First results and now I need some help!!

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dwyerst

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LifeTime Supporter
Apr 11, 2011
23
I have just received my Taylor test kit and ran some tests this morning.

FC 0.5
CC 0.5
TC 1.0
PH 8.2
T/A 130
CYA 100+
Salt 3100.
Temp 74

The water is clear however I do have green algae growing on the shady side of the pool.

Can these numbers be right???

I have just installed a Auto Pilot SWG

I have a 16000 gallon plaster pool with a 1hp pump and a Jandy cartridge filter.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Yes, those numbers could well be correct.

The most obvious problem is your very high CYA reading. Just to confirm, that means that a very small amount of liquid added to the view tube completely obscured the black dot? Unfortunately, the CYA test will read anything over 100 as 100, so your actual CYA level might be much higher.

It is very very difficult to kill algae while the CYA level is that high. By far the best thing you can do is to lower the CYA level down to something more reasonable, definitely something under 100. The only practical ways to lower the CYA level is to replace water or get an RO treatment (only available in some areas).

Before going to that effort it would be good to double check the CYA level by doing the CYA test again with dilution. Mix some pool water with an equal amount of tap water, do the CYA test again with that, and then multiply the result by two. That will give you some idea if your CYA level is close to 100 or much higher.

It would also be a good idea to get your PH down below 8.0.
 
Thanks for the info.

Yes a small amount of liquid covered the black dot.

I have been using powdered chlorine in the pool till I put the SWG in so this probably raised the CYA.

I will do the double check tonight and post tomorrow.
 
So I reran the CYA test as you recommended and got a result of 120. I pumped out some of the water and replaced it overnight. This morning i got a result of about 100 so I guess I need to remove some more.

The PH is also now down to 7.5.

I will keep you informed how it goes.
 
Bring the FC level up to about 7-8ppm and if the water is clear and FC holds overnight, while your CC is 0.5 or below, you should be in good shape. If not, you should shock.
 
Thanks for this. I am using a SWG so will need to add liquid chlorine to get to this level.

Should I be concerned about the TA at this point in time or should it have also reduced with the water replacement??
 
The water replacement will have changed the TA level, but don't worry about that right away. You really only need to lower your TA if your PH is constantly going up, and in any case it can wait until you get everything else sorted out.
 
OK. Draining the pool currently to lower the CYA. Will let you know how it goes.

I have used the pool calculator (great tool) and worked out how much bleach to put in. Should I be raising the FC to 8ppm in a SWG?
 
Raising FC to 8 since your CYA has been high should not be an issue as long as you CYA is 70 or higher. Given the SWG has not been doing it's job recently you can keep the FC level slightly elevated to ensure things are going well and you do not need to shock. Once the SWG takes over you can let it drop slightly. The SWG/CYA ratios in pool school can be used once things are back in check. Are you still draining to get below 80 on the CYA? If so you can stop as 60-80 is an acceptable CYA range for SWG pools.
 

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So after working on this over the weekend here are the new numbers:

FC 4
CC 4
TC 4
Ph 7.5
TA 110
CH 400
CYA 80

These are looking OK to me. So is there something else I need to do??
 
Overall your numbers look great, a big improvement from before.

I hope CC isn't really 4! That looks like a typo.

Your TA is a little tiny high. I expect you will have problems with the PH rising fairly quickly. You can either lower the TA now, or just lower PH to 7.2 every time it gets to 7.8, and the TA will go down over time.

Your CH level is a little tiny bit high, but nothing significant. Since you are in AZ, you are probably used to managing high CH levels. If you don't know the issues involved and CH goes up from there you should ask/read up on managing high CH levels.
 
Is your SWG on? if not, over several days, the FC will drop like this...
if your SWG is on, then it should be adjusted to maintain your FC at the desired level
The pH is high- probably due to aeration- just add some bleach to get FC up, and some acid to drop the pH...
 
your earlier post said you had visible algae. I don't see where you shocked the pool, so it may be that you are staying one step ahead of a "nascent" algae situation and your SWG can't keep up. Did you do an Overnight FC Loss test at any point, with the SWG off, to see if the FC was holding? I suspect you need to shock the pool.
 

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