Hi from NSW, Australia

[yann]

Hi all,

Great forum and great advice so far.
I am from the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney Australia.

Just bought a house a few months ago, which made me a newbie in pool ownership.
Previous owner didn't take much care of his pool and I ended up having a lot of balancing to do, mostly on advice from my local pool shop.
In fairness I now have a crystal clear well balanced pool.

However am getting a bit annoyed at them now. The latest tests have been way out of range, and the advice poor. The even admitted themselves their testing equipment hasn't been calibrated in a while. Add operator errors and if you don't double check with your home kit, you end up pouring anything and everything in your pool!!

Despite the immense popularity of pools in Australia, it is extremely difficult to find local info and products.
I would like to know for example what test kits Aussie owners use?
I have 4-in-1 from Aussie Gold and it seems to be doing a great job for pH, TA and acid demand. However I am not convinced I'm getting good FC readings.
Also, I would like to take my water testing to the next level, since I do not entirely trust my local pool shop anymore.

The forum recommends TF-100 but it is not available here.
Taylors K-2006C is extremely expensive (over $300 AU).
What else is there?

Also I find very confusing info on recommended levels, especially TA.
Here you recommend 80ppm as max value, others 80-120ppm...

See my signature for pool and equipment details

Thanks a lot for your help and ideas.

 

[needsajet]

Welcome to TFP! Good to meet you mate

The first part is easy: Total Pool Water Testing Kit, Salt Water Clear Choice Labs
That's a first class kit, made here in Aus with Taylor reagents.

TA at 60 is usually plenty. Any more just makes the pH drift up faster. Up to 80 isn't too bad. No way you need more. All it does is stop pH from crashing out low, and even 50 is OK for that. Pool $tores keep the number higher hoping to sell you more acid.

- - - Updated - - -
Go the Eels!

 

[Jezza]

Welcome to the TFP- a great place for all Aussie pool owners.

+1 to Clearchoice labs- the most efficient and affordable way to get a recommended test kit. Most importantly it has the FAS-DPD test to allow you to read high levels of chlorine.

Read up on Pool School at the top of the page and learn how to take control of your own pool through accurate testing. In regards to TA levels, it's about finding the level that stabilises your pH for your pool as opposed to shooting for a specific number- ie- when you don't have to add acid all the time. My TA sits at around 70-80 and the last time I added acid was 12 months ago.

 

[yann]

Thanks for the welcome

just ordered my kit from CCL.
Will post my results asap and will go from there.

Cheers

- - - Updated - - -

In regards to TA levels, it's about finding the level that stabilises your pH for your pool as opposed to shooting for a specific number- ie- when you don't have to add acid all the time. My TA sits at around 70-80 and the last time I added acid was 12 months ago.

sounds unreal. How can you maintain a low pH without adding acid? Shouldn't your pH go up naturally, just with swg aération alone?
would love to reach such equilibrium!

 

[pooldv]

Welcome to TFP!

 

[Jezza]

I use a solar cover for about 3/4 of the year which more or less eliminates pH rise and when I take it off permanently during winter it will rise verrrry slowly. At the moment I'm at about 7.7 from about 7.4 at the beginning of this year.

 

[needsajet]

Most people are able to hit an equilibrium, but not everyone. I haven't yet on 3 pools (4 swim seasons). But I'm OK with once-a-week acid additions and I know the same total amount of acid will get used either way. On 2 of the three pools, the plaster is only 1-2 years old, but it's mostly incoming fill water TA. This summer, I'm going to try being a bit more aggressive on one or two of the pools. They're all 70-80 ppm TA, so obviously I need to try lower. A cover would cut the evaporation, lessening the top-ups, lessening acid need.

 

[yann]

Hi all

Again thank you for welcoming me here.

My CCL Kit is in the mail so I'm expecting to post my first results early next week.

Should I post my results here, or is there a better place on the forum for that?

Also, should I test my fill (tap) water and if so, what should I test for?

Cheers

 

[needsajet]

You can keep all the information right here. That makes it a bit easier for anyone following along to see anything that might apply.

It's good to know your fill water, so go ahead and test everything. It probably doesn't vary too much, depending what water system you're on. Don't be alarmed if you see some combined chlorine (CC) because it's used for sanitation in drinking water systems. If it's a council or water company system, you can also often look up water quality information online. If it's anything like my water, it's great water and will have pretty low TA and CH, and pH will probably be up around 8.0, making it pretty helpful for looking after a pool.

 

[yann]

CCL Kit just arrived.

Would you recommend standard or high sensitivity tests?

