First Post, Need help getting my water straightened out.

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diy_darryl

Well-known member
Jul 20, 2014
52
St. Louis, Missouri
Hello All, this is a great place, I wish I would have found it sooner.

We have had our IG fiberglass pool for approx 6 years and unfortunatly relied on Leslies Pools to test and tell us what to add.

Have been fighting an iron stain for 3+ years with advice from said store having dumped hundreds of dollars of their stain and scale remover in with little success.

Finally in desperation bought an ascorbic acid based granular stain remover called Stain Free. Lowered the Chlorine, dumped it in and our pool was sparkling clean and BLUE in literally 30 seconds. It looked brand NEW!

We were thrilled but you will notice I didn't mention a sequestrant so as soon as the chlorine started coming back up the metal deposits started turning the walls yellow/orange or whatever.

So.......We are trying to learn. We have a few issues besides the metals, High Alkalinity and High PH also.

Here are our numbers from yesterday with a TF100 test kit. How do we best approach getting our pool balanced?
Thanks!

FC: 9.5
CC:0.5
TC:10.0
PH:8.2 (or higher, max limit of tester)
TA:170
CH:200
CYA:70

Note: After testing we turned SWG % down and added 20 oz of Muriatic Acid
 
Welcome to TFP!

Impressive first post!

Here is a handy page, Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

It is important to maintain PH between 7.2 and 7.8 at all times.

Getting your TA down to 50-80 will slow the PH rise a lot. Here's how to lower TA, Pool School - Lower Total Alkalinity. Simply adding acid to lower PH will also lower TA, just not as fast.

Your water seems like it might have possibility to scale, enter all the test results in PoolMath and it will give you a CSI score, keep that between -0.6 and 0 to prevent scale. Tweak PH and TA to adjust it. More here, Pool School - Calcium Scaling

Yes, sequestrant is a good second step! :)
More here,
Pool School - Metals in the Water and Metal Stains
Ascorbic Treatment to rid Pool of metal stains
 
Thank You for your help. We are trying to make sense of all the chemicals. It seems one action causes a reaction in something else.

Anyway, 24 hours later (tonight) our FC dropped to 7.0 so it's on it's way down., CC went up to 1.0 so TC = 8.0

TA decreased to 150
PH still maxed out at 8.2 (or higher)

Added 18 oz of Muriatic Acid per the calculator

Questions:

I am a bit unsure on the TA Test exactly when to STOP adding reagent, it seems a certain drop will equal a definite pinkish red and about 2 more drops is a bit redder which is where I am calling it. Should I call it at the first decidedly PINK color?

EDIT:In the pool calculator is the TEMP field the water temp? (I know it's likely very obvious, just looking for clarification)
 
diy_darryl said:
Thank You for your help. We are trying to make sense of all the chemicals. It seems one action causes a reaction in something else.

Anyway, 24 hours later (tonight) our FC dropped to 7.0 so it's on it's way down., CC went up to 1.0 so TC = 8.0

TA decreased to 150
PH still maxed out at 8.2 (or higher)

Added 18 oz of Muriatic Acid per the calculator

Questions:

I am a bit unsure on the TA Test exactly when to STOP adding reagent, it seems a certain drop will equal a definite pinkish red and about 2 more drops is a bit redder which is where I am calling it. Should I call it at the first decidedly PINK color?

EDIT:In the pool calculator is the TEMP field the water temp? (I know it's likely very obvious, just looking for clarification)
Click to expand...

With the drop test, stop adding drops when the last one provides NO more shift in color then subtract that last drop that caused no further color shift.

Yes. Pool temp

Welcome to TFP:wave:
 
Get your PH in line first. You may be much higher than the highest reading on the test kit since the color stops at that highest reading. Use pool math and add enough muratic acid to bring it to 7.2. Let mix in the pool for at least 15 minutes and measure again before attempting another dose of muriatic acid to adjust.
 
HI! You are going to LOVE TFP!!! your wallet will too!

Okay lets do this one at a time. Work on your PH first. Use the MA to drop it. Test, dose, let pump run about 15 mins, test again. Repeat until you see it drop to 7.2. It might take a while depending on how high it really is.

The TA will be the last thing we work on AFTER everything else is done. It is important but can wait.

CC=the bad stuff the FC is cleaning out of the water. It is not good to have more than .5 ppm. It may go up as you SLAM the pool.

Keep asking questions!

We would LOVE to see a picture of your pool. It is very helpful for us to see what we are working on.

:kim:

LOL Aimee! You beat me again!
 
Thank You also kimkats! I wasn't aware you could re-dose the acid so quickly. I didn't think it would be equally dispersed in the pool so soon. Will start a few more doses tonight to get the PH under control and then proceed with the remaining suggestions.
 

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Have only been able to add acid once a night for the last few nights.

Here is where we are tonight.

FC: 10.0 (Need to turn SWG down even more)
CC: 0.5
PH: 7.5 (added 14 oz Muriatic Acid)
TA: 100
CH: 175
CYA: 70

The pool is actually looking much clearer. I am assuming we need to still proceed with the slam as soon as I get the PH down to 7.2 (I picked up bleach)

I do have one question on the CSI. There are 2 windows, one under 'now' and one under 'target'. What am I supposed to read here because both of my numbers are not good. 'now' window says -.44, and 'target' window says -.84
 
PH is at 7.2 and no one (in the short amount of time since my last post) has given me a reason NOT to SLAM so going to proceed with an FC of 28 according to the chart. Here we go!!!!!

Thanks to all of you! We should have figured out how to do this ourselves years ago!

EDIT:And pooldv, when you mentioned us at a risk for scaling we were seeing numbers above +0.6 if I remember correctly so thanks again!

EDIT2:Holy Smokes, we need to add 252 oz. of 7.8% bleach to get up to SLAM level! If thats incorrect someone speak up. Off to the pool to add the bleach!
 
You are receiving great advice on how to get your chems in line, but I can't help but wonder about the iron still in your pool.

How hard/costly would it be to replace most, if not all of your water? You mentioned earlier that you did the AA treatment and the stains lifted and the water turned Blue. I have experience with that one and the easiest way to get rid of the iron is to do the AA and then drain as much as you can. But this only helps if your fill water is metal free.
 
The metals test is the only one we "allow" the pool $tore to do. Don't buy anything they tell you to. Just have the test done and thank them. If you want to buy a cheap tube of o-ring lube or a cute float that is fine.

Come back here with what they tell you about the metal. Don't bother telling us any of their other results though LOL

:kim:
 
UPDATE:

We just started our SLAM last night. Per the calculator we added 252 oz of 7.8% bleach to get to an FC of 28, from 10, turned pump into service mode set for continuous run (about 12 hours so far since the SLAM), and turned the SWG down a bit from 25% to 20%.

This morning the pool looks GREAT! I mean FABULOUS, maybe only a hint of an orangish color up around the water line (It wasn't terribly bad before slamming but was noticable).

However, FC shot up to 41.5 (first time I tested it since adding the bleach) and CC's are 0.0 (Testing done just now)

Are we DONE this soon?

Advice APPRECIATED.
 

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