Re: Water softener connected to auto fill, and new plaster start up.
You have not added Borates so no need to test for them.
Use CSI not LSI. More accurate for calcium scaling.
Except Florida and S Texas and warmer climates worldwide most folks shut down their SWCG in the winter. Of course in colder climates, they close the pool and do not have to maintain at all during the winter.
Roger on the Borates. (One less thing to think about and do. Yay!)
Roger on the CSI. Very handy having that built in to Pool Math. I am seeing how sensitive it is to pH. Noted!
My current strategy, based on the consensus here: no SWCG in the winter. I don't shut my pool down, so I'll be maintaining it year-round.
Did CH test today (along with the others). Raised some questions (numbered below), which actually came to me with TA, too. And excuse me if this is covered in Pool School, I've only just begun getting through that:
FC test is pretty easy. I titrate until I see no yellow at all.
pH test is easy, too. The K-2006 color bars work well with my eyeballs!
1.
But the TA is a little more challenging. I see the color shift from green to red, but it does so in such a way that I'm not clear on when to stop. It sort of goes clear, then pink. Subsequent drops turn the pink darker. Are you all stopping when green disappears and you first see
any pink hue, or do you continue until you can call it "red." And how does one know, exactly, what "red" looks like?
2.
Same for CH. Red turns to purple and then eventually to blue. But that calculates out to about a span of 100 or so. Do I stop when it first stops looking "red" or when it stops looking "purple." Again, how does one know, exactly, what "blue" looks like? So I may be at CH250, or as high as CH350!
3.
And while the FC test has been more obvious, I did have some doubts about the powder. Depending on how I scoop/shake/tap/etc. the amount dispensed from the dipper seems slightly more ambiguous than a drop from a bottle (which feels more accurate). How critical is the amount of powder, and how are you all measuring that out? Any tricks?
I'm determined to keep my levels as close to optimum as possible, given my available skill set and bandwidth to do so. Like I've intimated in my posts, I want my pebble to look like it does now for the rest of my days, if possible. I'm getting a good CSI number, which raised another question:
4.
In your collective experience, would you say that if one could maintain a near-zero CSI, that one would
never see calcium deposits on any pool surface, especially at the waterline on the border tile? Or is that unrealistic, and some calcium streaks and spots are inevitable? Could you maintain your water chem alone to completely eliminate calcium deposits, or is some manual scrubbing inevitable?
I believe it was calcium deposits that was the main thing that was compromising my pool's looks. Big whitish streaks on the plaster, and a nasty ring around the border tile. Now that my pool is new, have I seen the last of both if I religiously adhere to TFP methods? That alone would be great motivation for me to do so.