Newb to TFP (and pools in general), does this seem right?

[CountryBoy19]

I got my TF-100 test-kit today. I'm in the process of filling my new-to-me pool after a drain, clean, and repair operation. I'm filling from my rain-water collection system. I was able to get 8,000 gallons from my rainwater storage tank and another 1,000 gallons from the rain today. Need another 2-3,000 gallons to get it completely full.

That being said, I figured it would be good to test the water to see what chemicals I need to stock up on to get it in balance. When I first filled it my PH was low (6.2-) so I added a box of borax (because I plan to do borates anyways) and now my PH is 8.2+. I added some pool shock left-over from the previous owner and a gallon of bleach I had on hand 2 days ago. Today no chlorine is registering. I didn't bother testing CYA because I'm sure there is none.

TA: 50
CH: 50 (is this low of a level a problem or should I just leave it?)
PH: 8.2+
CYA: didn't test
FC: 0

Chemicals I have on-hand are a small quantity of spa chemicals, to include powdered PH-, 2 large buckets of PH+, and 1 remaining container of granulated pool shock. If I recall reading correctly this isn't recommended because it just adds CH & TA, but if mine are already low should I just dump it in to use it up? I also have some boric acid that I plan to use when I get my TA balanced where it needs to be before starting the borates process.

Chemicals I plan to buy Friday when I go to town: lots of bleach and Muriatic acid. Considering my TA needs to be increased, I believe the proper approach is baking soda to increase TA, and muriatic acid to bring ph back down right? Then I need chlorine...

Am I on the right track? Will the borax add any TA in the process? If so, is it ok to stay a bit low on TA while adding borates?

 

[needsajet]

You're very close, well done on the reading and research and welcome to TFP! Good to have you here

Start by adding your pool details to a signature. There's a link in my signature to 'read before posting' which has the instructions. It will help you get the best possible answers. Be sure to include your pool finish and volume.

Also, it's helpful to tell us what the chemical name is that you're describing. Generally, it's best to always know exactly what's going in, and why you're adding it. We need to know the chemical for the granulated pool shock especially, because there's a couple of different possible chemicals that may be.

Have you started using PoolMath? It's the best place to calculate amounts.

I don't know the size of the pool, but if it's around 10,000 or more gallons, I would add a half-gallon of chlorinating liquid first chance I get.

Then I'd take a breath, do some reading here, and work through these steps.

Next I'd raise TA to 60, with baking soda, as you mentioned.

Then a couple of hours later adjust pH to 7.6 using the pH minus (aka dry acid) you already have. It doesn't hurt to use that up and then switch to muriatic acid for pH reduction. Long term use of dry acid can be troublesome, especially for salt water chlorinators, and adds sulphate which has no useful purpose in the pool. If you want to avoid this, chuck the dry acid in the trash and use liquid muriatic acid.

You got a zero reading for chlorine for one of a couple of different possible reasons, but it's probably just because there is no CYA in the pool. Add enough CYA (aka stabilizer, conditioner and cyanuric acid) to get to 30 ppm for starters. You can do this by putting powdered CYA in an old sock with no holes in the sock, tieing it off, and then putting the sock in the skimmer. Keep your pump running 24/7 until it's all dissolved, or take the sock out and wait for the next pump run to finish dissolving it. Massaging the sock every 10 or 15 minutes will help it dissolve faster.

Add enough liquid chlorine to get to 5 ppm FC, re-test a half-hour later and let us know your test result. Top it up to 5 ppm FC each day for now. We'll drop that back a bit later on.

Hang onto your borax and boric acid for now. We usually wait until everything is stabilized and well understood before adding borates.

Feel free to ask any/all questions along the way and the pool will be shipshape in no time.

Cheers

 

[CountryBoy19]

Thank you for the guidance, your post was more helpful than you can imagine.

Start by adding your pool details to a signature. There's a link in my signature to 'read before posting' which has the instructions. It will help you get the best possible answers. Be sure to include your pool finish and volume.

Doh! I thought I had already done that when I registered several months ago... I put what I could in there, I'll have to get the rest of the details in the daylight, preferably when it's not pouring...

