M
Mike S
I bought a house last September with a 25,000 gallon inground plaster pool. We got to use it for a few weeks, before we had someone close it for us. I've spent a good amount of time reading through this site and decided that I would open up the pool myself this year. I pulled out the DE grids last week and hosed them off, replaced a crack manifold on the DE filter, and installed a booster pump for a polaris 280 cleaner. I pulled the safety cover off two days ago and found a pretty green pool. I can see the bottom in deep end, but it is definitely green. The cover was old and had some holes in it. In addition we had some pretty sizeable conifers blow over right next to the pool this winter and I just had the remainder of the row taken down. Long story short I ended up with a fair amount of tree debris in the pool.
Last night I skimmed all the debris off the surface, pulled all the winter plugs, and put back in the drain plugs on the pump and filter. I had planned on starting to vacuum the bottom of the pool out the waste line before adding DE to the filter and running it. Unfortunately I was met with a pump that just hummed. Thankfully a few minutes searching this board led me to believe that it might just be the starter capacitor. I pulled the capacitor and tested it and got zero resistance, so I am trying to hunt one down today in hopes of getting the pool circulating tonight and shocking this weekend after vacuuming.
I believe you should normally circulate the pool for a while before testing, but I wanted to get a rough idea of what I had. I was particularly interested in the CYA since the previous owner had used trichlor pucks in a doser and indicated that he never tested his water. This is what i got using the TF1000 test kit:
CYA 60
pH 8.2
Total Alkalinity 180
Calcium 330
Total Chlorine 0 (didn't bother to run FC based on this)
Looking at the recommended levels it seems the CYA isn't too bad. I am in NJ and the gets sun pretty much all day. I am guessing that this will drift down as I add water over the summer?
pH and alkalinity appear to be high. It looks like I will need to drop the pH and then aerate and maybe repeat that process to get the pH down to around 7.5 and the alkalinity in the 70 to 90 range.
I plan on testing again after I get everything running for a few hours, but assuming the numbers stay the same should I shock or address the ph/alkalinity issue first?
Thanks for the help.
Last night I skimmed all the debris off the surface, pulled all the winter plugs, and put back in the drain plugs on the pump and filter. I had planned on starting to vacuum the bottom of the pool out the waste line before adding DE to the filter and running it. Unfortunately I was met with a pump that just hummed. Thankfully a few minutes searching this board led me to believe that it might just be the starter capacitor. I pulled the capacitor and tested it and got zero resistance, so I am trying to hunt one down today in hopes of getting the pool circulating tonight and shocking this weekend after vacuuming.
I believe you should normally circulate the pool for a while before testing, but I wanted to get a rough idea of what I had. I was particularly interested in the CYA since the previous owner had used trichlor pucks in a doser and indicated that he never tested his water. This is what i got using the TF1000 test kit:
CYA 60
pH 8.2
Total Alkalinity 180
Calcium 330
Total Chlorine 0 (didn't bother to run FC based on this)
Looking at the recommended levels it seems the CYA isn't too bad. I am in NJ and the gets sun pretty much all day. I am guessing that this will drift down as I add water over the summer?
pH and alkalinity appear to be high. It looks like I will need to drop the pH and then aerate and maybe repeat that process to get the pH down to around 7.5 and the alkalinity in the 70 to 90 range.
I plan on testing again after I get everything running for a few hours, but assuming the numbers stay the same should I shock or address the ph/alkalinity issue first?
Thanks for the help.