New pool owner here, well new to me anyway, as of last July. We purchased a home with a pool, and dove right in, so to speak, with the maintenance. After several failed attempts at trying to find a good pool maintenance company, I decided to give it a go.
When we moved into the home the pool looked really nice, with just a couple of small rust looking spots, but nothing alarming. As I mentioned, we initially had a couple of different companies begin maintenance, and the common thing I heard was that the CYA level was off the chart. The would be pool maint. folks, gave differing opinions on whether to drain the pool, or replace the water. Things started to make sense, as the previous owner, on his way out the door, essentially said just load up the dispenser and feed the pool Tri-chlor tablets like candy.
Starting to feel overwhelmed, I found this website and began studying the in's and out's of chemistry and slowly gained some confidence that I could handle the job. My plan was to run the pool fill for a few hours every week, and maybe by the time the Spring rolled around I would be in a position to make some final adjustments.
So far that plan has worked, my CYA is now sitting at about 50, as of this weekend. However, I think I was too focused on the water replacement, and keeping leaves and other debris out of the pool over the winter by regularly netting and using a robot. I didn't test a lot this winter, but I did add a little shock now and again whenever I saw a tinge of green. Obviously, I need to focus more on the whole package over the winter months next year.
I've been adjusting and testing like crazy the past several weeks and here are a couple of my results using LaMotte's Color CQ2:
4-15-22 5-6-22
Free Chlorine 0.18 ppm 2.81 ppm
Total Chlorine 0.23 ppm
Combined Chlorine 0.05 ppm
pH 7.9 7.6
Alkalinity 191 ppm 134 ppm
Adjusted Alkalinity 175 ppm
Calcium Hardness 334 ppm
Cyanuric Acid 54 ppm
I skipped a few tests over the weekend, as everything seems fairly stable except Chlorine, pH, and Alkalinity, where adjustments using liquid chlorine and MA have been very effective.
So, now to the question...
From above, the pool surface looks good and the water is really clean, but inspecting the surface up close, it looks dingy and I feel like I need to take some action, chemical, or scrubbing, or both to get rid of the slight off greenish-brown tinge. I've read about the no-drain acid wash, but that seems kind drastic for my situation. Is there any advice on what I could or should do to clean this up? Drop the pH down, 7.00 to 7.2, and scrub?
Thanks in advance for the help!
When we moved into the home the pool looked really nice, with just a couple of small rust looking spots, but nothing alarming. As I mentioned, we initially had a couple of different companies begin maintenance, and the common thing I heard was that the CYA level was off the chart. The would be pool maint. folks, gave differing opinions on whether to drain the pool, or replace the water. Things started to make sense, as the previous owner, on his way out the door, essentially said just load up the dispenser and feed the pool Tri-chlor tablets like candy.
Starting to feel overwhelmed, I found this website and began studying the in's and out's of chemistry and slowly gained some confidence that I could handle the job. My plan was to run the pool fill for a few hours every week, and maybe by the time the Spring rolled around I would be in a position to make some final adjustments.
So far that plan has worked, my CYA is now sitting at about 50, as of this weekend. However, I think I was too focused on the water replacement, and keeping leaves and other debris out of the pool over the winter by regularly netting and using a robot. I didn't test a lot this winter, but I did add a little shock now and again whenever I saw a tinge of green. Obviously, I need to focus more on the whole package over the winter months next year.
I've been adjusting and testing like crazy the past several weeks and here are a couple of my results using LaMotte's Color CQ2:
4-15-22 5-6-22
Free Chlorine 0.18 ppm 2.81 ppm
Total Chlorine 0.23 ppm
Combined Chlorine 0.05 ppm
pH 7.9 7.6
Alkalinity 191 ppm 134 ppm
Adjusted Alkalinity 175 ppm
Calcium Hardness 334 ppm
Cyanuric Acid 54 ppm
I skipped a few tests over the weekend, as everything seems fairly stable except Chlorine, pH, and Alkalinity, where adjustments using liquid chlorine and MA have been very effective.
So, now to the question...
From above, the pool surface looks good and the water is really clean, but inspecting the surface up close, it looks dingy and I feel like I need to take some action, chemical, or scrubbing, or both to get rid of the slight off greenish-brown tinge. I've read about the no-drain acid wash, but that seems kind drastic for my situation. Is there any advice on what I could or should do to clean this up? Drop the pH down, 7.00 to 7.2, and scrub?
Thanks in advance for the help!