Also, it's helpful to tell us what the chemical name is that you're describing. Generally, it's best to always know exactly what's going in, and why you're adding it. We need to know the chemical for the granulated pool shock especially, because there's a couple of different possible chemicals that may be.

I'll get those when I can (don't want to go out in the dark, in the rain and look them all up).

Have you started using PoolMath? It's the best place to calculate amounts.

I have, and it's been insightful, but it can also be overwhelming especially when taking into consideration which chemical to choose when there are multiple chemicals that will serve a similar purpose. IE, dry-acid vs. muriatic acid. I knew that dry-acid added other not-helpful things from reading here but I don't know what other chemicals do that and/or when those "not so helpful things" might actually help in my situation (like using baking soda when it's usually not recommended because it raises TA & CH, except that's what I want to do).

Hang onto your borax and boric acid for now. We usually wait until everything is stabilized and well understood before adding borates.

I didn't intend to put anymore in, I only put the 1 box in because my ph was showing low and I didn't see the point in dropping baking soda in when I was going to need the borax anyways. That was before I had a test-kit and knew my TA & CH were quite low, although I suspected they may be pretty low with rainwater. I need a total of 13 boxes of borax so I didn't think it would cause too much harm as far as making it harder to balance ph goes.

Edited to add, I'll get some chlorine in it asap. I don't pass through any towns normally but I'm going into town on my day off Friday so I plan to stock up on pool supplies then. In the mean-time the water temp is cool enough that I'm not terribly concerned about an algae bloom before then. The water just came out of an underground tank Sunday and/or today (after the rain). The good news is, it's raining so I should be getting close to having enough water to fill the pool by Sunday (supposed to rain pretty good Saturday).

 

[needsajet]

No worries, the bit of borax is no harm and is a good option for raising pH. I only mentioned it because there's plenty else to work on for now.

Raising TA with baking soda won't affect anything else very much.

There's another link in my signature (TFPC for beginners) which I found very helpful when I started out. And yep, it is a lot to get your head around at the beginning. Another great link is ABCs of pool chemistry in Pool School. After you've entered your pool volume in PoolMath, there's a little section at the bottom called Effect of Adding Pool Chemicals... that's a great resource for knowing what you're adding.

If the granulated shock is all you have available right now, check which chemical it is, and then try Effect of Adding Chemicals, and it might be fine for getting some chlorine into the pool. Post here if you have any questions about it.

If anything you have has 'yellow' or 'blue' in the name, avoid it, and if anything has bromine or copper, avoid those as well.

All good, you got this

 

[CountryBoy19]

No worries, the bit of borax is no harm and is a good option for raising pH. I only mentioned it because there's plenty else to work on for now.

Raising TA with baking soda won't affect anything else very much.

There's another link in my signature (TFPC for beginners) which I found very helpful when I started out. And yep, it is a lot to get your head around at the beginning. Another great link is ABCs of pool chemistry in Pool School. After you've entered your pool volume in PoolMath, there's a little section at the bottom called Effect of Adding Pool Chemicals... that's a great resource for knowing what you're adding.

If the granulated shock is all you have available right now, check which chemical it is, and then try Effect of Adding Chemicals, and it might be fine for getting some chlorine into the pool. Post here if you have any questions about it.

If anything you have has 'yellow' or 'blue' in the name, avoid it, and if anything has bromine or copper, avoid those as well.

All good, you got this

We decided to head into town tonight instead of tomorrow so I picked up lots of bleach (8.25% cal-hypo on sale for $1.99/gal at Menards), some Muriatic acid, and some CYA. Because I don't have a functional bottom drain and my pool level isn't up to the skimmer yet I improvised to incorporate the CYA, I filled a sock with 2 lbs and fixed it onto the end of the hose I'm using to fill the pool, then turned the water on. The CYA was dissolved in about 30 minutes. According to pool math I still have 1.5 lbs to add, I'll do that tomorrow (it was getting dark). I also added some baking soda to correct TA and MA to correct ph. I may have added a bit much MA, but I don't foresee that as a problem because I'll eventually start adding borax once TA is balanced. I also mistakenly overshot the chlorine amount. I was thinking I needed just shy of a full gallon but I forgot that I had calculated for 6% instead of the 8.25% that I actually used. I doubt that will be a problem, I'll probably have to add quite a bit more in the coming days to keep it in balance.

