome to the forum!

Do not use any more of that Yellow Treat!!!!!! It is Sodium Bromide. If it has been used extensively your pool is now a Bromine pool. We will see how things go when you get your TF100, but, there is a chance a complete water exchange may be necessary to resolve that.

Let's see if he'll chime in now that your test results are in.

 

[ajw22]

CH: 125PPM
TA: 140PPM 150PPM if I'm being super picky.

See the notes about TA Testing Procedure. Drop size matters in the TA test. Retest wiping the tip between each drop and letting the drops fully firm.

• Sometimes a static electric charge can build up on the R-0009 dropper bottle tip, causing the drops to be smaller than usual and making the test read higher than actual. You can prevent this by wipping the tip of the dropper bottle with a damp cloth or tissue before you start and after each drop.
• Hold the dropper bottles vertically and squeeze gently, so that drops come out slowly and seem to hang on the tip of the dropper bottle for a moment before falling.
• If you expect that your TA level is extremely high, you can do the test so that each drop is 25, instead of 10, to speed up the process and save on reagent usage. Use 10 ml of pool water, 1 drop of R-0007, 3 drops of R-0008, and multiply the number of drops of R-0009 by 25 to get your TA level.

 

[mknauss]

Great! You just need to get some help with those stains. Can you post a few better pics of the stains? @mknauss also mentioned a potential problem related to the use of Yellow Out..
Let's see if he'll chime in now that your test results are in.

Forgot about that! Even more reason to drain. I wonder if the stains are copper? If a pool service was willing to add sodium bromide they could have easily been using some copper based potions.

 

[mknauss]

Back to the stains. Follow the directions in this and let us know the results. Also answer the questions by Rancho in post #41 on the stains.

 

[RyanWendell]

Ryan,

Based on your water chemistry alone, you don't need a complete drain/refill. A 50% drain will get you where you want to be in terms of CYA. Before considering a full drain, you need to try to identify the cause of your stains. Read up HERE and you'll find some ways to identify common causes of staining. I would also recommend taking a sample to Leslie's to have your water tested. You'll only be interested in metal content. Don't let them sell you anything until you check back in.

The staining is not real evident in the photos. Can you provide a better description? What color, is the stained surface rough, slimey, or the same as surrounding areas?

I hope the pics help. I am going through the guide now.

 

[RyanWendell]

I’m going to drain and refill today. Aiming for 50% drain I guess. My approach was going to be a drain using the pump/DE filter and clean out the DE filter before refill. It was mentioned before to replace the water with a pump at the deepens and the hose at the shallow end. Just looking for help before I start draining since all I have is the built in pool pump/system.

 

[mknauss]

You are much better off getting a submersible pump to drain/exchange water from your pool. The pool pump is not designed for it and losing prime could damage your pump / motor.

 

[RyanWendell]

You are much better off getting a submersible pump to drain/exchange water from your pool. The pool pump is not designed for it and losing prime could damage your pump / motor.

Alright sounds good. I’ll look into that. Are there any other tips or anything to look out for when doing the exchange?


I don’t know if this changes anything but I do have a valve to switch between skimmer and main drain or both.

 

[mknauss]

Read again the post above. Be sure you understand which conditions you have and how they effect whether you have the pump shallow or deep. Also be sure to remove the power from the main pool pump during the process.

Be sure to measure how much you are exchanging per minute. Use a 5 gallon bucket for that. Typically the best you get is 5-7 gpm.

 

[RyanWendell]

Aright pool water has been exchanged. Roughly 50-60%.


I’ll re run all the water tests but do I need to wait for the pump to run for any amount of time to make sure the water is fully mixed? It’s been running for a few hours now and I’ve been stirring the water around getting leaves and what not that fall in.

 

[kimkats]

Running the pump for about an hour AND brushing=it should be mixed up pretty good already! Run the tests now! I can't wait!

 

[mknauss]

Seems like it went very quickly. Hope it did what you want.

 

[RyanWendell]

Running the pump for about an hour AND brushing=it should be mixed up pretty good already! Run the tests now! I can't wait!

FC: 1PPM
CC: 0PPM
CH: 200 ppm
pH: less than 7.8 more than 7.5. If I had to guess maybe 7.6? 7.5 in the blue box K-1000 looks almost peach and 7.8 is more pink. My results are a lighter pink and not "peach" at all. Hope this helps.
TA: 150PPM
CYA: 40