First Post - First Pool - First Questions

[Swish]

Hello everyone,

First I just want to say thank you to all of those who make this site possible. It's a goldmine of information for newbies like me. I've been doing a lot of research in an effort to learn how to maintain my first pool. My natural inclination would be to follow the recommendations of the pool industry (APSP). Even though Trouble Free Pools doesn't always conform to industry standards, you guys seem to know what you're talking about so I've decided to follow your recommendations. Besides, the TFP standards come with free advice!

So, I removed my mesh cover and found a green and filty pool. I spent the first few days brushing and vacuuming while waiting for my kit to arrive. The kit finally arrived and I took my first readings. Here's what I got:

TA 50
pH > 8.0
CH 140
CYA < 30
FC 0
CC 0
Salt 2200

I then took a water sample to the pool store to be double checked. Here's what they found:

TA 48
pH 8.4
CH 108
CYA 24
FC .09
CC 0
TC .09
Salt 2200
Copper 0
Iron .1

They used an electronic tester. I don't know the make or model. But it looks like our figures agree pretty well. They were able to get exact values for pH and CYA that exceeded the range of my kit (K-2006). They also got an exact reading on FC that exceeded the resolution of my kit. The biggest difference is CH. They got 108 and I got 140. Either way, it's a good number that doesn't need adjustment.

So, on to the next step. Info I found on Hayward.com says to proceed in the following order:

Salt -> CYA -> TA -> CH -> pH. Once that's done you can SLAM.

On this website, the article "Water Balance for SWGs" is almost exactly the same. It reverses the pH and CH steps. However, the pool store recommended this order:

ph -> TA -> CH -> SuperChlorinate -> CYA -> Salt.

Honestly, I'd rather deal with the salt last. Salt doesn't seem to be the priority at the moment. My pool is green and getting greener everyday. I need to get chlorine in it ASAP. Also, they recommend sweeping to insure that the salt doesn't settle on the bottom. That's fine but I can't even see the bottom! In regard to CYA, it is my intention to set it to 70 per TFP recommendations (70-80). If I do that prior to slamming I'll need a lot more chlorine. I purchased 7 gallons of 12.5% in preparation for that. But now I'm thinking I should slam at the current CYA level thereby requiring less chlorine and then adjust the level afterwards. So I came up with my own order that looks like this:

TA -> pH -> SLAM -> CYA -> Salt. No changes to CH.

That way I can slam just as soon as I get TA and pH set without wasting time on the other stuff. So here's what I've done. I added 9 lbs of alkalinity increaser (sodium hydrogen carbonate). I tested the next morning and TA had increased from 50 to 70 as per TFP recommendations (60-80). I'm now working on pH. My acid demand was 2 drops which means 55 oz. of muriatic acid in a 30K pool. However, PoolMath indicated 44 oz. to lower the pH from 8.4 to 7.5 with TA at 70. I decided to split the difference and go with 50 ounces. But I actually ended up adding 48 oz. just because that was a convenient mark on my measuring cup. I waited 8 hours and retested. There was no change to TA, pH, or acid demand. I let it run overnight and retested in the morning. TA was still 70. pH now looked like 8.0 and acid demand was 1 drop. I was wishing I had added the 55 oz indicated by the acid demand instead of fudging the numbers to 48. After 24 hours I still had a 1 drop acid demand so I added another 30 oz of muriatic acid. I tested about 6 hours later but no change yet. I'll probably have to run it overnight again and hopefully see a change in the morning. I hope I haven't over done it.

So that's where I'm at right now. I've got a green pool and I'm waiting for pH to get into the proper range before I slam. I would love to hear your thoughts on all this.

Am I doing this correctly?
Can I follow this order: TA -> pH -> SLAM -> CYA -> Salt. No changes to CH ?
Should it take this long to see changes in pH?
What's the quickest and best way to get TA and pH set while avoiding the yo-yo effect?

Sorry this first post is so long winded but there are so many nitty-gritty details and a million questions!

Thanks,
Swish

 

[Uncle Salty]

Double check your acid and make sure it's the 31.45% stuff and not the 15% stuff, could be why you're struggling with lowering PH. Using the wrong strength seems to be relatively common from what I've read on here. I'm sure more experienced members will chime in with additional help.

Salty

 

[Philo]

"I'm thinking I should slam at the current CYA level thereby requiring less chlorine"
good thinking!

"Double check your acid and make sure it's the 31.45% stuff and not the 15% stuff"
good thinking!


"Can I follow this order: TA -> pH -> SLAM -> CYA -> Salt. No changes to CH" ?
I not a moderator but as long as my pH was in range and I knew my CYA level, I'd start the SLAM asap!

