First time out with my new Taylor K-2006, and I have a few questions

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H

heygreene

0
Jun 28, 2015
59
Greenville/SC
Well, I finally did it... I convinced my cheap self to purchase a high quality test kit. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but taking the readings was actually very easy. Now I'm on to using the pool calculator, and below are my readings (and the calculator's suggestions). I just want to ensure that I'm on the right track, so any feedback is appreciated.

FC: .5 - Pool calc suggestion: 96oz of 6% bleach
CC: .5 - Not tracked on Pool calc. Why? Also why is TC not tracked?
PH: 7.0 - Pool calc suggestion: 45 oz of Borax
TA: 40 - Pool calc suggestion: 12lbs of baking soda!
CYA: 75 - Pool calc suggestion: Drain 47% of my water... I'd love to avoid doing this, of course.

A few concerns or questions that I have:
Do these numbers and suggestions sound accurate? 12lbs of baking soda seems kind of crazy.
My water is a little cloudy... does that match up to what you are seeing in the numbers above?
I thought you only used Borax OR baking soda, not both at the same time. I'm probably wrong here.
CYA - I added 4lbs Friday/Saturday (2lbs each day), and it's only Sunday and I'm reading 75. My concern is this number will go up over the next few days... the dang test strips are still reading ZERO!!! Glad to be done with them.

Thanks,
Kenneth
 
Welcome to TFP!!:handwave:

The cloudy is what worries me the most. Ge chlorine in the water now.

How much Pool School have you read? Start with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to Chlorinate Your Pool

The Recommended Pool Chemical will explain your confusion on Borax and Baking Soda, but I might suggest using Soda Ash to raise the pH & TA at the same time.

We don't really care about TC because it doesn't really tell us anything. FC & CC both tell a story about what is happening with your water. The ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry will explain this in detail.
 
Welcome to TFP!

Priority 1 get chlorine in the pool and keep chlorine in the pool. The cloudy water is the start of an algae bloom and having .5 FC is a recipe for a swamp.

Priority 2 keep PH between 7.2 and 7.8, I'd go 7.5 for now. I agree with Tim to use soda ash to raise ph and TA together. Raising TA is not that important right now it can be worked slowly. Tim's link to pool chemicals will tell you what soda ash is, what it does and how to add it.

CYA if 75 is a manageable number. You will need to keep you chlorine higher to compensate. Chlorine level is set based on the CYA level the the Chlorine CYA Chart. Always keep your chlorine at or above target level. And don't ever let it drop below minimum or the pool will be unsanitary and algae will grow.
 
Also keep in mind that most bleach these days is 8.25%.

Clorox, Walmart great value, target up & up, kroger store brand etc. are all 8.25 now. You can change the % in pool math to reflect whichever strength of chlorine you get so you will get the right suggested amount to add. :)

*note* Walmart recently added "cleaning bleach" to their great value line. It is only 6% and costs the same as the 8.25% regular bleach. (for 7oz more) The 8.25% regular unscented bleach is the best value. :)
 
Just know that CC's .5 or less is ok. Zero CC's is best. Once you get your FC's up and stable for your CYA they'll start to diminish. It does help to give your pool a good brushing and keep any of the organics out of the skimmer/pump basket and vacuum up any leaves etc. They all contribute to your presence of CC's. Generally, if I see any CC's in my pool if I brush the pool they're gone.
 
pooldv said:
CYA if 75 is a manageable number. You will need to keep you chlorine higher to compensate. Chlorine level is set based on the CYA level the the Chlorine CYA Chart. Always keep your chlorine at or above target level. And don't ever let it drop below minimum or the pool will be unsanitary and algae will grow.
Click to expand...

well the problem is OP mentioned he just added 4 lbs of stabilizer, which isn't showing up on his tests yet. with that, he is right at CYA of 100 based on pool math. that with the cloudy water and most likely going to need to SLAM, CYA of 100 is very high and is gonna need a ton of bleach.

