Chemical additions through the skimmer

[Syrr]

Having reviewed as much as I can find on this subject, perplexed is still my state. A rather good friend who happens to be in the business of maintaining commercial swimming pools adds all of his granulates through the skimmer. I trust the forums here more than anywhere so far, so please bring on the thoughts, suggestions, opinions and experiences.

I get lots of leaves, flowers and other foliage each day. We currently run the pump 12 hours at night. Chlorine injector uses pucks set at 3.5 ppm. I pour in a pint of 8% every other night or at worst, every third night. A pound of calcium and a pound of baking soda once a week or 10 days. Water temp around 70 degrees for the last week.



Water is crystal-clear, feels great, but a little cool for me and described as feeling "fluffy" by my lady friend. Last test 06/16/2021 FC 0.17, TC 0.24, PH 7.7, TA 47, CH 146, CA 5, Copper 0.1, Phosphates 407, TDS 300, Iron 0.1

No stinging eyes or chlorine stink, one bather (me) every day, with an additional couple of bodies or so in three to four days.
Attached are photos of the current state of my water on this date and chemical containers.

 

[Cwiggs]

A rather good friend who happens to be in the business of maintaining commercial swimming pools adds all of his granulates through the skimmer.

The recommendations on this forum is to not poor pool chemicals into the skimmer. I've read the reason being if you poor chlorine/bleach in the skimmer you are dosing your pool equipment with a high dosage of chlorinated water, which isn't good. Same reason you install a SWCG behind all your pool equipment. I'm sure a TFP expert could elaborate on this though.

 

[mknauss]

Solid chemicals can plug the line or the filter. The pumps are not designed to process large solid loads.
Liquid chemicals, especially acid, can damage pump seals, heater internals, etc.

It is much safer to add as per Recommended Pool Chemicals - Trouble Free Pool

 

[Donldson]

One key thing I've learned by being in several professions is that the professionals are usually the worst at doing things "the right way". Part of that is knowing the risks and knowing how to minimize them, part is just being in a hurry and taking shortcuts. I've learned that the phrase "do as I say, not as I do" isn't just a cop-out but sometimes is just a way of saying "I know enough to do it the wrong way safely, you don't".

BTW, I do have to comment on this:

I trust the forums here more than anywhere so far

Thanks for that, but you appear to be using pool store testing? One thing we say all the time is "do your own testing, pool stores are not reliable!" Do you not trust us when we tell you that?

 

[reggiehammond]

If thats really your FC level; I hope you ran home and immediately dumped in 5ppm of chlorine.

 

[Syrr]

One key thing I've learned by being in several professions is that the professionals are usually the worst at doing things "the right way". Part of that is knowing the risks and knowing how to minimize them, part is just being in a hurry and taking shortcuts. I've learned that the phrase "do as I say, not as I do" isn't just a cop-out but sometimes is just a way of saying "I know enough to do it the wrong way safely, you don't".

BTW, I do have to comment on this:

Thanks for that, but you appear to be using pool store testing? One thing we say all the time is "do your own testing, pool stores are not reliable!" Do you not trust us when we tell you that?

Trust is less an issue than time at the moment. Have not had time to learn the water chemistry phase yet. Yes, I have the kit. Gotten as far as opening and browsing the manual once. I'll get to it. Meantime; computer was there a couple of syringe squirts of pool water and viola! A whole list of Crud that I've learned here I don't need, but complete with some numbers to check against that accursed chemistry set (once I get to it).

Sorry folks; a one man band here doing the best I can. Any short single-paragraph tutorials to offer a freshman?

 

[Syrr]

Solid chemicals can plug the line or the filter. The pumps are not designed to process large solid loads.
Liquid chemicals, especially acid, can damage pump seals, heater internals, etc.

It is much safer to add as per Recommended Pool Chemicals - Trouble Free Pool

Okay, got it! I do have liquid chlorine. So I'll stick with that and dose according to the label. How many gallons of household bleach (When I run out of the good stuff) do I use for 40,000 gallons of water and how often?

 

[Syrr]

If thats really your FC level; I hope you ran home and immediately dumped in 5ppm of chlorine.

My understanding is that 2 PPM FC is the target. Is that incorrect?

 

[Syrr]

The recommendations on this forum is to not poor pool chemicals into the skimmer. I've read the reason being if you poor chlorine/bleach in the skimmer you are dosing your pool equipment with a high dosage of chlorinated water, which isn't good. Same reason you install a SWCG behind all your pool equipment. I'm sure a TFP expert could elaborate on this though.

