Is my pool safe to swim in?

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hawkfive

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Sep 7, 2008
19
Opened our 33,000 inground, SWG, pebble finish pool 2 weeks ago. Had water tested, and was told to add 50lbs of salt, 2 gallons of muriatic acid, and 3 lbs of shock. We later discovered a rabbit carcass in the deep end. Contacted pool store, and was told to add another 2 lbs of shock.

We haven't swam in the pool yet - thinking this weekend would be the first time, so yesterday I checked chlorine and PH, and the chlorine levels seemed low, so I brought a water sample into the same pool store. Here are our numbers:

FC 0.1
TC 0.1
CC 0.0
TA 64
ph 7.2
Calcium 178
CYA 0
Copper 0
Iron 0

The pool tech indicated because my salt level was fine - 3300ppm - I shouldn't be concerned with the chlorine readings. Is that true? Can we swim tonight?

Many thanks.
 
As new as I am here, I have no idea as to why you would add acid as your PH is at the bare minimum as it is. It does need CYA in the 30-50 range and FC needs to brought to 3-5. Punch those numbers into the pool calculator you can find over in pool school and see what you get for your size pool. It sure is an eye opening education in regards to what the pool store is telling you to do.

Back me up experienced people!
 
The pool tech indicated because my salt level was fine - 3300ppm - I shouldn't be concerned with the chlorine readings. Is that true? Can we swim tonight?

:hammer: Don't ever go back there...seriously. Salt is not a sanitizer...chlorine is :goodjob:

Please invest in a solid test kit, such as the TF100 from tftestkits.net or the Taylor K2006...you won regret it.

For now...IF and only if those results are accurate (which I doubt, given the comment) you need to raise your FC level and add CYA. Until you have reliable results, we can't really say it is safe.

Woody is right....please get some chlorine in the pool...about a 1/2 gal of unscented bleach will do and make sure the SWG is running.
 
I would say you are not safe to swim until you get your chemistry under control. Buying your own comprehensive test kit is a huge money saver for sure, no more "recommendations" by the pool store!
edited for poor english and confusion sorry.
 
I agree...0.1ppm of FC is virtually zero. With CYA at zero, your FC should be at least 1ppm throughout the day. Without CYA your FC will be zero for most of the day. CYA keeps chlorine from burning off to fast. With a SWG, you want your CYA to be around 70ppm so that the SWG can keep up (generating chlorine) with the chlorine demand. Without any CYA, your chlorine is burning off too fast and your SWG can not generate chlorine that quickly.
 

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Rabbit carcass.... ugh. Let my little darlings swim when I know they will be getting pool water in their eyes and ears and noses? Not until it is sanitary, not just clear.

I wouldn't stick a little toe in there until I had the pool up to shock level (using bleach) and it held overnight with CC = <0.5. You won't get there depending on the chlorine produced by the SWG, you have to boost it and hold it using chlorine from another source. Once everything is clean, you can maintain with the SWG easily.

Stabilizer is needed, as everyone has suggested, up to at least 30 while you are shocking, to protect chlorine from the sun. Get it from Walmart or hardware stores or pool stores along with bleach or Liquid Pool Shock, which is concentrated bleach.

Follow the Pool School instructions for the process of shocking. Use bleach, not packets from the pool store. Cheaper and you can control your chemistry better by adding things separately as needed.

Then up to CYA 50 or whatever your SWG unit instructions say. Advice around here is typically to run CYA at something like 80 for SWG but that can be done later I think.
 
Hawk,

Pool School in the upper right hand corner of the page has an article entitled the ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry. That will help you gain a better understanding of the function of chlorine and why none of us would currently suggest you swim in the pool.
 
hawkfive said:
Let me ask you this - can I use the 'superchlorinate' feature on my system?
Click to expand...
That isn't really going to help right now. The superchlorinate feature adds chlorine slowly, you need chlorine added all at once.

The most important thing is to start raising your CYA level up to around 70 to 80 and to add 10 ppm of chlorine all at once this evening after the sun is no longer shining directly on the pool.
 
hawkfive said:
anonapersona - are you saying that the 5lbs of shock I added last week wouldn't have done the trick?
Click to expand...

5# of 73% cal-hypo would get you from FC 0 to FC 12 one time. If it then went back to FC 0, which it is now, what do you know about the condition of the pool?

How can you know if the lack of FC right now is due to loss from sunlight or continued organics in the pool? If you have not held the FC at shock level long enough to prove that organics are all gone, I would not dare to swim in that pool.

Early on when we bought this house, my husband got Pink Eye. Could have been from yard work but it was also right after he opened his eyes under water in the hot tub. I was still sort of new at this pool stuff, doing it by the pool store reccs, and it was not unusual to get algae in the hot tub which implies that FC was at 0. I told him it must have been from working where the neighbors cat digs but I always suspected it was the pool.
 
Yes, it is possible to shock properly without a FAS-DPD test, but you need to use extra chlorine to make sure you don't accidentally use too little. With the FAS-DPD test you can hit a level exactly, but with other test there is some approximating so you have to aim for higher numbers to cover the variability in the testing.
 
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