New Pool Owner: Questions

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M

Macauley86

0
Feb 1, 2017
70
Wildomar, CA
Hi everyone,
Just purchased a house with a 15'x30' pool and a 7' round spa. Since I like to live dangerously, I've decided to take care of the pool's chemical maintenance myself, and have purchased the Taylor K-2006 test kit, the Clorox tablets http://amzn.to/2ktOD5i (used through the in-line feeder), but I have the following questions:
  • Is the liquid chlorine in additition to the Clorox tablets?
  • Is a copper ionizer like this one http://amzn.to/2jXi6RY a waste of money? Or a good investment?
  • If I need to increase PH, may I use hexaborate POOLPROOF® Nisus Corp instead of Borax? Same price?
  • the pool maintenance company that I used for the first few weeks sent me a chemical log after each weekly visit. One of the entries was Chlorine, with values between 0 and 3, usually around 0.5. They addedd Thriclor tablets and 1 gallon of liquid chlorine. From reading their logs, I can't figure out if the chlorine entry is referring to FC, CC, TC, and I could not figure out a pattern between the chlorine value and the number of tablets and/or liquid chlorine they were adding.

Thank you for your help.
 
Hello and welcome to TFP! :wave: About your questions:
- Really no need to use any tabs if you feed your pool some bleach everyday. Tabs tend to increase CYA because they have stabilizer in them, so be careful.
- I'd say no on the copper ionizer. Do a search on TFP and you'll see many discussions.
- I don't have a lot of experience with that Poolproof product, but anything that says it can do it all is usually too good to be true. To increase pH, I'd stick with Borax, Soda Ash, or my personal favorite ... aeration ........ for free. :)
- That chlorine level on the log was very low. Maintenance companies generally visit once a week, so they use tabs and then shock the pool once a week. Not ideal at all, but about all they can do with limited time. With your Taylor K-2006, you'll be able to test FC properly and manually add a little bleach each day to keep your water sanitized.

Oh, and don't forget to update your signature. You can click EDIT YOUR SIGNATURE. It will help us later. Make sure to checkout the links in our sigs as well. Very helpful.

Hope that helps. Let us know if you have any other questions.
 
Macauley, welcome and congrats on the new house and pool!

Please rethink the use of those Chlorox Tabs- the copper will cause you a LOT of grief down the road. So to answer your second question you should skip buying that copper ionizer. Copper stains horribly.

We need a full set of test results to determine what you need to do (or not do!). Please break open that new Taylor kit and tell us:
FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA

Next tell us what your pool surface is? Vinyl? Plaster? Fiberglass?? What equipment do you have? Any water features?? Tell us EVERYTHING and photos always welcome.

We're happy to help you learn how to keep your pool the TroubleFree way! :swim::sun:

Yippee :flower:
 
Thank you guys. You are the best. I'll post pictures tomorrow morning. I'll skip the Clorox tabs and the copper ionizer. Is it ok to use the 8.25% bleach from the store?
I'll use the Taylor kit on Friday morning and report back on all the chemical levels.

I have a gunite pool with a waterfall feature. A bunch of Pentair equipment, gas heater (only used for the spa); will pull info tomorrow morning as well.

I think the poolproof hexaborate product is just to make the pool water softer on the skin and more sparkly. Not a must.
 
Like living on the edge huh??? Well we can help you out. You are already way above most in that you have a good test kit! Nice job! I can't wait to see your test results. Did you know there are videos of the tests? Here is a link: taylor k-2006 videos - Google Search

I also have a link to help you care for your new baby pool:

Pool School - Basic Pool Care Schedule

Let us know if you have ANY questions. We love to help!

Kim:kim:
 
Great. Thank you all. I discovered your site a couple of days ago and have been reading the pool school section. Learned a lot, went from totally bewildered to merely confused :)

Watching YouTube videos on how to use the Taylor kit. I also took some pics of pool and equipment this morning.

IMG_9736.jpg

IMG_9737.jpg
 

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Thank you very much for the suggestion. I'll search the threads. Need to resurface that slide really bad. What do you guys think of using solar panels to warm up the pool? Using the gas heater on a regular basis is out of the question, as it's very, very expensive.
 

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