Pool in Arizona . Need help with a couple things...

[chiefwej]

Aeration helps off gas co2. Running a low pH can cause TA to drop over time. Aeration just speeds up the process.

Adding acid lowers both pH and TA. Aeration raises pH with less effect on TA. So repeating the process of, lower pH with acid, then raise it with aeration, will lower TA.

[JoyfulNoise]

Matt, what causes the TA to fall if there is no aeration? I thought in order to bring TA down, there had to be aeration of the water to introduce CO2?

Acid lowers the alkalinity mostly by converting the bicarbonate ion to dissolved CO2 gas (and creating salt as a by product). The increased CO2 then outgasses slowly over time and causes the pH to rise as additional bicarbonate tries to maintain the equilibrium. Again, aeration does not reduce TA, the addition of acid does that.

Aeration is simply used to speed up the pH rise so you can add another dose of acid to again drop the TA. The reason for this cyclical process is that if you attempt to drop TA more than 10ppm at a time, the acid you add to do that will almost always cause the pH to fall below 7.0 and the CSI to become dangerously negative. Dropping the TA and raising the pH thru aeration in the manner suggested is to keep pool owners from adding to much acid all at once.

[Arizonarob]

Ok got it. Thanks guys.

[outdoorsgal]

This is an amazing conversation and great timing. I wasn't sure if it's more appropriate to piggy-back here or start a new thread. My assumption was that it could hopefully be more beneficial here since we are in a similar situation.

I have been planning to empty my pool Tuesday as I am also having a hard time with high CH (1175) and salt cell has been clogging up with CH within a day and have found myself adding acid up to 3 xs/day to keep it low, trying to get it down to 7.2 and shooting back up to 8.2 within the same day (although I'm still not convinced it actually gets down to 7.2 even though I believe I am using the math calculator correctly and and correct in the gallons in my rectangular pool). I learn something each time I'm on this website but I also forget and am now being reminded to not try to bring pH down to 7.2 but make it more of a gradual process. I've been running my one form of aeration (a bubbler on the baja step) constantly as I have been trying to move this process faster, thinking that would help. TA moved from 130-90 after my winter slacking so I thought I was on our way to having levels balanced, but CH seems to be building up faster in salt cell and now it's seeming like a losing battle.

Now that I am reading about the water softener I am wondering if I should not empty the pool Tues and hurry and get a water softener first since we were just talking about a water softener last night. My husband has wanted one for years saying it's better for appliances and now that it's mentioned here, my son does have very dry skin. I was told it's a waist of water. Does anyone know the amount of water a water softener waists for every gallon used? I'm thinking, for my scenario, I'd have to empty my pool every 3 years without a water softener so I would compare water being wasted to that. Also, we do not have a clean out and it's seeming like a hassle to get a permit from Phx to empty pool. Now that we decided we feel we need to empty it last minute and the city never called me back we'd have to consider emptying it illegally overnight which I do not want to go through every 3 yrs so we'd probably look at putting in a clean-out and that would be an extra expense as well.

I'd like to learn more about borates how that protects a salt cell so will have to do more reading, but with a water softener would that be necessary? I think I'm still trying to figure out the relation between CH and pH and my thought has been that if I can keep CSI closer to zero or in the negatives by a TH of 60 or so and a lower pH then all would be fine. It does seem that once CH is about 1500 or so, though, best solution is to empty the pool from what I'm hearing.

Anyone know of a good place that can install a water softener in Phx ASAP? I heard they r easy to install so maybe we could attempt it ourselves?

thx!

[Arizonarob]

This is an amazing conversation and great timing. I wasn't sure if it's more appropriate to piggy-back here or start a new thread. My assumption was that it could hopefully be more beneficial here since we are in a similar situation.

I have been planning to empty my pool Tuesday as I am also having a hard time with high CH (1175) and salt cell has been clogging up with CH within a day and have found myself adding acid up to 3 xs/day to keep it low, trying to get it down to 7.2 and shooting back up to 8.2 within the same day (although I'm still not convinced it actually gets down to 7.2 even though I believe I am using the math calculator correctly and and correct in the gallons in my rectangular pool). I learn something each time I'm on this website but I also forget and am now being reminded to not try to bring pH down to 7.2 but make it more of a gradual process. I've been running my one form of aeration (a bubbler on the baja step) constantly as I have been trying to move this process faster, thinking that would help. TA moved from 130-90 after my winter slacking so I thought I was on our way to having levels balanced, but CH seems to be building up faster in salt cell and now it's seeming like a losing battle.