OP, I think you are gonna have to do a 50% water change unfortunetly :( if you need to SLAM. if not, I guess it could be manageable. Do the OCLT test tonight to find out if you have an algae problem. you mentioned cloudy water so most likely you will need to.
 
Thanks everybody!!! I am feeling the love. :D

Wrems, I think you are onto something... my pool is near some trees, and I always have some "sediment" off of the leaves at the bottom of the pool. I try to vacuum them as much as I can, but sometimes I just don't get to it for 3-4 days. I'll try to do better at that to keep my CC at zero, if possible.

Quick question for everyone: If the pool calculator said to use 45oz of Borax to raise PH, and 190oz of baking soda to get my TA up, how much soda ash would I use to do both? The calculator only addresses soda ash usage for PH, and says I should add 23oz... but that's not taking TA into consideration, I don't think.
 
heygreene said:
Thanks everybody!!! I am feeling the love. :D

Wrems, I think you are onto something... my pool is near some trees, and I always have some "sediment" off of the leaves at the bottom of the pool. I try to vacuum them as much as I can, but sometimes I just don't get to it for 3-4 days. I'll try to do better at that to keep my CC at zero, if possible.

Quick question for everyone: If the pool calculator said to use 45oz of Borax to raise PH, and 190oz of baking soda to get my TA up, how much soda ash would I use to do both? The calculator only addresses soda ash usage for PH, and says I should add 23oz... but that's not taking TA into consideration, I don't think.
Click to expand...
Are you planning on draining water to get teh CYA in line? If so, I would probably hold off on other adjustments as the chemicals you use will go out with the water.
 

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heygreene said:
Well, I finally did it... I convinced my cheap self to purchase a high quality test kit. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but taking the readings was actually very easy. Now I'm on to using the pool calculator, and below are my readings (and the calculator's suggestions). I just want to ensure that I'm on the right track, so any feedback is appreciated.

FC: .5 - Pool calc suggestion: 96oz of 6% bleach
CC: .5 - Not tracked on Pool calc. Why? Also why is TC not tracked?

A few concerns or questions that I have:
Do these numbers and suggestions sound accurate? 12lbs of baking soda seems kind of crazy.
My water is a little cloudy... does that match up to what you are seeing in the numbers above?
CYA - I added 4lbs Friday/Saturday (2lbs each day), and it's only Sunday and I'm reading 75. My concern is this number will go up over the next few days... the dang test strips are still reading ZERO!!! Glad to be done with them.
Click to expand...

A few thoughts that I can add.

TC is not tracked, because, your CCs are a bad number. They are a measure of things going badly in your pool, and they should always be either 0 or 0.5. If you tracked TC, it could confuse people. For example, if you haev 2 situations.

A: FC=3, CC=0.5 => TC=3.5
B: FC=0, CC=3.5 => TC=3.5

Situation A is good for a pool with low CYA levels. Situation B is terrible for any pool. SInce you cannot discern anything about yout pool from TC without knowing either FC or CC, it becomes silly to track, and if used for anything, it will lead to issues.

As far as 12lbs of baking soda goes, it sounds like a lot, but just because it sounds like a lot, dont assume that it will cost a lot. You can buy a 4 lb box at walmart for a few bucks. Trust the Calculator to help you with the amounts, a very smart person figured out the formulas for you.

Not sure why you added CYA over the weekend, I'm guessing because your strips lied to you and told you that you had none. But this was a mistake to add more CYA if you were already at 75. There is no rule that says you ever have to drain your pool, or partially drain it. But the experiences of many other people have shown that for really bad water (ie high CYA, or a super green pool) you might be better off just replacing some water now. For example, you might buy chemicals now to adjust your PH, your TA, and migt even decide to add borates to your pool. But then you get an algae outbreak, and you are using so many gallons of bleach, that it would be cheaper and easier to just replace the water. Now you have all of that chemical money you spent that you literally sending out the drain. Whereas if you would have just drained to start, it would be cheaper and easier in the long run.
 