 

[needsajet]

Great to hear! Good to hav some supplies on hand and great improv for the CYA.

Next time around, post your numbers as well, in this format. I just used my own numbers from last test.

Mine by example
FC 6.0
CC 0.0
pH 8.0
TA 80
CH 325
CYA 40

You're making great progress on the pool! Just a nit, but chlorinating liquid and bleach are sodium hypochlorite; Cal-hypo is Calcium hypochlorite, a powder.

 

[CountryBoy19]

You're right on the cal-hypo vs sodium hypochlorite, I mixed them up... I'm learning, slow but sure!

Just tested the water this morning. I only ran some of the tests because my daughter woke up and wanted breakfast part way through... I at least got the important ones (to know if my CYA is coming up, TA, and OTO chlorine test)
FC 6.0+ (just did the OTO test)
CC didn't test
pH 6.8- (I expected this with the "overshoot" on MA last night)
TA 50 (this one confused me, no change from before, even with the addition of 2-3 lbs of baking soda, which should have taken me up to at least 70)
CH didn't test, I assume it's still going to be quite low
CYA 20

That being said, I know this is the wrong section, but you seem pretty helpful. I was working overseas last fall when the pool was winterized, I have no idea what was done and what needs to be done to open it. They did add anti-freeze to the lines. Do I need to flush that out by back-washing the filter? What about the lines going to the jets? If we get the storms they're calling for tomorrow I should have enough water to reach the skimmer and I'll be ready to fire up the pump.

 

[needsajet]

The TA gets driven down by acid, so that would explain the disappearing TA. I'm guessing you mean pH of 7.2 or a bit less? Typical pool test kits can't measure down to 6.2.

Pool antifreeze (pink stuff, same as recreational vehicle antifreeze) is non toxic. If you want to, you can pump to waste when you first start the pump to remove any antifreeze in the suction side. It would only take a minute or two. You will probably smell it initially, but then it will gradually disappear and be very dilute in the pool water anyway.

I meant to mention this thread is fine for everything about your start-up. By the way, how is the water looking?

 

[CountryBoy19]

The TA gets driven down by acid, so that would explain the disappearing TA. I'm guessing you mean pH of 7.2 or a bit less? Typical pool test kits can't measure down to 6.2.

Doh, 6.8- (the lowest my kit will measure to)

So if TA is lowered by acid am I fighting a losing battle trying to increase TA? If increasing TA drives ph up, and I have correct that with acid that drives TA down. Am I not going round in circles?

Would I be better off to add some well water that will undoubtedly have a higher CH and TA? I can likely squeeze 1,000 gal or so from the well but I have to be careful because it's a low-recovery well.

Pool antifreeze (pink stuff, same as recreational vehicle antifreeze) is non toxic. If you want to, you can pump to waste when you first start the pump to remove any antifreeze in the suction side. It would only take a minute or two. You will probably smell it initially, but then it will gradually disappear and be very dilute in the pool water anyway.

I meant to mention this thread is fine for everything about your start-up. By the way, how is the water looking?

That's good to know. Thanks again for all the help!!!

ETA, forgot to answer the question about the water; crystal clear! I ran the robot for a few hours today to get some sediments off the bottom, a lot of gray "stuff" that couldn't be seen in the water was in the filter, I assume it's dead organic matter. Overall I'm pleased with how things have been going, I've done a LOT of reading on TFP. I guess I just wanted a small bit of guidance and reassurrance that I was on the right path.

 

[needsajet]

You're close but not quite. If you get your TA to around 60 or 70, it will work fine. Be careful not to lower your pH so much, and you won't see much of a drop in the TA.

When you drop pH a great deal, a fair bit of TA is eliminated, but correcting pH from, say, 7.9 to 7.6 won't drop TA very much at all.

For example, with your TA at 60, and pH at 7.9, you could add 16 oz of 32% muriatic acid to adjust pH to 7.6, and your TA will only drop by 5 ppm.

