First Time Opening

[dancremer]

All,

I have read the Pool School several times over. Wanted to share my plan with you and see what you think.

We bought the house last July. Our local pool store, pool stored us and after about $1500 in chemicals we never were able to balance the chemicals. That is all in the past.

It is a new season, and we have decided to open our pool as a trouble free pool. We decided to drain and acid wash and found a decent price for this. We just wanted to start fresh.

Pool stats in signature.
Painted Concrete Pool with Fiberglass sides

Now, we live on a well and can't afford to truck in municipal water. We have a prefilter for filling the water and plan on using that. Here are the stats for our fill water:

CYA 0
FC 0
TC 0
pH 8.0
TA 245
CH 232 (Calculated as 2/3 of TH which was 349)
TDS 800

We are filling the pool today and here was my plan for this week starting this evening when the pool will be filled:

• 
  Add 1.5 qts. Nature's Way Metal and Stain Control (1 qt./25,000 Gallons) while filling. Since we are filling from a well.
  Add Stabilizer (in sock) to 30ppm CYA (Since we won't have algae to start we don't plan on backwashing filter for a week)
  Shock the pool to 12 FC and bring it to 4 FC.
  Once I am at 4 FC and 4 TC, I do not plan on shocking unless my CC gets above 0.5.
  Get PH to 7.0 and Aerate to lower our TA to 100 (Repeating the process)
  Once TA is 100, settling PH at 7.5.
  Brush and Vacuum daily to keep it clean during this week.

My questions:
1. Which order should I do these in? Or do I have it right?
2. Do I really have to wait a week for my Stabilizer value to come up to 30 ppm? Also, is 30ppm a good value, I wanted to keep it low to keep my FC values low when running the pool.
3. It says not to backwash for a week while waiting for CYA levels to rise. Is this ok while I am adjusting other chemical levels? I shouldn't need to backwash right?
4. Do I need to keep the pool at shock levels while I am waiting for PH and TA to come down? Or can I shock it to 12 FC and then come down to 4 FC while I am adjusting the PH and TA?
5. I plan on using Walmart Liquid Chlorine, Muriatic Acid from Home Depot, Stabilizer from the pool store, and Metal Control from Great Escape. Is there any other chemical I should be using?

I plan on posting pics of the process as I am going along. I am a noob, but this site has given me the confidence to do this without pool store assistance. TF100 kit is on the way, btw. In the mean time I am using strips and daily Pool Store testing to get numbers.

Thanks a ton!
Dan Cremer
Crystal Lake, IL

 

[Bama Rambler]

You're pretty close except on a couple of things.

You don't need to shock new water. Just bring the FC up to 3ppm and maintain it there until two days after you've put the stabilizer in then raise it to match your cya level.

As for the sequestrant are you fairly certain you have metals or is it just precautionary?
Your best plan is to have the water tested for metals to be sure you need the sequestrant.

 

[dancremer]

Thanks for the quick reply.

1. I will bring up to 3 FC and hold there until I can get a CYA reading after 3 days. I thank you.

2. Probably on bad advice, the guy who drained and acid washed told me to use metal control because he "always does for well fills." I knew this might be bad. I spent 40 bucks on the stuff and may not even need it. When I tested my fill water at the pool store I had these results:

Manganese 0
Copper 0
Iron Not Tested

I think I will go back to the pool store today and have the water tested for iron. If no iron, I will not use the sequestrant. The place I bought it will not take the chemicals back, unfortunately.

Are there any other metals to test for?

Thanks again.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

1. Which order should I do these in? Or do I have it right?
2. Do I really have to wait a week for my Stabilizer value to come up to 30 ppm? Also, is 30ppm a good value, I wanted to keep it low to keep my FC values low when running the pool.
3. It says not to backwash for a week while waiting for CYA levels to rise. Is this ok while I am adjusting other chemical levels? I shouldn't need to backwash right?
4. Do I need to keep the pool at shock levels while I am waiting for PH and TA to come down? Or can I shock it to 12 FC and then come down to 4 FC while I am adjusting the PH and TA?
5. I plan on using Walmart Liquid Chlorine, Muriatic Acid from Home Depot, Stabilizer from the pool store, and Metal Control from Great Escape. Is there any other chemical I should be using?

