New pool owner - Added salt system - Need help balancing water - Foamy - Photos

[nepool1]

Hi All,
New pool owner with the new house and this is the first pool open season. It was a bromine fed system i converted to the Circupool RJ 45 system.
Since the pool company i was recommended came out and added the basics and all the salt for the system. It has been cloudy since and I have vacuumed it just once so far. It has been a slow to warm up May so far. So its only been 2.5 weeks.

The foam from the jets I suspect is from the salt cell as I've heard but it's not dissipating and looks like sheets of ice. Mostly white but some has dirt in it.

My alkalinity was in the 40s so i boosted it up to 120ppm with baking soda by adding 32lbs. THen the PH was still low at like 7.1. I added PhPLUS and now the alkalinity is reading about 200 (pool store water test, had them test it 3 times). So that's odd. As a result since that was off I couldn't get the CYA measurements.

So here's my water readings i have:
TA: 200
PH: 7.4
FC 2.7
TC 2.7
Hardness 100
Salinity is about 3100
water temp is about 75-80F

At this point everything on the pool is original so looking to do a deep wash of my sand filter. But sounds like SLAMing may be helpful here after i balance the alkalinity?
How should i balance the alkalinity down? Muratic acid?
Any other thoughts or questions? Total noob and the TF2006c test kit is on the way to me.

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to TFP! I have a concern about the bromine in the pool. Did you ever change the water before converting to chlorine? That could be the issue. I'll tag @Donldson to confirm. It also appears you're going to the local pool store for products and advice and that will lead you down the wrong (and expensive) road quickly. You show a Taylor K-2006C test kit in your signature, so be sure to use that for any test results you post. That's a must for reliable replies. Let's see what JD has to say about that bromine.

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[nepool1]

Thanks - the pool was winterized and drained down to more than half in the fall process by the old owners.

 

[mknauss]

I doubt that was enough of a water change to reduce the bromide levels sufficiently.

The FC of 2.7 ppm, that is not a result that is possible with a proper test kit. Are those pool store results?

 

[nepool1]

One other thing worth mentioning is they didn't appear to use the bromine feeders since the pool closet had a chlorine floater feeder in the pool and a couple of boxes of chlorine tablets...don't get me started on how these former owners were maintaining the rest of the property. So def not sure if it has bromine in it or not.

 

[nepool1]

The FC of 2.7 ppm, that is not a result that is possible with a proper test kit. Are those pool store results?

That is the pool store

 

[mknauss]

OK -- I suspect you need to do another very large water exchange. But see how things go.

 

[nepool1]

@mknauss - is the recommendation then to just wait for the test kit to come in and retest?
In the meantime should i do anything else? The Total alkalinity is obviously very high still so not sure if should address now or wait until Friday when test kit arrives.

 

[Donldson]

I'll tag @Donldson to confirm.

Given the current state of the pool and the possibility of bromine, I'd do at least 1 drain where you leave a foot of water in the shallow end (keep the liner from shifting) and then hold off on much more until you have your own data to go by.

Between the baking soda and sodium carbonate, your TA is probably way out of whack, which isn't good for a SWG pool. Typically you'd want a TA of 60-ish for a stable pH in a pool chlorinated with an SWG, so you might be using a lot of acid over the next few weeks. Muriatic acid is the best option, the sulfates in the powdered stuff isn't good for SWG plates. But don't try making any large changes until the kit gets there, you really want some accurate numbers to base your plan on.

And welcome to TFP! We can help you get it turned around, hopefully more easily than all the rest of the adventures the previous owners left you with

 

[nepool1]

ok - as far as draining goes. where do people typically drain things to? I have added over 700lbs of salt. So 1 - if i drain it will the salt ruin the lawn. and 2 if i drain almost all of the 30k gallons of water, where is it to go? I have a backyard but surely that will flood and go into a neighbors yard...Haven't had to consider that yet.

 

[mknauss]

What does your town say? Some have very specific requirements for pool water being drained. I put the water into the sewer clean out.

 

[nepool1]

Ok I called the last owner…they used chlorine crisis avoided. Chemical readings incoming Friday!

 

[mknauss]

Ok I called the last owner…they used chlorine crisis avoided. Chemical readings incoming Friday!

Remember, a bromine pool uses chlorine to activate the bromide into bromine. So yes, they would have used chlorine, but it could still be a bromine pool.

 

[nepool1]

I did explicitly asked which they used.
Is there a way to validate it?
I’m asking since if draining is necessary sure but if it’s a hunch I just dumped 700lbs of salt in there and don’t want to do a drain unnecessarily as you might guess.

Also still not sure the local rules which will take a couple of calls to figure out

 

[mknauss]

Understood. The issue is if bromide is still there, the FC is not protected by CYA. So your FC demand will be very high.

 

[nepool1]

Update:
Water test kit arriving today, hurray!
I was already planning on replacing the sand filter since it was likely never changed and over 20 years old (prior owner said never changed anything on it). And if nothing else gives a chance to inspect the internals. I had ordered a replacement multivalve port and laterals with downpipe just in case. Good thing too because the multiport head was cracked on the inside leaking and the lateral base had a sizeable crack, not wider than the sand grains but who knows under pressure what happens. So I added zeosand and did the backwash procedure.

To my delight the bubbling & foaming has stopped? Even on super chlorinate. And the pool is clearer than it has been since the beginning. Is it possible that was the issue? In any case, i'll be testing and balancing but am delighted to see the deep end of the pool for the first time...We'll see what else happens in the meantime.

I'll be looking to add a water feature (with PVC pipe) to aerate and help when I have to enevitably add the muriatic acid.
Should I only do 1 gal at a time to get into the 7.0 to 7.2 PH range? I'm not sure the best practice on that yet...

 

[nepool1]

Added 1/2 gal of muriatic acid

FC 4.2 (had swg on Super chlorinate)
CC 0.2
TA still 200
PH 7.2 from 7.4
Hardness 100 unchanged
Salinity 3200 unchange
pool temp about 79F

So at this point, how do i add muriatic acid? I don't want to drop it to be acidic - so do i just add it a 1/2gal at a time and aerate and wait for it to stabalize to get TA down?

 

[mknauss]

Manage the pH. When it gets to 8, lower it to 7.4. TA is not critical in your pool. Test the TA when you need to add acid as you need the TA level in Poolmath to determine how much acid to add.

 

[nepool1]

ok, slowly lower TA over time. Got it!
Super, this is great thanks guys

 

[MITBeta]

How does the water look? You should run an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test since your water was cloudy before.