Now that I am reading about the water softener I am wondering if I should not empty the pool Tues and hurry and get a water softener first since we were just talking about a water softener last night. My husband has wanted one for years saying it's better for appliances and now that it's mentioned here, my son does have very dry skin. I was told it's a waist of water. Does anyone know the amount of water a water softener waists for every gallon used? I'm thinking, for my scenario, I'd have to empty my pool every 3 years without a water softener so I would compare water being wasted to that. Also, we do not have a clean out and it's seeming like a hassle to get a permit from Phx to empty pool. Now that we decided we feel we need to empty it last minute and the city never called me back we'd have to consider emptying it illegally overnight which I do not want to go through every 3 yrs so we'd probably look at putting in a clean-out and that would be an extra expense as well.

I'd like to learn more about borates how that protects a salt cell so will have to do more reading, but with a water softener would that be necessary? I think I'm still trying to figure out the relation between CH and pH and my thought has been that if I can keep CSI closer to zero or in the negatives by a TH of 60 or so and a lower pH then all would be fine. It does seem that once CH is about 1500 or so, though, best solution is to empty the pool from what I'm hearing.

Anyone know of a good place that can install a water softener in Phx ASAP? I heard they r easy to install so maybe we could attempt it ourselves?

thx!

Hi Outdoor, who told you a water softener wastes water? A water softener goes through a cleaning cycle every 500 gallons or so, and it’s just to clean off the pellets inside the container.
Your husband is right in the fact that it WILL keep your appliances cleaner, your sons skin will get ALOT better, (my wife had the same problem) and it will help tremendously with CH in the pool. Just make sure that the autofill on your pool is plumbed in-line with the softened water.

If you need a person to install, I have a fantastic guy that worked for the factory’s that produce the units, and he started his own business. It’ll save you quite a bit of $$ over the big guys.
PM if you would like his contact information.

~Rob

[chiefwej]

A water softener connected to your pool fill will do little to reduce the CH in the initial fill water, since refilling the pool will quickly exceed the capacity of the softener. It will however, keep the CH level from increasing as the pool is topped up by the auto fill.

[Arizonarob]

A water softener connected to your pool fill will do little to reduce the CH in the initial fill water, since refilling the pool will quickly exceed the capacity of the softener. It will however, keep the CH level from increasing as the pool is topped up by the auto fill.

Agreed. There is no way to fill a pool off a water softener, but to maintain it you can add the softened water and not add to CH.

[cfherrman]

My 64,000 grain water softener reduces 250 ppm ch to 0 at 4,000 gallons per charge. With a 12000 gallon pool I can fill my entire pool with ch 0 if I want to by watching the softener meter, stoping and Regen, then continuing. Starting with ch 250 then all refills at 0 ch is great with me.

I did a ton of research about softeners and I'll post it up soon in my thread about softeners in the off topic.

I really can't express how much the softener has helped our skin, and how much damage has been done without it. It's the best purchase I have made in several years.

[triptyx]

Backing up to earlier in the thread - someone suggested using a pool cover. This is not possible in Southern Arizona in the summer - due to our very low humidity and hot sun, it's easy to get the pool water up to 100 degrees by leaving a cover on during the day. Yes, they're very good at stabilizing pH, but in AZ, they're also very good at turning your pool into a hot tub. :P

[JoyfulNoise]

Backing up to earlier in the thread - someone suggested using a pool cover. This is not possible in Southern Arizona in the summer - due to our very low humidity and hot sun, it's easy to get the pool water up to 100 degrees by leaving a cover on during the day. Yes, they're very good at stabilizing pH, but in AZ, they're also very good at turning your pool into a hot tub. :P

I did that once. Water reached 98F by the second week of June. It was like swimming in a bathtub...

[outdoorsgal]

Rob, I PMed u. thx!

