Gettin' there! What's next?

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Kias

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Jul 31, 2009
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NW Ohio
Ok, since I tend to ramble on endlessly, I'll get right to the question. What do I work on next? CYA, or TA? Or can I work on them both at once?

These are all the readings I can get until next year when I get a real kit!
Oh, and please remember, in a couple months or so, I'll be dumping the water and folding up the bathtub for the winter.

Last readings about 15 mins ago.
PH 7.5

TC 1 (5 this morning and .5 the evening before)

TA 350 :shock:

CYA: Well... I tried, but my test kit only goes as low as 30, and the black dot still didn't disappear. I'm using trichlor pucks, so it can't be zero from my understandings. (See ramblings below for more info.)

Ok, I've been filtering rust out all week. Swapping between two filters about every 2-4 hours. Poor little underpowered intex pump. I feel sorry for it. Been on 24/7 for a week now. The filters are less and less dirty (more and more clean?) everytime I have changed them today. The water's lookin' crystal clear now. Here's a pic with a crappy camera. Our other camera went to the beach one fine day, and now it's in the shop.

pool1.jpg


Since I put this thing up 7 days ago, I've been mostly watching the TC and PH levels, adjusting as needed, and dealing with the rust. Now that the rust is in check, or at least not noticable anymore I'm moving on to bigger and better things. Over the week the PH started at 7.6 jumped up to 7.8, so I adjusted the ph that evening before bed. In the morning it was 8.2 so I REALLY adjusted it down to 7.5, later it was back to 7.8 adjusted down to 7.5 then I took some more courses in pool school did some more testing and realized it's probably the high TA causing the jump up in PH so quickly. So I'm going to drop the PH to 7.0 and aerate like it says to do. I'm guessing my supply water has a high TA to start with. I'm also guessing I probably shouldn't even be drinking my well water with the gazillions of acres of farmland surrounding me.

I've never added any stabilizer, so that should explain the low CYA. I'm going to pick some up tomorrow, along with some more CYA test stuff, as there's only enough for 2 tests in the HTH kit I (should never have) bought. Unless someone heads me off here because after I realized I should of put in stabilizer, I also read the pucks raised CYA. So I thought I'd let 'em float for a few days to see where it was... obviously they don't raise it that much that fast... .6 per 1ppm of chlorine if my memory serves me. Still trying to picture in my head what that exactly looks like... Guess I should put it on paper to understand it better.

Yesterday morning the TC was 2, and the little one was in the pool most of the day and I take the floater out when he's in there so last night my TC was .5 and I opened up my puck floater all the way and went to bed. It was 5 when I woke up today, and the PH was 7.5 which has remained the same all day.

So, does it sound like I'm on the right track here? Drop PH to 7.0 then Aerate. Add some stabilizer. Keep testing.

This is my test pool to see if I can actually do this stuff before the money pits (AKA: Kids) are all moved out in 8 years, 8 months, 3 days (but I'm not really counting...) and we can downsize this giant house and get a giant pool instead! (Shhh, don't tell my wife, she doesn't know yet. I have time to work on her! ...and what better way to spoil future grandkids then with a giant pool? Oh yeah that's right... shove 'em full of sugar and send 'em home. LOL)
:mrgreen:

It all seems to be getting easier and easier the more I read and the more I actually do.

I'd also like to thank Marie, Sean, Evan, Carol, Jason, Wendy, Nikki, Mark, Dave, Edward, and John for writing the articles in 'pool school' as they're awesome! Oh, and whoever put this site together... Still tryin' to figure that one out! You have a soon in the near future supporter here!

-------

Ok, when I started this message, I had every intentions of going to the store to get the stuff today, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow. So I'll go drop the PH to 7.0 tonight and get started with that... unless someone stops me in the next hour or so.

Oh, and I also noticed I only have 4 tests results... I know I can get 5 from my 6 test kit. HA! I'll go figure out which one I missed and post it.
 
some cya will help keep the chlorine in during the day. if you want, you can buy it in the form of dichlor (powdered chlorine). it adds chlorine and cya at the same time (and lowers ph). they're sold as little bags in the pool stores. read the ingredients to see if it has cya in it. or you can buy cya itself. use http://www.thepoolcalculator.com and at the bottom use the "effects of adding chemicals" section to find out how much you will need (and remember you're adding chlorine too).
as far as your TA, I don't think I would spend any time on it. you can bring the ph to 7.2 and wait for it to drift back up (which it probably will pretty quickly, esp at first), but I wouldn't make any fancy aerators, etc. for 2 months of swim time. maybe next year. the other test might be calcium hardness. I don't think I would bother with that either if your water is clear (not cloudy). really high calcium can cause cloudiness, and/but calcium isn't needed in a vinyl pool. so it depends on what your fill water is. and if your fill water is so high it causes cloudiness, you're out of luck anyway unless you want to truck in some water.
 
