Posting PM received from MH
Message subject: HIGH Calcium hardness Sent: May 21st, 2010, 12:04 am
Message subject: HIGH Calcium hardness Sent: May 21st, 2010, 12:04 am
MH said:
Welcome to MH....High Calcium
- Thread starter dmanb2b
- Start date
Welcome MH to TFP!
Our members that live in the desert southwest do have some options at their disposal that can help with high CH levels.
One of these options is to have a reverse osmosis service come out to service your pool water. Using a sophisticated trailer-mounted system, they are able to process your pool water on site and remove things such as calcium and CYA from the water. This is nice because there is no draining the pool to replace water. Only the contaminants are removed. The downside to this is that the service can be expensive to some people and unless you have the ability to top-off your pool with softened water, your CH will eventually rise again due to the innate hardness of the fill water in the area.
Others however have learned to live with high CH levels to some degree by making adjustments in other water chemistry components that make having a high CH much less of a problem. The issue with high CH really comes down to scaling, but scaling occurs when a combination of things permits an environment to be conducive to the scaling process and some of these can be readily controlled by yourself independently of CH. For example, your TA is very high. By lowering this number, you can dramatically reduce your pool's propensity to scale. Your pH can also be reduced, thereby lowering the propensity to scale. Each of these levels contribute to an overall measurement called the Calcium Saturation Index or CSI. The CSI is a scaling/corrosion risk analysis tool and is pretty accurate when it comes to down to it.
You can use the Pool Calculator (link in my sig line) to see what adjustments you can make to bring your CSI down and reduce scaling potential. The factors that influence scaling risk are CH, TA, pH, temperature, and borates.
I'd like to suggest some links here to help you get started and will list them below. As it stands also, your FC is much too low and you are liable to end up with algae unless you lower your CYA significantly. At 120, your CYA is much, much too high. If you opt to go with a reverse osmosis service, they can also remove CYA with this process as well.
ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry
Recommended Levels
Lowering Total Alkalinity
Our members that live in the desert southwest do have some options at their disposal that can help with high CH levels.
One of these options is to have a reverse osmosis service come out to service your pool water. Using a sophisticated trailer-mounted system, they are able to process your pool water on site and remove things such as calcium and CYA from the water. This is nice because there is no draining the pool to replace water. Only the contaminants are removed. The downside to this is that the service can be expensive to some people and unless you have the ability to top-off your pool with softened water, your CH will eventually rise again due to the innate hardness of the fill water in the area.
Others however have learned to live with high CH levels to some degree by making adjustments in other water chemistry components that make having a high CH much less of a problem. The issue with high CH really comes down to scaling, but scaling occurs when a combination of things permits an environment to be conducive to the scaling process and some of these can be readily controlled by yourself independently of CH. For example, your TA is very high. By lowering this number, you can dramatically reduce your pool's propensity to scale. Your pH can also be reduced, thereby lowering the propensity to scale. Each of these levels contribute to an overall measurement called the Calcium Saturation Index or CSI. The CSI is a scaling/corrosion risk analysis tool and is pretty accurate when it comes to down to it.
You can use the Pool Calculator (link in my sig line) to see what adjustments you can make to bring your CSI down and reduce scaling potential. The factors that influence scaling risk are CH, TA, pH, temperature, and borates.
I'd like to suggest some links here to help you get started and will list them below. As it stands also, your FC is much too low and you are liable to end up with algae unless you lower your CYA significantly. At 120, your CYA is much, much too high. If you opt to go with a reverse osmosis service, they can also remove CYA with this process as well.
ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry
Recommended Levels
Lowering Total Alkalinity
coog61
0
In regards to testing for CH, a small magnetic stirrer is the way to go (see discussion - http://www.troublefreepool.com/cool-new-videos-on-water-testing-by-taylor-t19288.html). Also for high CH, there are posts on the site that recommend cutting the the water sample and test chemicals by 50% to get the approximate results in less time and effort.
coog61 said:
Good point.
Yes, when you suspect that your CH is high, you can do the high concentration version of the test which is:1. Use a 10 ml water sample
2. 10 drops of the R-0010
3. 3 drops of the R-0011L
4. And then start adding your R-0012 dropwise until you observe a color change from pink to blue. Add up the number of drops of R-0012 to get to the endpoint and multiply the number by 25 for your result.
Without sounding like an ad (honestly! And I don't go to AZ anyway!), R/O can take the levels down to 100-150 pretty easy, and if ran long enough, nearly to zero. Even adding high CH level water back would take quite a while to get back out of "acceptable levels". I would be guessing at this point, but it could take a good couple years to get out of range if they lowered it far enough.
There is a good R/O outfit in Phoenix that I might be able to refer. PM me if you like and I will get you their info.
There is a good R/O outfit in Phoenix that I might be able to refer. PM me if you like and I will get you their info.