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Het Davo, welcome! Calcium doesn't neutralise acid. Constantly rising pH is usually caused by TA being too high. It's something to get your head around, because at first we associate better pH buffering with higher TA, and think that higher TA should result in more stable pH. What's missing in...

Your setup is great. All the calcium that your water needs, is already in it. Keep in mind that when water evaporates it leaves the calcium behind. So, when replacing evaporation losses with hard fill water you actually keep adding calcium, and CH creeps up over time. In your setup, you are...

Has he maybe changed swimming habits? Being in the pool for longer? Your parameters really don't look unusual. Have you tested CC? Has the salt level changed?

To answer this, it would be good to understand what your normal routine is.

You don't have ammonia then. You should definitely get some CYA in. FC 5 without CYA is quite high. Just make sure that you don't overshoot, CYA below 30 is difficult to test, it may be 20, do assume that when adding CYA as your start level. Then retest once it's all dissolved and add more if...

Use the money you have freed up by firing your pool service and get a Salt Water Chlorine Generator (SWG). Makes pool maintenance a breeze and will save you lots of money in the long run .

Could also be helpful to install a security camera over the pump so you can see and hear if it's running OK.

I'd say just talk through a few more details with the person in charge this time. Check and empty skimmer, check pump. If pump fails, turn off, contact you, decide if you can talk them through how to fix the problem, or just turn everything off. Then you can still deal with a green pool when...

10 lbs of washing soda would have brought TA from 70 to about 110 and pH probably above 9. 1 gallon of MA then brought pH back down to about 7.5 and TA to about 90-100. pH probably came down from 9 on its own a bit by CO2 absorption, I guess, before adding the acid. You have a vinyl pool...

Did you test inbetween all those chlorine additions? With pH being low and no CYA I am wondering if you had ammonia. If yes, then the chlorine seems to have gotten rid of it by now as it is holding. Anyway, doesn't matter now. Bring your CYA up to 30 and then slam away. pH meters are not...

Has the plaster company filled the pool? Could be that they added a metal sequestrant as part of the pool fill, which are phosphate based. If you are on municipal water, it could even be that you have phosphates in your fill water added by the water supplier to keep metals in solution.

You could probably say that the by-product from adding borates via Borax and muriatic acid instead of straight boric acid is salt. Borax adds sodium ions, and muriatic acid adds chloride, that you both wouldn't add by adding plain boric acid.

Good thing is that there is a guess now from Matt what could be happening, that's already made it into the Wiki, thanks to Allen: https://www.troublefreepool.com/wiki/index.php?title=Calcium_Hardness#Adding_Calcium_Chloride_May_Reduce_FC_to_0

Generally, pool water is safe to swim in between minimum FC and SLAM FC according to the recommended , which for your CYA are the values that Marty posted above. Below min FC, the water is at risk of becoming unsanitary, above SLAM-FC it will become a bit harsh, wearing out bathing suits faster...

Borax dissolves as boric acid into water: Na2B4O7 • 10H2O --> 2Na+ + 4B(OH)3 + 2OH- + 3H2O The 2OH- are what raise pH in the process. Boric acid is then in a pH-dependant equilibrium with borate ion: B(OH)3 + H2O <--> B(OH)4- + H+ Adding muriatic acid will simply decrease pH, moving above...

Please don't meddle with trying to lower pH while your pH test is still affected by high chlorine. If the TA indicator is still affected, then the phenol red must be too. High chlorine turns phenol red into chlorophenol red, which still is a pH sensitive dye, but changes colour over a lower pH...

My faith in Leslie's test results is generally limited...

I'm not sure how they did that, there is no test available (outside an actual lab) that could distinguish chemically between chlorine and bromine. They would have just ticked a box "bromine spa" in their computer program and then it interprets the test results as bromine and makes them a factor...

CYA doesn't disappear when chlorine gets released from it, it just changes from being a chlorinated cyanurate to being cyanurate ion. When adding more chlorine, this will change back again. There may be an effect that chlorinated cyanurates don't show up (as much) in the CYA test, so at very...

Is that what you are experiencing? I usually see the opposite which always made sense to me as colder temperatures will slow down the Melamine reacting with CYA.

Evaporation leaves dissolved solids like calcium behind. Think of the way you create sea salt: You just let water evaporates and leave the salt behind. Adding water back to it creates salty water again. In a best case scenario you replace evaporated pure water with other pure water and don't...

You are right, your water parameters don't indicate a scaling problem. Have you added Calcium and Alkalinity Increaser at the same time? I can only imagine that this created locally increased CSI and formation of some calcium carbonate, which will hopefully dissolve eventually.

The TA test can be affected at higher TA levels, making the indicator colours look differently. But this can be easily fixed with an extra one or two drops of R-0007. But shouldn't be a problem at FC 13. And you'd notice the difference.

To give you a benchmark: On the Taylor scoop it says 0.05g. As Kim said: If it turns pink, it's enough.

That's good news. Then you should get your CYA up to 30. And then maybe run an OCLT to verify that there's no algae involved. If that's OK, then your problem is probably just low CYA.

CYA zero and FC not holding rings ammonia alarm bells. When adding liquid chlorine now, how long does this hold? I'd suggest to rule out first that there is ammonia in the pool. Take out the pucks, add 10ppm worth of liquid chlorine with the pump running and test FC 30min later.

The fading endpoint test variation with 5 drops of 0012 upfront is based on running the test with a 10ml sample. When using a 25ml sample, 5-8 drops upfront may not be sufficient to suppress the metal interference. Try the test with a 10ml sample and a test resolution of 25ppm per drop (which...

I actually don't use the smart stir light. I don't like how the swirling bean makes the light flicker. I have the smart stir with the test tube in front of a white background and shine light from a lamp onto the background. Works better for me.

Just tried it, too. It does fit if you balance it, and it does stir. But I also see silver nitrate all over the laundry bench, an upset DW, being banned from the laundry and having to do my testing in the naughty corner ;)

Do you mean the pH/CYA/Chlorine comparator? That would be a bit awkward on the speed stir. The normal Taylor test tubes fit fine. Magnet pills are cheap on eBay or Amazon, doesn't hurt to have a couple of spares anyway. If you're happy with the INTLLAB and the size and need to plug it in is no...