New pool owner, first test > no chlorine

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Wildkarrde21

Wildkarrde21

Active member
Jun 6, 2020
39
Houston, TX
Pool Size
17400
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Pool school was this past Monday and the PB guys came out one last time on Tuesday to dump a bunch of salt. They had been using the trichlor puck in a floater, but that was removed on Tuesday. SWCG has been running since Monday, at 50% (IC40). Got my TF100 test kit recently so I decided to test since the water is looking a little murky.

Test results from today:
FC: 0
CC: 0
pH: 7.5
TA: 80
CYA: Couldn't measure, the cylinder in my TF100 kit came cracked; however, even though the cylinder was leaking slowly, I noticed that I could still see the black dot even as the solution was nearing the top, so I'm guessing my CYA level is very low.
Salt: 3200ppm

I decided to contact the PB to see what they thought about there not being any FC at all and they didn't seem worried. They said it takes time for the SWCG to generate it and that it's not good to "shock new pool water". They came by today and dumped another 2 40lb bags of salt in. From reading this forum, I know that SWCGs are good at maintaining FC, but not getting it to acceptable levels from 0. I have a suspicion that they don't care much about my pool now that they have (most) of my money so I'm reaching out on here to make sure I'm not interpreting their statements incorrectly.

Thanks for any help you can provide!
 
Sounds like you have almost no CYA to go with your no chlorine. To begin with, I'd add enough CYA to bring your pool to 30 then add enough liquid bleach to take it to SLAM level. I wold do an overnite chlorine loss test and see if I needed to continue to SLAM before raising CYA to 80. Turn off the SWCG during the SLAM process. If all is good, crank the CYA to 80 and dial up the SWCG a bit.
 
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Welcome to TFP! :wave: In addition to Woody's comments, I'm curious ..... when was this pool completed/filled? Nothing you can do now, but new plaster isn't supposed to have salt added for 30 days.

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Texas Splash said:
Welcome to TFP! :wave: In addition to Woody's comments, I'm curious ..... when was this pool completed/filled? Nothing you can do now, but new plaster isn't supposed to have salt added for 30 days.

www.troublefreepool.com

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
Click to expand...
The pool was plastered on March 17, completely filled the 19th. They added salt for the first time on Monday, so that’s another point toward the PB not caring about my pool anymore…
 
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woodyp said:
Sounds like you have almost no CYA to go with your no chlorine. To begin with, I'd add enough CYA to bring your pool to 30 then add enough liquid bleach to take it to SLAM level. I wold do an overnite chlorine loss test and see if I needed to continue to SLAM before raising CYA to 80. Turn off the SWCG during the SLAM process. If all is good, crank the CYA to 80 and dial up the SWCG a bit.
Click to expand...
Thanks, sounds like I was right to not believe the PB. Will go get some CYA and liquid chlorine now.
 
So I’ve added the calculated amount of stabilizer and am waiting to test CYA levels. A question that occurred to me is that the PB had been using trichlor tablets for the last three weeks (since pool was filled). Shouldn’t that have left some CYA in the pool?
 
Wildkarrde21 said:
They had 3 pucks in a floater all the time while they were taking care of the pool.
Click to expand...
So after saying that I went back and tested CYA again. I think I got messed up by the fact that the cylinder was leaking yesterday so this time I filled it and tried to read it quickly before the water level dropped too much. Looks like I’m actually around 70 (though the bag of stabilizer I put in there just finished dissolving around 1PM today). My Cl is still at 0 with the SWCG running (50%) so should I go ahead and turn it off and start the SLAM process?
 
Wildkarrde21 said:
So after saying that I went back and tested CYA again. I think I got messed up by the fact that the cylinder was leaking yesterday so this time I filled it and tried to read it quickly before the water level dropped too much. Looks like I’m actually around 70 (though the bag of stabilizer I put in there just finished dissolving around 1PM today). My Cl is still at 0 with the SWCG running (50%) so should I go ahead and turn it off and start the SLAM process?
Click to expand...
Whether you SLAM or not get some chlorine in there today or you WILL be slamming for sure later. 😉
 
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If you need to follow the SLAM Process, why did you add CYA? The CYA should be at 30 ppm, preferably, for the SLAM.

To know how much CYA the tablets added, you need to know how many were used. Not just that they were in the skimmer basket.
 
mknauss said:
If you need to follow the SLAM Process, why did you add CYA? The CYA should be at 30 ppm, preferably, for the SLAM.

To know how much CYA the tablets added, you need to know how many were used. Not just that they were in the skimmer basket.
Click to expand...
Sorry, let me retrace my timeline because I think I messed it up a bit.
  1. After pool was filled, PB took care of the pool for 3 weeks. Other than seeing them come scrub and pour in bleach I don’t know what else they did.
  2. During that time they left a floater in the pool the entire time with 3 trichlor (I believe) pucks.
  3. After pool school this past Monday, they dumped a bunch of salt and took the floater out.
  4. I tested for the first time the day after and found that I had no Cl despite my SWCG running and that my CYA cylinder was cracked. I tried to read it as it was leaking and mistakenly thought the cylinder was full when the black dot was still visible so I interpreted it as no CYA.
  5. Added the stabilizer yesterday as woody suggested to get my CYA to 30 so I could start SLAM.
  6. Checked CYA today and taped up the cylinder so I could get a slower leak while I did the test and found that my CYA was higher than expected (70).
Either way it seems I need to add chlorine, sorry for the confusion!
 
mknauss said:
What is telling you that you need to follow the SLAM Process? It is best with new plaster to not do that.
Click to expand...
I was following Woodys advice from the first reply to my thread (which was based on my mistaken reading of 0 CYA). From my lack of chlorine, it seems that I should still add some since the SWCG can’t get it above 0, right?
 
Good morning, I did an OCLT (turned off SWCG, measured 30 min after my last chemical addition yesterday). Measured this morning, no direct sunlight on the pool yet.

FC: 7 -> 5.5
CC: 0
pH: 7.5
TA: 100
CH: 100
CYA: 70

Looks like a drop of 1.5 FC means I have something in the water?
 
OK -- high FC levels with fresh plaster can impact the color.

I would first try raising your FC to 20% of CYA level for a few days. See if that resolves things.

Be sure you lower your pH to 7.2 prior to adding the chlorine to raise the FC.
 
mknauss said:
OK -- high FC levels with fresh plaster can impact the color.

I would first try raising your FC to 20% of CYA level for a few days. See if that resolves things.

Be sure you lower your pH to 7.2 prior to adding the chlorine to raise the FC.
Click to expand...
So 20% of my CYA level (70 * 20% = 14) Using poolMath with that it says my Cl should be 3? My current Cl level is 5.5 so should I let it drop to 3?

Sorry if I’m missing something simple. Thanks for your help!
 

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