I live in a treed area as well; battling leaves is a constant battle. Anytime my CC is .5 or my FC had fallen a bit, it's almost always a full skimmer basket - leaves, grass, bugs, frogs, maybe a rat - lol! It really makes a difference, more than I realized. I've learned so much here. Our main concern used to be the skimmers filling up and starving the pump. I had no idea the leaves were also feeding on my FC - [emoji14]


[emoji176] Lisa P.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
heygreene said:
Thanks everybody!!! I am feeling the love. :D

Wrems, I think you are onto something... my pool is near some trees, and I always have some "sediment" off of the leaves at the bottom of the pool. I try to vacuum them as much as I can, but sometimes I just don't get to it for 3-4 days. I'll try to do better at that to keep my CC at zero, if possible.

Quick question for everyone: If the pool calculator said to use 45oz of Borax to raise PH, and 190oz of baking soda to get my TA up, how much soda ash would I use to do both? The calculator only addresses soda ash usage for PH, and says I should add 23oz... but that's not taking TA into consideration, I don't think.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't add any borax or baking soda right now. you really need to do a 50% water change. I know it sucks, but bite the bullet and do it now and you wont have to worry about it again. its a pain for the upfront, but in the long term its the right thing to do. wouldn't make any changes to your water until you did that.

also, don't worry about TA right now, its a bit low but recheck after water change
 
OK folks, so I went out again just a few minutes ago (11am EST) and went to test my CYA again. The little CYA dispenser bottle (marked 7mL and 14mL) from Taylor is inaccurate. I tested it 5 or 6 times, with 2 different children's droppers (I've got plenty of kids, and plenty of these lying around). Where it says 7mL, it's actually only 6. Therefore, instead of wasting all of my reagent, I mixed 3mL pool water with 3mL CYA, and my reading came back this time as around 55. I think I will just treat the other issues by getting the bleach and soda ash into the pool today, and then check it again tomorrow.

Dispenser bottle I was sent is like this one: Amazon.com : Taylor CYA Dispenser Bottle 9191 : Swimming Pool Liquid Test Kits : Patio, Lawn Garden

Has anyone else ever noticed this as being inaccurate? I'm kind of shocked. To add insult to injury, it takes 6mL to reach the "7mL" mark. It then takes another 7mL to reach the 14mL mark. Therefore if I blindly follow the mark on the container, I am adding 6mL of water, and 7mL of CYA, so definitely not a 50/50 mix.
 
If PH and TA need to come up just add soda ash to adjust PH and let the TA come up up with it. PH is the important number to control between 7.2 and 7.8, TA will usually get itself in line.
 
heygreene said:
OK, I'm getting more and more confused. Here are tonight's results:

FC = .5
CC = .5
PH = 7.0
TA = 50
CYA = 80

Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I added everything according to the pool calculator yesterday. Please advise, thanks!
Click to expand...
I don't understand the confusion. The TA cam up a little and the pH may have been so low that it is not registering at teh lowest levels yet. Use Pool Math again, put in 7.0 and target 7.2 and add the soda ash it says to add. I worked on a friend s pool that took multiple additions of Borax to get the pH to begin to register.
 
tim5055 said:
I don't understand the confusion. The TA cam up a little and the pH may have been so low that it is not registering at teh lowest levels yet. Use Pool Math again, put in 7.0 and target 7.2 and add the soda ash it says to add. I worked on a friend s pool that took multiple additions of Borax to get the pH to begin to register.
Click to expand...

Tim5055, maybe I was just looking for something to be "wrong". :) I think I was expecting all of the proper numbers to fall in place overnight... I'm not seeing it takes patience, much like my garden. Thanks for the tip... used the calculator, added the chlorine and soda ash, and I'll check it again tomorrow evening. Thanks.
 

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