New pool...numbers jumping around the place....

[ma23peas]

Good news! I just ordered the T-100 testing kit!! So that should help us immensely!

Water was added about 30 days ago...the builder put in a bunch of stuff on start up day and advised us to 'shock' the pool once a week with 2 bags of shock...we had it tested one week after he left and came up with the numbers on the left, on the right are the numbers we got yesterday after being gone for 2 weeks on vacation...we added 45 pounds of calcium hardness to the pool and within those two weeks 4 small bags of the shock....so here's where we stand now...we added 15 bags of salt yesterday..adding two more today then going to start the salt chlorinator (it said to wait 24 hours before running it) we have pebble sheen coating so we were told that it would sometimes shoot the phosphates up as it cures..but at 30 days we could add the salt which we did yesterday. The pool is 20x40 3.5-8.0 feet so around 35,000 gallons
Week one:
FAC 2
pH 7.4
TA 90
Ca 70
CYA 60
Phosphates 500

Week 4:
Total Chlorine 0
Free Chlorine 0
pH 8.2
TA 190
Ca 175
Stabilizer 70
Phosphates 1000
Chlorine shock 0
Nitrate 1
Copper is .2
Salt is 2700 (just added 15 bags yesterday, adding 2 more today)


Any comments? This pool printout of course told us a dozen things to do...just want to wait and turn the chlorinator on and see what happens, asked FEDEX delivery of kit so if you have specific tests we should be monitoring when we get it..please let us know! We've never owned a pool and this seems so daunting right now, know it will all settle in once we get the chlorinator working....thanks!!

Tara

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Hi Tara
Congrats on the new pool.
With new plaster:
New Plaster Start Up

The plaster cures which causes the PH to rise. YOu need to test the PH daily and keep it at 7.4-7.5 to prevent damage to the new plaster.

Phosphates are irrelevant in a properly chlorinated pool - meaning as long as you maintain the FC levels according to the CYA chart - they won't be an issue.

However, something is going on since you have no chlorine. The advice you were given was bad, but we'll go from here and not look back

First: lower the PH with Muratic Acid.

Do you know how to use the Pool Calculator? You need to learn real quick

Second: You need to use liquid chlorine or bleach and raise your FC up to 8.

Don't turn the SWG on yet.

Keep your FC between 5-8 until your test kit comes. Then as soon as it does, we are going to have you do an Overnight FC loss test, to make sure the FC is holding overnight.

Post back if you need clarification on anything or have any other questions.

 

[ma23peas]

Thanks so much! Here is a response my husband wrote to me may make things clearer (we had housesitters for 13 days and only asked them to add 2 bags of shock, did not want them to feel responsible for pool care and teach them stuff we didn't really understand! )

"The main thing that is going on is we have not been keeping things in balance for the 2 weeks we were gone.

I used the PH Down (not sure if it is the same as Muratic Acid, you could check the container) to lower the pH - here I followed the directions on the PH Down container which told me not to add quite as much (at least in one session) as the pool store did, shocked it (because it showed no chlorine, we need to figure out the pool calculator and switch to using chlorine bleach) and added two bags of salt. I had a gap of at least 4 hours between each chemical addition with the pump running.

If you test the chlorine today, it should not be 0. The SWG is always on (when pumping), but I have not increased it from 0 and the Jandy manual tells us not to for 24 hours after adding salt.

Also, not sure if we should worry about the metals percentage or if we should do something about it."

I'm going to check the pH Down and see if it is muratic acid...assuming so...the water is pretty much crystal clear today after being a bit cloudy yesterday, we could still see the drains on the bottom but it was cloudy..today much clearer..not sure if that's due to the pH down or shock...thanks!!!

Tara

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

PH Down is dry acid and does the same thing. However, it's preferred to use Muratic Acid with an SWG.
Your metal level is nothing to be concerned with at .2 for copper.
The cloudiness could be from both. Glad its clearing up.

Follow the two steps I advised above, and then post back when you get your kit.
If you have trouble getting the FC to reach 8 and stay there, let me know. Remember, use liquid chlorine or bleach.
If you need help figuring out the pool calc, just holler

 

[ma23peas]

Got the kit! Still overwhelmed! I am 42, not a diabetic, know of no visual issues other than astigmatism but I can NOT for the life of me read these color blocks!! I'll think it's one color then it looks like the other shade then all shades look the same...anyone tell me what this translates into?

Here is the pool, looking clear but have no idea...was really salty, still have not turned up the SWG? Were we even supposed to be swimming in it? AAGH! This too shall pass...want to do overnight FC loss test tonight..but I'm kinda sick so maybe I'll put it off until tomorrow night?

help..

Tara

 

[chem geek]

Roughly speaking, the colors are typically interpreted as follows:

6.8 -- yellow
7.0 -- yellow with a hint of orange
7.2 -- light orange or yellowish orange
7.4 -- darker orange
7.5 -- orange with hint of red
7.6 -- reddish-orange
7.8 -- pink-red with hint of orange
8.0 -- pink-red
8.2 -- purple/violet

Though a web photo isn't great to look at and for some reason your pH color blocks all have an orangish cast to them, I would say that your pH is high, possibly above 8. Use a white sheet of paper for the background or hold the block up to the sky to view. See this photo and this photo for some color blocks.

 

[PaulR]

Also, if you're doing the yellow-drop chlorine test at the same time, read pH first. I find staring at the yellow chlorine side causes a kind of color fatigue, and changes my perception of the pH color.

If it seems that the pH color is kind of washed out and hard to match, you can try adding an extra drop, makes it darker without really changing the color. My most recent bottle of R-0014 seems to need that extra drop pretty consistently.
--paulr