Shrews - Calcium - and other questions

[Deb04]

I have a couple of questions:

1. My husband has found 3 dead shrews in our skimmer in the last 2 weeks. I really appreciate that he didn't tell me about this as I just can't handle dead animals in the pool, but since I handle the pool chemistry it would have been useful info. It probably explains why I saw the the CC drift up to 0.5 last week when our CC is always 0.

2. Here are our numbers today (Taylor K-2006)

FC 6.8
CC 0.2
pH 7.5
CH 100
TA 120
CYA 45

(I'm working on getting our CYA up and put 2 lbs in yesterday. I'm also doing the acid/aerate thing to get the TA down.)

I'm concerned about my test drops for CH. when I put the R-0011L in I don't get red, I get tiny pink flakes. As I add the R-0012, the flake turn blue. Are the flakes normal? I swirl and swirl, but they don't dissolve. I bought my test kit last August and the drops are the original ones that came with the kit. I also had my pool store run tests and they came up with 60 for my CH.

3. What's the best place to buy CH? My pool store has 25 lbs for $50. Hoping to get it cheaper I checked all the big box stores with no luck.

Thanks for the help.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Since your pool is vinyl, your CH level is fine.

Also, you don't really need to do the "lowering TA via acid/aeration" method, if you don't want to...you could just add acid every time the PH raises to 7.8 and eventually the TA will come into range. It's just a slower process. Aeration/acid method just speeds it up.

 

[Deb04]

Thanks for the TA advice. That will save me a fair amount of work.

I do want to get my CH up because we have a heater and the manual for the heater says the min CH is 150, 200 is recommended.

 

[imjay]

I would worry more about the li'l critters and where they have their nest - hopefully you don't have a spa sitting next to your pool.

We are rural folk and dedicated to the idea of "live and let live" re critters but when we discovered rats had decided to nest in our garage and they were trying to destroy parts of our structure and the stuff inside it they had to go and we placed bait where no other critters could find it and in short order the critters were dead and gone. We are thankful our spa which does sit near our pool has a hard sealed layer on the bottom and it seems that the critters did not get inside it's innards and cause damage.

Three in a short time in your skimmer would be very troubling to us and not due to any changes in pool water levels.