New pool and rain

[Superair01]

Ok... so we filled our pool a little over a week ago. Poll company started it on trichlor pucks.... I let that be to get the CYA up some.... The day after the pool was filled it rained a lot!.... now it has rained again last night.... so I have drained the pool down twice since being filled. We are expecting some more rain tomorrow I believe and again later in the week. Pool is still does not look perfectly clear yet... but could be the rain or just all the brushing. I did a full set of tests this morning.... here they are:


FC - 3.0
CC - .5
PH - 7.8
TA - 50
CH - 100
CYA - 25

My question is.... once the pool is down to a normal level should I go ahead and add some baking soda to get TA up and some calcium chloride to raise CH... I will add some muriatic acid to lower PH a bit as well. With more rain and probably more draining over the next week I guess this is something to just keep checking as the water levels go up and down? Plan to use up the small amount of trichlor pucks the PB left then move straight to bleach.

Also... is there a need to clean the filter after a couple of weeks or 1st month from the new plaster and brushing quite a bit?

One more thing.... when adding all these chemicals.... do I need to wait a little bit between adding them? Or can I add them one after the other? Should pump be on full speed or ok to be at a lower speed?

Our pump runs at 1750rpm from 8am-8pm.... kicks up to 3450 during the cleaning period... 9am-11am daily.

Thanks for any input and guidance....

Chad

 

[zea3]

Ah, monsoon season in Texas! Don't you just love it! Trouble is you never know just when it starts and ends. First I would check the TA and pH again, since it seems likely one of those results is incorrect. It is possible that all the rain drove the pH up, but usually you don't see it that high when the TA is very low. If you do add MA to lower the pH it will drive the TA even lower and then you would have to raise the TA which would also raise pH so you would be stuck in a loop trying to balance them both. If your re-test comes out the same then don't mess with trying to lower the pH. 7.8 is not too high so I would leave it as is and keep an eye on it.

All the rain is also diluting all the calcium so go ahead and get the CH up to 250. If the deluge keeps coming keep an eye on the CH and try not to let it drop below 250ppm. Most folks with new plaster have the opposite problem!

Keep an eye on the CYA as well. The CYA test has a +/- 10ppm accuracy so it could be lower than you think.

Clean the filter after you see a 20% increase from the clean pressure level. In other words, if you have just cleaned the cartridge, note the pressure when you first start up the pump. When you see a 20% rise from the clean pressure reading it is time to clean the filter. As you continue to brush the plaster while it cures you will be cleaning the cartridge fairly frequently.

When adding chemicals the pump should be running enough to mix the chemicals into the bulk of the pool water and not allow them to drop to the floor and sit there concentrated in one area. Add the chemicals slowly in front of the return to help distribute them. As long as you are brushing the pool anyway do it after adding chemicals and that will help them mix into the pool. Usually you only need to wait a few minutes between chemical additions. If you are adding MA I would wait 30 minutes before adding anything else.

 

[Superair01]

Thanks zea3.... i did the TA and CH test twice.... did PH once. How do you raise TA and keep PH in check? I can check it again later today as well.

 

[zea3]

You can use baking soda to raise TA and the pH will only go up a little bit. If the amount you need to add gets the pH over 8.0 then you may need to over shoot the TA so you can lower the pH with acid, dry or MA. Otherwise you will just knock the TA back to where it started. The function of TA is to stabilize the pH, so unless you are seeing the pH crash I would leave the TA alone.