Hey neighbor (sorta :lol: )

1. Lower PH to 7.2. You don't need to speed this process up - see below.
Add enough FC to reach 2-3 ppm, keep in mind this will dissipate rather rapidly until the Stabilizer begins to take effect.
2. It can take 5-7 days to fully register. But you assume your level is the amount you added and adjust your FC accordingly. I would actually raise it to 50, it will drift down over the season. 50 is a good number for most pools and the ratio of active chlorine is equivalent to the lower CYA/FC ratio. So don't be too concerned that you have a magic number of FC (lower doesn't automatically mean better) A higher CYA level means you lose less FC during the day - so you'll actually need less chlorine at 50 than you would at 30.
3. You should not have to backwash - but if you do, because you are using the "sock method" you can backwash. And I agree with Bama you don't need to shock.
4. The lowering TA process can be sped up if necessary but it's really not that complicated. Simply lower the PH to 7.2 every time it drifts up to 7.8. The acid additions will eventually bring the TA into range. We offer the "how to" article for those who have water features, spas and SWGs, etc. because for them the PH drift can be rapid and annoying. I doubt you'll see that same rapid increase despite your TA level.
5. If you can find the HTH Stabilizer at Walmart that's probably going to be cheaper than the stabilizer at the pool store and it dissolves really well.

 

[duraleigh]

Hey, Dan,

Welcome to the forum! :-D

Adjust your pH first. That'll be the easiest time to do it.

You obviously have done a lot of homework and understand the ideas we teach very well. I would try a slightly abbrieviated approach to get you up and running.

1. Adjust your pH down to around 7.4.

2. The metal control is optional....if you have metals, you'll be glad you did, it's not at all necessary if you don't have metals in your well water. Since you already have it in your possesion, I'd probably use it now but at some point go ahead and test for metals....you may not need it any more.

3. Next, put your stabilizer in to at least 30 and then put your FC in right after that. YOur water will be coming in with very little in organics so I would put in enough FC to get to around 6-9ppm and then disregard shocking. I don't think you'll need to. Just keep a close eye on your FC level and, if it starts to deplete quickly, bring it right back up to 8ppm or so until it becomes more steady.

4. Bringing the pH down to around 7.4 will automatically lower your TA some but it will probably still be somewhere around 180-200 (just a guess). I would just leave it right there for a while. If your pH remains pretty constant, you can leave the TA alone and let it very slowly come down.

5. That's it. let your FC stay between 3-5ppm (with CYA of 30) and you should have a troublefree summer.

Your Questions.....

1. Switch to the order I suggested.

2. The stabilizer will start to be effective as soon as you put it in. It'll not test completely or be at it's proper effectiveness for somewhere between 3 days and a week.

3. I'll be stunned if you need to backwash. Having the CYA will minimize any loss should you need to.

4. I don't believe you will need to shock.

5. That's all you need.

VERY NICE WORK! I think you are very well prepared. :lol

:EDIT: FPM and bama said everything I am saying....I just can't stand to waste all this typing!!

 

[dancremer]

All:

Need help!

Chemisty is good. Color is BAD!

I finished filling my pool with water exactly one week ago. I followed your advice and the pool chemistry appears to be working really well. So far, I have used:

14 lbs. of HTH Stabilizer bought from Ace Hardware
8 bottles of Clorox (182 floz.) bought at Sams
3 bottles of Muriatic Acid bought at Lowes
2 bottles of Nature's Way Metal and Stain Control

I have not backwashed for a week since adding the stabilizer. Just backwashed 1 hour ago. Here are my current numbers:

Ph 7.5
CYA 40
FC 16
CC 0
TA 260

My FC is so high because I just shocked the pool late last night. TA is still high even though I have added acid down to Ph 7.2 twice now. Ph comes up cause I am aerating.

Why did I shock? Because I am hoping it can help me get the color better. We filled the pool from the well and it appears we have rust stains bad now.

I had been keeping FC between 4 and 6 all week without fail and CC was never more than 0.5 all week. PH has fluctuated between 7.2 and 7.8 all week. TA seems to have come down from 310 to 260. CYA went from 0 to 40 during the week.

Last week when I tested fill water at pool store:

Copper 0
Manganese 0
Iron 1

The water doesn't appear to cloudy or murky, but I can't see to the bottom in the deep end. I can see to the bottom in the swallow end at around 4' I am guessing. Deep end is 10' deep.

I am looking for guidance as to what to do? I just backwashed about 1 hour ago and it took 2 mins of backwashing for the sight glass to go clear. The water coming out during backwash was blood red.

Here are some pics of the pool:

Suggestions please!

 

[dancremer]

Here are pics, sorry:

 

[JasonLion]

With iron at 1, you need some sequestrant. ProTeam's Metal Magic and Jack's Magic the Pink Stuff (regular), the Blue Stuff (fresh plaster), and the Purple Stuff (SWG) are some of the top sequestrants. You can also find many other brands with similar products, some of which are noticeably less expensive. Sequestrants based on HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the most effective.