First Pool. Tired of the pool stores answers and $$.

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R

rbuzz3

0
Jul 26, 2017
5
Valparaiso, Indiana
Greetings,
I am new to the world of water treatment. I have had my pool up and running for about 3 weeks and nothing but problems maintaining clarity and balance. I purchased a Taylor K2006C kit and have the results. Pool was filled with well water through a softener. We have terrible iron water so I purchased a sacrificial softener for filling the pool. Here are the Taylor results.
PH-7.5
FC- 7.5
CC-.5
TA-150
CH-120
CYA - Too low to measure. Black dot is clearly visible.
I have been dumping lots of chlorine since filling. Now I know why. I used the PoolMath calculator. How should I go about bringing CYA up without an accurate starting point? Do I need to trim CH and TA?
Thanks
 
Hi, welcome to TFP! What have you been using for chlorine? If you have not used any stabilized chlorine products then your CYA level is 0. It does not occur naturally in the water. You CH is fine, and I would wait and see how the pH reacts over time before adjusting TA. You may not need to adjust it at all.
 
Welcome to the forum!

Have you added any products with CYA in them yet? That includes powdered chlorine (dichlor) or pucks (trichlor)

If not or very little, you should be able to add 30 ppm of CYA. Get CYA powder at Walmart, HomeDepot, etc. Might be labeled as conditioner, stabilizer, etc. Should be nearly 100% Cyanuric Acid.

Place the appropriate amount (use PoolMath to determine) in a sock, tie it shut, and hang in front of a return. Use a pool noodle or broom stick. Even better, assign a younger member of your household to sit in the pool and squeeze that sock until the powder is dissolved.

If you do it that way, you should be able to test the CYA in 24 hours as long as you run your pump some and the pool water gets mixed.

Follow the chlorine / CYA chart (Pool School - Chlorine / CYA Chart) and enjoy the pool! Be sure to use liquid chlorine.

Take care.
 
Mostly using liquid chlorine. I do have pucks in a floating dispenser. I have probably only used 6 tablets altogether. I haven't been able to keep chlorine level stabile at all. It's at 7.5 this morning but I put two bags of powdered shock in at 10 PM last night. Pool store has sold me a dizzying array of acid/chlorine/ph plus and metal conditioners. Never mentioned anything about a stabilizer, just sold me more chlorine bottles.
Pool store purchases over the three weeks. It was clear for about 2 days during that time. I can literally add a gallon of chlorine in the morning and it will be gone by the following day.
20 Gallons of Muratic Acid
20 lbs PH plus
Metal Magic Conditioner Two times
10 gallons of Chlorine
20 bags of shock I have about 10 unused of these.
I have hockey pucks but they don't seem to increase my chlorine at all.

I'll get some CYA and start dosing.
 
And please discontinue using the shock and pucks. Once you get your CYA up you need to stick with liquid chlorine. You can use the pucks when you will be gone over a long weekend or vacation.

I assume you must have iron if you are using a metal sequestrant? That needs to be continually added as it is degraded by the chlorine.

I am struggling that they sold you muriatic acid and pH plus -- talk about a do-loop! Good profits though ----

Take care.
 
They didn't show any iron in my first water sample but sold us a stain preventer because we have an iron problem in our well. When I added chlorine iron came out and they sold me a another metal product. The second product I dumped in and agitated then let the pool settle overnight and vacuumed the iron off the bottom of the pool.
 

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rbuzz3 said:
The pucks are chlorox xtrablue 6 in 1. Trichlor
The shock is burnout 3 Calcium Hypochlorite
Click to expand...
So, the pucks I would get rid of. They will add copper too. They add 1.4 ppm CYA (based on 23000 gallon pool, what are you using?) per puck. So you might have 10 ppm CYA in pool if you used 6. The shock adds calcium so no big deal, but you do not want to get CH too high or you get scaling.

If you get iron again post here. There are cheap and easy ways to filter it when it is not in solution.

Take care.
 
I wouldn't put any product with the word blue in your pool. Typically the word blue means it contains copper. Copper is a metal and it stains and it can turn hair green.

The calcium based shock can be used, but you don't want to use a lot of it at one time because it can cloud the water. It doesn't include any CYA, so you really should go and purchase some CYA. See mknauss's post #3 for details on purchasing CYA.
 
Welcome to TFP! I agree with Tom G above, I joined this site back in 2008 due to BS from the pool store whenever I built my pool. The pool school will help you learn all you need, just spend some time reading and learning. I have had great advice here and my pool water has looked great for 9 years, never had algae once!!! I purchased the TF-100 and have used since. It really is not hard to manage your water. I probably over tested my first year literally every other day but I figured out exactly what my pool needed to maintain balance.

Now I just test once a week and all is good. There are so many great members here that will help with advice. I remember my visit to the pool store that pushed me to do something different, I asked how much the home test kits were and the 17 year old kid told me "o sir, you have to be a chemist in order to test and balance your water" so I then replied, "so you have to be a degreed chemist to work behind the counter at the pool store" he just looked at me in aw! LOL

I mistakenly went back there for the first time this year in many years looking for advice and a second opinion. I asked the same question and got the same answer - walked out LOL and will never go back.

TFP is the best place!!
 
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