Hi all,
I'm new on the forum, but I've been lurking here over the years. I've been having problems with my pool since I put it in 3 years ago. I had a salt water pool previously, and decided I didn't want to hassle with that and went for what I thought was a simpler option. This time I put in a standard chlorine pool, and I've been using chlorine tabs to keep it sanitized. I'm all for the method advocated here (bleach vs. tabs), but I'm gone a lot and cant keep up on it daily or even multiple times per week. I do all my maintenance on the weekends. So, I have a feeder, and keep tablets in it that last over a week.
First year, I went several months before I started having problems, and I handled them by cleaning the cartridges super frequently. I then got new cardridges and that seemed to solve the problem. When I started having problems again I cleaned the cartridges and things got better but only briefly. I thought I might have a build up of unwanted chemicals from the tablets, so recently (maybe 3 months ago) I drained about 1/2 the pool and added fresh water. Things got much better, but lately I'm noticing tracks the cleaner leaves in the pool, and the wall is getting dirty quickly. The water looks nice and clear, but it seems that I'm always on the edge of a bloom. I've had a kit that only measures TC, and I've kept it high. In my pool, it's hard to keep the PH up, so I'm adding Baking Soda occasionally. I got a TF-100 test kit and measured everything I could and here's what I got:
PH: 7.5
FC: 13 (or 12, I did it twice)
CC: 0
TC: 13 (or 12)
Calcium: 200
TA: 110
CYA: 160
I'm assuming that CYA is my culprit, and that I need to drain my pool again and find another way to sanitize my pool, but I thought I'd ask the experts.
Thoughts?
I'm new on the forum, but I've been lurking here over the years. I've been having problems with my pool since I put it in 3 years ago. I had a salt water pool previously, and decided I didn't want to hassle with that and went for what I thought was a simpler option. This time I put in a standard chlorine pool, and I've been using chlorine tabs to keep it sanitized. I'm all for the method advocated here (bleach vs. tabs), but I'm gone a lot and cant keep up on it daily or even multiple times per week. I do all my maintenance on the weekends. So, I have a feeder, and keep tablets in it that last over a week.
First year, I went several months before I started having problems, and I handled them by cleaning the cartridges super frequently. I then got new cardridges and that seemed to solve the problem. When I started having problems again I cleaned the cartridges and things got better but only briefly. I thought I might have a build up of unwanted chemicals from the tablets, so recently (maybe 3 months ago) I drained about 1/2 the pool and added fresh water. Things got much better, but lately I'm noticing tracks the cleaner leaves in the pool, and the wall is getting dirty quickly. The water looks nice and clear, but it seems that I'm always on the edge of a bloom. I've had a kit that only measures TC, and I've kept it high. In my pool, it's hard to keep the PH up, so I'm adding Baking Soda occasionally. I got a TF-100 test kit and measured everything I could and here's what I got:
PH: 7.5
FC: 13 (or 12, I did it twice)
CC: 0
TC: 13 (or 12)
Calcium: 200
TA: 110
CYA: 160
I'm assuming that CYA is my culprit, and that I need to drain my pool again and find another way to sanitize my pool, but I thought I'd ask the experts.
Thoughts?