 

[Swish]

Thanks guys. I just double checked my muriatic acid. It's 31.45%. I just purchased a new bottle of muriatic acid but I haven't opened it yet. I'm using acid left by the previous owner. He had about half a gallon left. That raises the question of how long does muriatic acid last. The new bottle I just bought a couple of days ago has a date on it of 02/03/17. I assume (and hope) that's the date of manufacture. The bottle that I'm using has a date of 05/26/16, so it's a year old. It's been stored in an attached garage with no HVAC. It certainly seemed potent when I accidentally got a whiff of the fumes. Even at arms length it almost choked me up.

After adding 30 oz. yesterday I tested again this morning but there was still no change. So to recap, my starting pH was 8.4 with a 2 drop acid demand. I added 48oz. of acid the first day. The second day I measured pH at 8.0 and acid demand was 1 drop. Added another 30oz. of acid. I tested again this morning (after 24hs) but there was no change. pH is still 8.0, acid demand 1 drop. So in total, adding 78oz. of acid over 2 days has lowered pH from 8.4 to 8.0. TA is somewhere between 60 and 70. This seems to be requiring more acid than the charts and calculators indicate. And it takes 24hrs to see a change assuming I see a change at all!

I don't know what else to do except to keep adding acid until the pH comes down. Science demands that it will come down eventually! It just doesn't seem right that the calculations aren't working out as expected. But then again I've never done this before. So, unless I get expert advice to the contrary, I'm going to keep adding acid until the pH is in range and then start slamming. TA will probably end up back at 50 where I started but that will be one more thing to do later. If it drops below 50 I might reconsider this plan. We'll see.

Thanks guys,
Swish

 

[spinPHD]

One thing you should do is get some stabilizer (CYA) in your pool. It will also help lower your PH a little. Use the pool math to find out how much granular stabilizer you need for your pool.

 

[Swish]

I have some stabilizer but I haven't put it in yet. But that's a good idea. My CYA is a little low and could be raised some. I don't have to go all the way to 70 yet. Any acid source should help at this point.

Thanks,
Swisher

 

[Swish]

So anyway,

Five hours ago I tested my pH and it looked like 8.0 to me. I tested it just now and I swear it looks like it's exceeding 8.0 again. My kit only goes to 8.0 with a color comparison. This morning the colors looked like a good match for 8.0 but now it's definitely not. The pH appears to be getting higher! So here's my theory. I've got a lot of little bubbles flying around inside my pump basket. And I've been running my pump 24/7 to help circulate chemicals and filter algae. Is it possible that having bubbles in my pump basket 24/7 is aerating my water enough to drive the pH up? If so, the aeration could offset the effects of the muriatic acid resulting in little or no change in pH. Does that sound realistic? Is it possible to get that much aeration in a pump basket?

I also just retested my acid demand. One drop would give me a pH of 7.7. Two drops would be a pH of 7.2 which sounds like a good place to be for slamming. That translates into about 55 oz. of acid. So I added another 50 oz. or so and I'm going to let the pump run several hours to circulate it. But then I'm turning the pump off. No more 24/7. I'll retest tomorrow morning, if not sooner, to see if anything dramatic happens.

I know I have three small leaks in my system. There's a small water leak at the output of the pump. There's also a small water leak around the multiport valve on the filter. And there's apparently a small air leak on the pump somewhere which is causing the bubbles in the basket. I decided that these minor leaks were of little consequence and didn't need to be addressed yet. I don't see bubbles at the return jets unless I'm vacuuming. And as a newbie, I didn't want my first chore to be tearing all the plumbing apart to look for leaks! The water was pumping and circulating and filtering just fine despite the leaks so I decided to proceed with water balancing and slamming. But if I do in fact have an aeration problem, I might have to deal with all that now rather than later. We'll see how my experiment turns out in the morning.

Swish

 

[DeanP66]

Something is not adding up. How old is your test kit? It is very unlikely that that your pH would drop from 8.0 to 7.2 with only 2 drops. That's way too big a drop for only two drops. My pool (20K) generally takes 2 drops to reduce the pH by .2. Just today, I added 66 oz of acid to lower the pH from 7.8 to 7.2 and my pool is quite a bit smaller than yours.

 

[Swish]

My test kit is brand new. I ordered it directly from Taylor and received it just last week. I just tested again to be absolutely certain I was performing the test correctly. And for the first time I got test results in the normal range! I didn't do anything differently. I performed the test the same way as before. But this time I got a pH of 7.5. I tested twice in two locations (shallow and deep) and got the same result each time. I did a third test using a K-1000 kit I purchased last year. That's a little $10.00 kit that only checks chlorine and pH. It's ingredients don't expire until next year. That kit also indicated 7.5 pH. So, currently my TA is 60 (down from 70) and pH is 7.5. I'm going to watch it a few more hours to see if it settles somewhere else. If things hold I might begin slamming tonight. I don't know why it has taken so much acid to get to this point. Maybe my pH was higher than I thought or maybe my pool is bigger than I think it is. I don't know. But we'll see how it goes.

Thanks,
Swish