I can appreciate this logic. Thank you much.

 

[mknauss]

How many gallons of household bleach (When I run out of the good stuff) do I use for 40,000 gallons of water and how often?

Since you do not know what the CYA level is, we recommend you add 5ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine to the pool each evening with the pump running. In a 40K pool, that is 2 gallons of 10%, or 4 gallons of 6%. Do this until you can test your CYA.

 

[reggiehammond]

My understanding is that 2 PPM FC is the target. Is that incorrect?

Take a look at the FC/CYA chart. 2ppm is the bare minimum for only the lowest cya amounts. You likely need to be over 4 I would gues.

The Free Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid Relationship

Managing your cyanuric acid and Free Chlorine levels is key to stabilizing your pool. Learn how these two items affect each other.

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Syrr]

Thank you for that information. I read here that chlorine pucks can raise CYA to a point that renders chlorine ineffective. Is that accurate?

Since you do not know what the CYA level is, we recommend you add 5ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine to the pool each evening with the pump running. In a 40K pool, that is 2 gallons of 10%, or 4 gallons of 6%. Do this until you can test your CYA.

Thank you sir. Doing that now! I'll try to decipher that case of different compounds to find what I need to test CYA tomorrow.

 

[mknauss]

I read here that chlorine pucks can raise CYA to a point that renders chlorine ineffective. Is that accurate?

yes

 

[markayash]

I had a “pool guy” tell me he had a customer dump a bunch of shock in his skimmer and then the power went off and his sand filter exploded and split.
Didn’t see it first hand but never added it to the skimmer after he told me

 

[Syrr]

Since you do not know what the CYA level is, we recommend you add 5ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine to the pool each evening with the pump running. In a 40K pool, that is 2 gallons of 10%, or 4 gallons of 6%. Do this until you can test your CYA.

@mknauss, I deeply appreciate your direct guidance in answer to my question. Thank you for that.

CYA is now 26, FC 3, TC3. Sticking to the pucks appear to be raising the CYA level a little each week. Using liquid 10% chlorine at night when anyone (five of us) uses the pool the pool during the day. Running the main pump all night and Polaris 280 cleans bottom for 3 hours each evening. Water is crystal clear.

Thanks to the group members of TFP I feel slightly confident that this combination is working well for me. Finding the time to tinker in depth with water chemistry remains a challenge. Much like it is for that complicated test kit purchased in February, I'll get to it in time. Thank you all.

 

[mknauss]

How did you measure a CYA of 26?

 

[Donldson]

Thanks to the group members of TFP I feel slightly confident that this combination is working well for me.

Really? Because that's exactly what we've been telling you NOT to do. You are putting confidence in completely unreliable testing and basing your decisions on that. Marty was trying to tell you to order a reliable test kit and then add a small amount of chlorine until it arrived and you got useful data to work with. Not "do this indefinitely and everything will be fine".

But like I said, you claim to trust us but chose to ignore us if you don't like the answers we give. That you supposedly have an appropriate test kit but can't even be bothered to open it up and use it when we ask you to is so incredibly disrespectful to us and our attempts to help you. Would have taken you less time to test your water with it than it took you to tell us why you aren't going to do it.

 

[IceShadow]

Skimmer line blocked with stabilizer

I was trying to raise the CYA and added about 2.5 Lbs. stabilizer down the skimmer. I guess I did not do it slow enough and now the skimmer line is completely blocked. There is no suction at all from the skimmer. If I set the pump to skimmer-only, the pump does not suck any water. How do I...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[IceShadow]

Also, unless you live in a pool store, it’s quicker to run the tests in the kit than bring it in anyhow. Maybe 5 mins to run them all, and usually you’re just testing FC and pH once you’re dialed in.

 

[Syrr]

How did you measure a CYA of 26?

An acquaintance compared my pool water to local area tap water in his lab at our Agricenter. He offered to specifically test both samples for the presences of Cyanuric Acid among other dissolved solids. So to be accurate; he gave me the CYA number of 26.

Of course I consult as many sources of information as I can find in this quest. Still; the water in my swimming pool is cleaner than every lake, river or section of ocean that I've experienced over the last 69 years.

Since it came with the house, a clean and clear swimming pool was my only goal from the beginning. This remains so today. Much of the information received here has been useful in achieving my goal. I now intend only to maintain my clean and clear swimming pool.

Hopefully through reading more advice and other lessons-learned, I can avoid "making things worse" by tinkering with that which currently satisfies my needs.