If you then added enough baking soda to raise TA back up by 5 ppm, pH would barely rise at all. (PoolMath will tell you 0.01 rise in pH (undetectable). Baking soda does not affect pH very much at all.

Use PoolMath to determine the amount of acid to add, which will result in smaller changes. At some point down the track, you're likely to find a sweet spot where additions of acid and baking soda are less frequent and smaller amounts. But if you over-correct, you'll definitely use more chemicals.

Hope that makes sense!

 

[CountryBoy19]

You're close but not quite. If you get your TA to around 60 or 70, it will work fine. Be careful not to lower your pH so much, and you won't see much of a drop in the TA.

When you drop pH a great deal, a fair bit of TA is eliminated, but correcting pH from, say, 7.9 to 7.6 won't drop TA very much at all.

For example, with your TA at 60, and pH at 7.9, you could add 16 oz of 32% muriatic acid to adjust pH to 7.6, and your TA will only drop by 5 ppm.

If you then added enough baking soda to raise TA back up by 5 ppm, pH would barely rise at all. (PoolMath will tell you 0.01 rise in pH (undetectable). Baking soda does not affect pH very much at all.

Use PoolMath to determine the amount of acid to add, which will result in smaller changes. At some point down the track, you're likely to find a sweet spot where additions of acid and baking soda are less frequent and smaller amounts. But if you over-correct, you'll definitely use more chemicals.

Hope that makes sense!

Ah... that makes sense... so now I think I may have screwed up... I used more baking soda to try to adjust ph back up, not realizing the 2 were tied together (as ph rises so will TA)... this morning I still have ph: 6.8-, but now TA is 120. Grrr... guess I'll aerate today and hope for storms to help with the aeration. Chlorine is still reading high, which is ok with me for now, I would rather a bit high while my circulation isn't the best.

CYA is at 40 now. I'm going to hold tight, I expect it to drop to around 30-35 when I get the rest of the water in but I don't want to over-shoot that one.

 

[CountryBoy19]

After a moderate amount of aeration numbers as of this morning:

FC 6.5
CC 0
TA 110
Ph 7.2
CH didn't test
CYA 40

I added more MA and continued aeration today. Hoping to get TA down to 90ish and then wait for rain to get the final water in the pool and adjust from there.

I do have a question, I keep getting a "sediment" that accumulates on the bottom of the pool, it seems very fine. I run the robot and it disappears, then comes back within about an hour of shutting the robot off. The robot filter seems to have a gray "slime" like substance on it; I assume it's small sediment particles. Is this stuff getting past the filter of the robot and mixing with the pool water then settling back out? How can I prevent this? Clean the filter on the robot more often? I've found it a bit tedious to clean the filter, how do you suggest cleaning it? I've considered running it through the washing machine, good idea or bad? Should I have multiple filter bags for the robot so I can change it frequently then wash them all in a batch in the washer etc? Will the sand filter do a better job of cleaning this out of the water once I'm up to skimmer level?

BTW, as luck would have it, the storms they were calling for Friday night went too far north, the storms yesterday morning missed us to the south, the ones last night missed us to the south, and the storms today went both north and south of us. No more rain in the forecast for several days... It's been a REALLY rainy spring, but when a guy wants a few inches so he can fill his pool I guess the rain just goes away...

 

[needsajet]

Yeh check your robot manual to be sure, but for the robot I clean in a friend's pool, I turn the bag inside-out and hose it from the "outside which is now the inside". Then turn it back right-side-out. Its manual suggests a machine wash occasionally, but I've never done so (wife would dis-own me, haha). If I did, I would manual-clean it very thoroughly first.

Sediment reappearing quickly is usually dead algae, so I suggest an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test to rule out algae as the source of the problem.

When you're already down at 7.2, you should probably avoid adding more MA, except maybe a really tiny amount to get to pH 7.0. Wait for aeration to naturally raise the pH up to around 7.5 or 7.6, and then use PoolMath to determine the acid addition to get you down to 7.0 or 7.2, and let aeration take the pH back up again. Repeat however many times you want. The water chemistry is quite manageable at TA of 110, and normal acid additions will gradually reduce TA as well; it just takes longer.

Sounds like you're making good progress