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we are actually looking into a whole home softener, but i was under the assumption that putting soft water into the pool isn't a good idea either since it needs some hardness...

to be honest, i'm not sure. it will eventually get even higher, though...before i had my pool drained last summer to have my rocks repainted, i was up near 1000. i figure it's a better idea to bring it back down once a season (or so) than let it get that high again, which it probably will if i...

i'm getting to the point where i'm going to need to do a partial drain and refill to lower my CH (started at 250 or so last july, now up to around 650). when is the best time to do this...should i do it now (or this fall), or wait until next spring?

seems this was the culprit. ran another test (keeping in mind i did just add acid to bring the pH down from 8 to 7 when i thought i needed to knock the TA down before this post even came about)...wiped the tip of each of the TA reagents both to start and between each drop. TA now measures...

the new bottle was started today with the higher test. last test at 50 was the last test with the old bottle. i'll go outside right now and run another test and wipe the bottle to see if it changes the result. will report back in a few minutes.

that's also fair. i was just shocked to see such a large variation.

yes, i've read all of that many times. somehow i missed the part that 50 was an acceptable minimum. i knew 60-80 was ideal, but i saw 50 and my brain said "that's not ideal! too low, bump it up!" ugh. regardless of my screw up there, i still don't understand how adding less baking soda than...

i used a food scale to weigh it, so i'm 100% sure the 20 oz by weight was the exact amount i added. i scooped it from a 15 lb bag into a plastic cup that was sitting on the scale tare'd to zero before i started, then dumped from the cup into the pool.

probably just my own paranoia. in the year and a half since i started doing my own testing, i've never seen it get that low...so my brain told me to try to bump it up a tiny bit.

that's fair, but i still don't understand how i added less than what pool math told me to add and somehow launched the TA into orbit. i was tinkering because i have extreme scaling issues, so i try very hard to keep the CSI negative. in the past, my pool has liked to have TA around 60 or 70, so...

i've been watching my TA drop steadily over the past few months, and for each of the past 3 weeks when i did my weekly tests i had it at 50 each time. so, i figured i'd add a tiny bit of baking soda to try to bring it up. earlier this week, i turned off my SWCG for the winter, so i added some...

follow up to my above reply: just turned the SWCG off today. water is 64, but it started exhibiting the same symptoms I saw last year when the water got cold (constant "inspect cell" flashing lights)...it's clean, I just cleaned it a few weeks ago. one thing that might tip you off that the cell...

my rule of thumb has been (or at least is for this year since my cell is now operating correctly) that once the water gets down to about 60 or so, i'll turn it off til spring. i may wait until it gets into the mid 50s, we'll see if the low temp issues start earlier rather than later...granted, i...

not trying to hijack the thread, but i've always wondered...how negative is slightly negative? i try to keep myself somewhere between -0.3 and 0, but often the first day or so after i've added acid i end up down near -0.6 since i still haven't mastered exactly how much acid i need to get from...

i'm only a bit south of you and just got 2 gallons of MA at leslie's in menifee on sunday. they hadn't mentioned any shortages.

this morning i'm at 0.72, so i know i've got some work to do. i'll mess with the numbers in pool math and see where i need to be to get the CSI in check. thanks!

what should i aim for with the TA? is 80 safe?

@mknauss as of this morning i'm already at 225 for CH. given we were only aiming for 250 to start, would you still recommend i add CaCl to raise it a slight amount to 250 or 300, or just leave it as is? also, keeping in mind i'm going to have to lower the water a bit and add fill water for the...

I have my fill water stats in my signature. I did add acid once during the slam, but that was all.

CYA is 30, sorry. I mentioned it in the post but forgot to put it at the top with the other numbers. I know I'll need to bring that up when I turn the SWG back on, I still need to add salt first for that though obviously...aiming for 80 for CYA. as for the TA, my spillover is always on when the...

here are my current numbers: FC 4 CC 0.5 pH 8.2 TA 140 CH 225 CYA 30 salt 1000 temp roughly 85 obviously I need to get some acid in to bring the pH down now that I can reliably test it again, but where else do I go from here? TA is much higher than it was with my old water, with the old water...

after ten days, finally, SLAM complete. OCLT passed, CC 0.5, water is crystal clear. thanks everyone for your help to this point. going to do another full water test this afternoon and see where all of the numbers are and will be back for guidance on where to go from here...

the one thing we have going for us that may keep the cost down is that it's a small pool...only 85 linear feet around the circumference. the guy we had do the acid wash thought it was much bigger from the pictures the first time he came over to take measurements...

yup. i wish we had known better when we had the pool built, we never would have gone with faux rock. the plan is to try to get another 3-4 years out of the current plaster, and then when we resurface the entire pool we are hoping to have the rocks taken out and a more traditional coping put in...

at the risk of jinxing myself, I *think* we are good now, or close to it. this morning the water looks crystal clear like (or at least extremely close to) how I remember it before all of this started. next step: yet another OCLT tonight to see what happens. also, the joy of having the rock...

OCLT failed. lost 1.5ppm overnight. ran it again with the same water sample just now, and got a 3ppm loss. i don't know what to do at this point.

just pulled the lights again and scrubbed behind both, as well as inside the skimmer behind the door. no ladders in my pool. if there's any algae in there at this point I have no idea where it's hiding...

oh yeah, and then the rock painter is coming back thursday or friday to try to scrub off the paint splatters...so i'm sure that'll just cloud up the water again even if i do get it clear. good times.

i'm going to do an OCLT test again tonight and tomorrow...assuming i pass both, i'm going to try a clarifier. i don't know what else to do at this point, my electric bill this month is going to be $1000 or more from running the pump 24/7 for over a week. i can't run it like this forever...

the last test i ever did at the pool store was something similar last year, but in reverse (went to the pool store first the day my kit arrived)...they told me my TA was zero and wanted me to add something like 10 pounds of baking soda. tested it myself: it was 70.