Thanks Reebok, that was a quick reply! Do you think by using the pucks the CYA will come up to measurable amounts in the next couple weeks or so? I do have 6 pounds of that HTH PH adjusting chemicals I can keep using, and am trying to get rid of so I can do all this the 'right' way next year. It is a tiny pool, so it's not like I'm throwing tons of money worth of chemicals in.
 
it's hard to say, it depends on how fast they dissolve. basically if you know the weight of one puck (maybe 8oz or so) you can put that in the bottom "effects of adding chemicals" section at www.thepoolcalculator.com and it will tell you. so if one complete tab dissolves (and it happens to weigh 8oz) it will add 20ppm cya. but if it takes two weeks for one to dissolve...
anyway, whatever is working for you.
 
First, I have to get a computer installed in the pool house! (AKA: The barn!) I'm wasting away to ideal weight with all this running back and forth!

So the puck weigh in at 6oz, I'm gonna guess around 10 days for the whole thing to dissolve, based on what I see in the floater now. Also I'm assuming I started at 0 CYA, as I hope it's not in my drinking water... Not sure exactly what it is, but it doesn't sound good to drink! It would probably take 15 weeks for it to come up to 30ish according to the calculator.

So I think I'm off to the store tomorrow for some stabilizer and more cya testing juice.

I'm taking your advice and not going to mess with the TA, I can keep the PH in check with the chemicals I have now.

When I started, the water was cloudy with an off-yellowgreenorangered color. I put a couple ounces of cationic polymer (Who knows what kind... doesn't say on the bottle) and the cloudiness disappeared overnight. The filter has since taken the strange colors (rust) out, and I'm happy the way the water looks. Crystal Clear with that nice shimmer effect on the bottom of the pool.

Ready to fill the giant bathtub with water after the conditioner next year!
 
Kias said:
So the puck weigh in at 6oz, I'm gonna guess around 10 days for the whole thing to dissolve, based on what I see in the floater now. Also I'm assuming I started at 0 CYA, as I hope it's not in my drinking water... Not sure exactly what it is, but it doesn't sound good to drink! It would probably take 15 weeks for it to come up to 30ish according to the calculator.
Click to expand...
There's no CYA in drinking water. The pucks are slow, they are like the tortoise and the hare--slow and steady gets your CYA too high. But it takes a while.
Kias said:
So I think I'm off to the store tomorrow for some stabilizer and more cya testing juice.
Click to expand...
That will work, although you probably need very little actual stabilizer (maybe 1/2 lb). Another way to add CYA easily is get powdered chlorine where the active ingredient is "sodium dichloro-s-triazintrione" the "dichlor" is the only thing you really have to remember. This adds 9ppm CYA per 10ppm FC. For a 1700gal pool you need only 1 lb dichlor; add 1-2 oz per day until it's used up, and you're golden. If it comes in a 2-lb canister (intended for spa use) use up half of it.
Kias said:
I'm taking your advice and not going to mess with the TA, I can keep the PH in check with the chemicals I have now.
Click to expand...
The TA will come down a bit each time you lower the pH. If you're happy to just watch the pH every day that's fine.
--paulr
 
Well, I picked up some CYA this morning on the way to work... 3 lbs of it, so if it lasts, I should have about 4 or 5 years worth. ha! Gonna rig something up in front of the outlet after everyone's done swimming tonight, as I don't have a skimmer. ('cept me!)

Had the pucks floatin' today, and my TC didn't move from 1.0 and the ph only went up .1 between last night at 6pm to 4:30pm today. I've put the pucks into retirement. Picked up a bottle of clorox at wally world after work. The shelves were pretty bare. I think someone beat me to the store brand. I'm a bit confused on the labeling. It says, 6% chlorine. 94% inert. Then a little bit down yonder it says, 5.7% available chlorine. Is the 5.7% what I should be using to calculate amounts? I know it doesn't make much difference in a pool this size, but I just want to get into good habit of doing things so when we do get a bigger pool, I'll be all set in my ways. I can see that .3% making a big difference in giant pools.

So, I just tossed a cup of bleach in... Now it's dinner time!

Thanks!
 

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