First open on my own no Ca!

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E Murph

E Murph

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Bronze Supporter
May 10, 2016
47
Middletown, Pennsylvania
Hello all,
first let me say how much I love this site and this system. I dumped the pool company and all their overpriced chemicals last year. This year I decided to skip their overpriced opening too and did it myself. I was shocked to see how lousy of a job they had done cleaning my DE filter. I spent hours doing a thorough cleaning and opened my pool while still having a free chlorine reading from last fall. I was thrilled. As always I got 6,000 gallons of new water because Thats what I've always done. Maybe I don't need to going forward. Anyway. Here are my readings after the pump has been running for 24 hours and adding a couple gallons of bleach
FC 6.5
CC 0
TA 120
PH very high 9? Off the chart on my Taylor test
CH 220
CA 0?
temp is 62 degrees
I will add muriatic acid to get the ph down but my question is about the CA, after fighting to get it down I am a little worried about over doing it. My thought is to start using some of the evil tabs until it comes up to about 20-30? Will that take too long? Should I just buy CA and add some? I've read that the cooler water may give me a lower reading? When I do the test the black dot is perfectly clear when the tube is full that is why I'm assuming it's 0?
does the high PH affect this? I really don't want to have high CA again. As always thanks for the advice and I can't say enough how much I love this site!
 
Each 8 oz puck will add 2.2 CYA. How long do you think it will take for 20 pucks to dissolve? :scratch:

I'd add the CYA manually -- say 20 ppm or so, since you might still have some residual that is too low to register now but which may push you over the target. If you need more later, it's easy enough to add more. You can also float a few pucks if you already own them, because it looks like you would benefit from the slow steady acid feed what with the high TA and the very high pH. Don't count on them to lower the pH by themselves, go ahead with the MA.

There's been some experimentation and discussion in the experts' secret lair, and it doesn't appear that the temperature difference makes all that much difference with the CYA test. A few seconds slower, perhaps. Nothing to agonize over.
 
Will that take too long? Should I just buy CA and add some?
Click to expand...

First, getting that pH down is really essential. Get that done and then address the CYA problem after pH is in the 7's (call it CYA, not CA)

Yeah the pucks take a long time so get some in there now to get you top 30 ppm.

Silly things to check on your testing.....

You're sure you are using the right reagent - R-0013 (sorry.....have to ask)

How old is it? That reagent almost never goes bad but it's worth knowing it's age.

Can you test a neighbors pool to see if the test is working correctly?

What was your last reading last Fall?
 
Thanks for the fast response and great info!
yes to the R0013. It has a date on it of 2018.
No neighbor with a pool
last fall my cya was 40. I worked all summer to get it down to that level, bought lots of water . Agreed there probably is some cya maybe 10? A good target would be 30?
i didnt know each puck was 2.2! No wonder I had such problems all those years! I thought it would be much less!
i put 10 pucks in my old Hayward dispenser and cranked it up to full. I was going to disconnect that this year but wasn't sure how to patch the holes. Maybe good I keep it? I imagine it will be gone in 2-3 days.
I'm off to lowes to buy some muriatic acid. That should be easy to fix then I'll get another test done.
Thank you very much for the expert advice!!!
 
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