- Jun 19, 2023
- 97
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
I’ve been surfing TFP for a few weeks now and decided to join as it seems to be great source of knowledge. And I am in need of such knowledge. So I’m new to this forum and sort of new to owning a pool. In July 2022 I purchased a new to me home. It came with a beautiful 16,000gal gunite chlorine pool. I've been doing a lot of research over the past year trying to learn how to care for the pool properly. The previous owner used trichlor pucks to maintain FC at ~3ppm, and used 1-2lbs Cal-hypo shock weekly. Upon assuming the maintenance routines I had the water tested at the local pool store.
- CYA 140ppm
- CH 565ppm +
- Optimizer 4ppm
- Phosphate 2960ppb
- Alkalinity 60/110 (Why to two numbers? Pool store could not explain but said the lower number is the proper one.)
- pH 7.8
I really did not know what this all meant or how it all played together. The pool store said to keep the FC at 2-3ppm. Kept selling me baking soda to increase Alkalinity and Muriatic Acid to reduce the pH.
That all worked well (sort of) for the first year. I learned a great deal from Swim University videos, and other sites, and I thought I was doing the right thing. But as things started to warm up this year in North Texas, a lot of brown dirt was noticed on the pool floor and walls. I cleaned the Pentair filters system and swept the pool twice a day and still could not get that pesky dirt to go away. Back to more research.
Finding the TFP site was a great help. With my past learned experiences I was able to understand the TFP methodology and how things are really working in my pool.
- That brown dirt is actually algae.....Kill it! I supper chlorinated my pool with cal hypo. Took over a week for my FC to come down to 5ppm. No more brown algae.
- My CYA levels are way to high and preventing my chlorine (at 3-5ppm) from doing its job. Needing to keep FC at 10-15ppm is painful. But I’m doing it
- Get Alkalinity down to 60-80, I’m at 90 and getting lower, while maintaining pH at around 7.4. Forget about that lower Alkalinity number from the pool store. It’s the adjusted value based on my CYA levels.
- Optimizer is actually Boric acid and should be around 30ppm ish. I added the recommend dose for my pool sized. Hopefully I’m up around 30ppm.
- Adding baking soda followed by muriatic acid is counter intuitive. No need to waist my money doing that again.
I’ve now switch to liquid chlorine. Got to get that CYA level down. No more Trichlor tabs. My goal is 40-50ppm. The last big storm we had allowed me to dump about 10% of my water.
The pool has never been cloudy or green. Until that “Brown Dirt” showed up, the pool water was beautiful. I’m now back to crystal clear water with no formation of algae. Trying hard to keep it that way.
I run my pump at 60gpm for 4 hours each morning, followed by 40gpm for 8 hours. This allows us to enjoy the water features and cycle the water ~2x through the filters each day.
Current numbers from the pool supply store are:
CH is down to 380ppm (I believe that is a good number)
Phosphate is down to 1945 (pool store recommends 0-125)
CYA is at 150 (assume this is the max the pool store can read)]
Maintaining FC at ~10-15ppm
pH 7.4
Alkalinity 90
So with all that, I have a couple questions:
1. I’m adding about ½ gal of 10% liquid chlorine every night to maintain my FC. Does this seem right for hot blue sky weather in North Texas?
2. Should I take the leap and dump 50% of my pool water and refill? Or slowing bring the CYA and phosphate levels down over time? Pros? Cons? I’m having a hard time deciding which way to go.
Any other advice would be appreciated. And sorry for the long winded write up.
- CYA 140ppm
- CH 565ppm +
- Optimizer 4ppm
- Phosphate 2960ppb
- Alkalinity 60/110 (Why to two numbers? Pool store could not explain but said the lower number is the proper one.)
- pH 7.8
I really did not know what this all meant or how it all played together. The pool store said to keep the FC at 2-3ppm. Kept selling me baking soda to increase Alkalinity and Muriatic Acid to reduce the pH.
That all worked well (sort of) for the first year. I learned a great deal from Swim University videos, and other sites, and I thought I was doing the right thing. But as things started to warm up this year in North Texas, a lot of brown dirt was noticed on the pool floor and walls. I cleaned the Pentair filters system and swept the pool twice a day and still could not get that pesky dirt to go away. Back to more research.
Finding the TFP site was a great help. With my past learned experiences I was able to understand the TFP methodology and how things are really working in my pool.
- That brown dirt is actually algae.....Kill it! I supper chlorinated my pool with cal hypo. Took over a week for my FC to come down to 5ppm. No more brown algae.
- My CYA levels are way to high and preventing my chlorine (at 3-5ppm) from doing its job. Needing to keep FC at 10-15ppm is painful. But I’m doing it
- Get Alkalinity down to 60-80, I’m at 90 and getting lower, while maintaining pH at around 7.4. Forget about that lower Alkalinity number from the pool store. It’s the adjusted value based on my CYA levels.
- Optimizer is actually Boric acid and should be around 30ppm ish. I added the recommend dose for my pool sized. Hopefully I’m up around 30ppm.
- Adding baking soda followed by muriatic acid is counter intuitive. No need to waist my money doing that again.
I’ve now switch to liquid chlorine. Got to get that CYA level down. No more Trichlor tabs. My goal is 40-50ppm. The last big storm we had allowed me to dump about 10% of my water.
The pool has never been cloudy or green. Until that “Brown Dirt” showed up, the pool water was beautiful. I’m now back to crystal clear water with no formation of algae. Trying hard to keep it that way.
I run my pump at 60gpm for 4 hours each morning, followed by 40gpm for 8 hours. This allows us to enjoy the water features and cycle the water ~2x through the filters each day.
Current numbers from the pool supply store are:
CH is down to 380ppm (I believe that is a good number)
Phosphate is down to 1945 (pool store recommends 0-125)
CYA is at 150 (assume this is the max the pool store can read)]
Maintaining FC at ~10-15ppm
pH 7.4
Alkalinity 90
So with all that, I have a couple questions:
1. I’m adding about ½ gal of 10% liquid chlorine every night to maintain my FC. Does this seem right for hot blue sky weather in North Texas?
2. Should I take the leap and dump 50% of my pool water and refill? Or slowing bring the CYA and phosphate levels down over time? Pros? Cons? I’m having a hard time deciding which way to go.
Any other advice would be appreciated. And sorry for the long winded write up.