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Hi Outdoor, who told you a water softener wastes water? A water softener goes through a cleaning cycle every 500 gallons or so, and it’s just to clean off the pellets inside the container.
Your husband is right in the fact that it WILL keep your appliances cleaner, your sons skin will get ALOT better, (my wife had the same problem) and it will help tremendously with CH in the pool. Just make sure that the autofill on your pool is plumbed in-line with the softened water.

If you need a person to install, I have a fantastic guy that worked for the factory’s that produce the units, and he started his own business. It’ll save you quite a bit of $$ over the big guys.
PM if you would like his contact information.

~Rob

Rob, I was thinking we'd DIY but I'm interested in your contact guy's info for sure. PMed u. I guess the person who told me it wastes water doesn't know. That's great news!

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Chiefwej, that's good to know and sounds like it still should buy us many many years of not having to empty the pool. I'm excited!

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My 64,000 grain water softener reduces 250 ppm ch to 0 at 4,000 gallons per charge. With a 12000 gallon pool I can fill my entire pool with ch 0 if I want to by watching the softener meter, stoping and Regen, then continuing. Starting with ch 250 then all refills at 0 ch is great with me.

I did a ton of research about softeners and I'll post it up soon in my thread about softeners in the off topic.

I really can't express how much the softener has helped our skin, and how much damage has been done without it. It's the best purchase I have made in several years.

that'll be great. How does your pool do with no CH? I was told pools like to have some CH. I guess it's all playing with the math in poolmath?

[cfherrman]

My pool has 250-300 ch, ch under 200 ish causes foaming, we just had one member with 175 ch with a foamy pool and he added some ch and it went away.

[Arizonarob]

My 64,000 grain water softener reduces 250 ppm ch to 0 at 4,000 gallons per charge. With a 12000 gallon pool I can fill my entire pool with ch 0 if I want to by watching the softener meter, stoping and Regen, then continuing. Starting with ch 250 then all refills at 0 ch is great with me.

I did a ton of research about softeners and I'll post it up soon in my thread about softeners in the off topic.

I really can't express how much the softener has helped our skin, and how much damage has been done without it. It's the best purchase I have made in several years.

Sounds good. I’ll head over and read it up.

[dooger54]

Backing up to earlier in the thread - someone suggested using a pool cover. This is not possible in Southern Arizona in the summer - due to our very low humidity and hot sun, it's easy to get the pool water up to 100 degrees by leaving a cover on during the day. Yes, they're very good at stabilizing pH, but in AZ, they're also very good at turning your pool into a hot tub. :P

I am in Tucson and was wondering the same thing about my pool cover. We are snowbirds so don’t use the pool in the “hot” months since we are not here. I wonder if it would be smart to cover my pool while we are gone. Less evap and other benefits. Opinions?

[triptyx]

I am in Tucson and was wondering the same thing about my pool cover. We are snowbirds so don’t use the pool in the “hot” months since we are not here. I wonder if it would be smart to cover my pool while we are gone. Less evap and other benefits. Opinions?

In general, I don't think that's a great idea. It will turn into a bath tub and you'll likely have problems with algae. You also won't have the benefits of the sun burning off CCs.

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Sounds good. I’ll head over and read it up.

The only pools that will do ok with very low CH are vinyl lined (with no waterline tile) and fiberglass pools. Keeping your CH too low on an in ground plaster based pool, such as yours, will damage the pebbletec and require a replaster. Use TFC recommendations for plaster pools for your CH levels.

[Arizonarob]

In general, I don't think that's a great idea. It will turn into a bath tub and you'll likely have problems with algae. You also won't have the benefits of the sun burning off CCs.

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The only pools that will do ok with very low CH are vinyl lined (with no waterline tile) and fiberglass pools. Keeping your CH too low on an in ground plaster based pool, such as yours, will damage the pebbletec and require a replaster. Use TFC recommendations for plaster pools for your CH levels.

Oh I agree, I keep mine at 270ppm. I was referring to his findings on water softener systems.

I’m more concerned with keeping it down with the hard water we have here. So I’m kinda glad that the autofill was plumed in-line with the water softening system.

[triptyx]

Definitely! I get worried when I see plaster based pool owners talking about running the pool with a low CH.