Cheers

 

[needsajet]

That's great to hear mate. High sensitivity for TA and standard for CH

 

[yann]

There we go:

FC 7.5
CC 0
pH 7.4
TA 90 *1
CH 220 *2
CYA 30
Salt 5000 (SWG recommended 4000)
Temp 11oC

Running pump 4h/day (7-9am + 7-9pm)
SWG at 12.5% (1/8)

Pool Math gives me CSI -0.77

*1- CCL shipped without TA test! So I used my 4-in-1 Aussie Gold kit / contacted CCL requesting a TA kit to be sent
*2- this is pool $hop measurements. It's been stable over the past 3 months. I used CCL to test but got 30+ drops without colour change. I must have done something wrong but didn't have time to re-test

 

[needsajet]

Great to know from your own testing

The Aussie 4-in-1 is totally fine for TA. I've done a fair number of comparisons and get +/- 10 ppm between the 4-in-1, CCL and Taylor K-2006.

For the CH test, did you use the lower line on the vial (smaller sample)? If not you'll find the smaller sample works better. You might have a lot of magnesium, and it's OK to try extra of the 1st reagent which is neutralizing magnesium (i.e. try 15 drops instead of 10). You won't be testing calcium very often anyway. I find those reagents expire before I run out. The calcium test takes the longest to mix as well. I hold the vial in my right hand swirling, then hold the reagent bottle upside down and vertical in my left. I let each drop fully form and then fall off the dropper tip, allowing about 1 or 2 seconds per drop. Maybe one of those options will be helpful.

 

[needsajet]

mate I just looked up your water quality from Sydney Water and I'd say you can ignore what I said about magnesium. Your water looks excellent and very similar to ours, assuming you're on the Sydney Water system and not a well or spring or anything. I was thinking you were further over in the Blue Mountains where it might be a little different, but just noticed Blaxland in your location.
http://www.sydneywater.com.au/web/groups/publicwebcontent/documents/document/zgrf/mdq0/~edisp/dd_044726.pdf

 

[yann]

Thanks mate!
yeah good feeling.

I used the bottom line for CH.
Ill try the extra drops since I didn't fill the pool in the first place.

Once i get an accurate reading I guess adjusting CH to 350 will be my first job; BTW any reason why the $hop recommend 250 for CH?

How about CYA? Raise now or wait until swim season starts?

the rest looks ok to me, but what do the experts think?

thanks again.

 

[needsajet]

If it was mine, I'd get the CSI above -0.6, by allowing the pH to drift up. I like pH right around 7.8 myself. The water is so cold now that everything is in slow motion so not such a big deal, but still a CSI of -0.77 is lower than you want it.

The reason they ignore CH is because the pool store's software will be telling you to raise TA and assuming you will, which would bring the index up. You shouldn't do that because it will make pH harder to manage. If you were at a TA of, say, 120 ppm, then your index number would be higher, and 250 CH would be enough. My experience has been that pool stores and techs ignore CH and run TA higher, which is not the most efficient way to run the pool.

Your best bet is to play around with PoolMath and find the levels you like. Play with temperature a bit, because as the water heats up to swimming temperature, your CSI will rise substantially. For me, CH around 300 seems to go pretty well.

CYA at 30 is fine for winter, but the sun is getting higher in the sky now. I would do an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test first, just to be sure there's no algae in the pool, and then raise CYA to recommended levels in two steps.

 

[yann]

OCLT with pump running and SWG off, or pump off altogether?
the OCLT post is not clear on this point.

 

[needsajet]

SWG off for sure. Pump running all night if you don't mind the cost, but really it must run for 30 minutes after your last chlorine addition and then get your starting FC test around sunset, no sun on the pool. In the morning, the pump must have run for 30 minutes before the test, and the test done before any sun hits the pool, i.e. early morning around sunrise. So some people just leave the pump running rather than get up earlier.

 

[needsajet]

p.s. on CH testing. You don't really want to adjust CH based on a pool store test, so it would be best to get your own correct CH test. I just went out and did one with my CCL kit, and maybe a couple tips will help.

Lower line as mentioned
Add the 10 drops of calcium hardness buffer, and swirl the vial to mix it up
Add the 4 drops of calcium detection reagent. You'll notice that it just drops to the bottom like a smear of blue. You have to then swirl long enough that the sample all turns a nice even pink. It takes a bit of swirling for that to happen.
Then add the calcium titrating reagent drop wise, doing enough swirling for it to mix between drops.
That kit includes a 200 ppm CH standard solution as well, which would be 8 drops, so a good option for refining technique.

 

[yann]

Sweet

ill try that tonight. And I'll do OCLT as well

Ill just switch the swg off and let the pump filter run as usual.

Ill post my OCLT results in the morning