Pool 101

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Home Depot has a bad habit of storing their chlorine outside in the sun/heat. This can cause it to turn to water a bit faster. They also put out "old" chlorine sometimes. The boxes you have there were from the 38th day of 2018 (2018 038). They're getting a little long in the tooth so the concentration may be down a bit, but they're fine to use. Make sure to test right after adding to make sure you hit your FC target, and if you didn't adjust the concentration down a little in PoolMath to finish using it.

I used chlorine from Home Depot for the first year and a half or so of pool ownership, it works fine with the above caveats. Your pool looks amazing. :)
 
First pool water test in the books, tested about 2 hours after adding chlorine. I know the CYA isn’t accurate as I have not finished dissolving the 6 pounds granular. Here are the results:

FC : 2.5
CC: 0
CH: 125
TA: 70
TB: 4
CYA: unavailable.
 
did you use any Bromine?

Bromine shows up the same test as Chlorine, but I think it's just usually double if I remember right, but if you haven't added any Bromine, usually in the solid form of Sodium Bromide, then Bromine level is actually 0 and no need to ever report.

And just fyi, don't use Bromine
 
Me personally, after doing all the reading here, I split up my CYA chemical addition. I added about 60% of it first, and I"m waiting a week to add the rest.
CYA came up based on calculations but I'd rather not have to drain my pool if something in the calculation went wrong. Same thing I will do when I tackle my low CH level.
For me however, water temps are close to 60 and I already have a high chlorine value I'm letting settle down so I'm not as worried about CYA.
 
I did not add any Bromine, nor will I! Just ran the full battery of tests. Will leave off on future reports.

Still dissolving the CYA. Maybe 4 lbs or so already dissolved. Is the consensus to maybe stop at 4.5-5 lbs and wait a week to measure? I’d rather not over-shoot my goal of 30 or so.
 
30 is on the low end, especially for California. Your chlorine will burn off much quicker than if you had it a little higher. Not sure about your weather in Redding, but here in San Jose, I keep mine at 50 and I still lose 2-4 PPM of FC daily in a clean pool during the summer months.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Redding will get very very hot. We are already looking at low 90’s this week and in the peak of summer heat, we will go several weeks at a time in the 110+ range! Pool does not get full sun all day, more like 5 hours of direct sunlight.
 
Then definitely bump up the CYA or else your daily burn off will bring you very close or under your minimum FC requirement. No downside to it. Just be careful you don't overshoot it and you end up at 90. A little at a time and check the CYA the day after it fully dissolves. Then just follow the chart for the CYA/FC relationship and bump up your FC to that new higher level.
 
While my CYA is dissolving, I have another question!

my fountain feature (dolphins spouting water), is really annoying sounding. I have looked, but I don’t think I can turn it off. When my filter is running, the fountains are founting!

If if I reduce the RPMs of the VS filter, I can make it so the fountains barely trickle and don’t make any noise. This, however, leads to some water waste as not all of the filtered water is returning to the pool, it trickles to the patio. Also, if my RPS’s are too low, the sweep is ineffective. Kind of a conundrum.

For now, I have settled with the sound of the fountain to keep as much water returning to the pool and for the sweep to be effective.

Am I missing a different solution? Or is some waste of water not too big of a deal. Ideally, I would remove the fountain and install some sort of low dive deck/ waterfall, but that isn’t in the cards right now.

Thanks again
 
How about a pic of your equipment pad area. Is there a separate return pipe for the fountains? Is there a valve at your equipment pad that can shut the fountains off? Maybe we can help you find it. Depending on where the return piping separates between returns / fountains, it may be possible to cut the pipe and install your own valve if you don't have one already.
 
You have a small ~1" pipe going into the ground on the other side of the filter near the fence post. That could be the feed for the fountains. If it was mine, I'd cut from the 1" coupler to somewhere in the 1-1/2" / 2" pipe and add a 1" ball valve & new sections of pipe/fittings. Large line > reduce to 1" > 1" ball valve > 1" elbow > 1" coupler. Less than $25 in parts.
 
Here are my readings this morning. I have dissolved just under 5 lbs of stabilizer and the pump has been running at 1200 rpm for 1 day. Here are results:
FC: 2
pH: 7.2
CC: 0
CH:75
TA:60
cya : 50

according to calculator with target goal of 6 FC:
128oz 10% bleach
685 oz. calcium chloride
59oz. Baking soda

I’m adding the chlorine now, should I also add the other chems at the same time? (Need to buy them first).

Anything else I need to consider?

thank you,
Mark
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply