EEk! Accidently dumped Ice Melt into our POOL!!

[fordfampool]

We bought a house with a pool and in an attempt to *Save money* decided to use pool chemicals that were left over from a previous owner.

We needed to add some Alkalinity Plus (25lbs) and so I said, we have a bucket of that - about 10lbs. So I dumped about 5 lbs of the crystals from the bucket into the pool before I saw it was enclosed in a bag labeled Ice Melt(Salt?!) !!

EEK! What do we do?!
-Sarah

 

[fordfampool]

We were supposed to add the alkalinity plus and CYA tonight - should we keep doing that? Our FC is about 10 - not sure if I should go test it now?! Ugh. Just when I thought things were finally getting better!!
-Sarah

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

Does the ice melt list any ingredients on the label? Many brands are calcium chloride, which adds calcium to the water but is otherwise harmless.

We can give you a lot more help if you post a full set of water test results.

 

[Poolschoolgrad]

Ice melt is sold in dozens of different formulations and concentrations.

Please post the exact product brand and description.
The MSDS will provide details of the product.

Some of the simple formulations contain only Sodium chloride (salt) and calcium chloride (calcium hardness increaser) which may be ok to add to your pool.

5 pounds of salt and a few ounces of calcium chloride is not very much in a several thousand gallon pool.

 

[fordfampool]

Sorry, I am new here and haven't got my act together yet!! Our Pool is about 36,000 Gallons and here are the readings from the Pool Store today (we are still figuring out our own testing kit - we just got in the mail yesterday.

CYA 0
Total Chlor 10
FC 9.1
pH 7.2
TA 81
Total Hardness 286

And it's already a little cloudy looking.

The salt bag just said Rock Ice, no ingredients listed.
-Sarah

 

[fordfampool]

Oops, that should say RidIce - not rock ice. Found it online and it contains Potassium Chloride.
-Sarah

 

[Poolschoolgrad]

No problem with 5 lbs of potassium chloride in a 36,000 gallon pool. :-D
It is commonly used in water softeners by people who are concerned with their sodium intake.
Potassium chloride can also be used in pools with Salt water chlorine generating systems instead of sodium chloride (salt).

PSG

 

[zea3]

Go ahead and put the CYA in a sock and hang it in front of a return. A TA of 80 is o.k. Did the pool store tell you to raise it? Keep your pool chems separate from the other chems so you don't accidentally grab the wrong one again.

 

[fordfampool]

This is sjozhppy - just a different account. I put your posts under one account. JohnT
Thanks for the advice - we did put the rest in and I am cleaning out the pool shed tomorrow so that everything is neat and nothing is old! Yikes.

Glad it's not that big of a deal. I just about passed out when I realized what I had done!! lol!

Also, this website is amazing. Thank you!! We've learned quite a bit even though we still have a ways to go.

:-D Thank you!
-Sarah