Having a problem we never had before.

[Helltech]

Our pool is very old, over thirty years. It’s an above ground, 30,000 gallon, vinyl lining pool. Usually we just take our water into Ace Hardware, or a pool supply store in our little and get it tested and then follow the instructions. Usually our pool for opening it for the year is alright. Maybe a little PH minus or Plus here and there, but spot on most of the time. This year however our hardness is apparently 0ppm. We were told we needed 105 pounds of Calcium Plus to fix the problem. I do believe this is correct because we just started getting some yellow stains on our liner that we never had before, and I heard low hardness can do this.

The problem is 105 pounds. That is a lot, over 150 dollars for the cheapest we can find (online we found you can get a 25 pound bucket for 22 dollar, but with 20 dollars shipping we might as well buy it in the store for 45 dollars).

Is it really safe to just dump 105 pounds of this in there? I know we are supposed to do in over the course of 3-5 days, doing about 1/5 of the needed amount each day. But I just wanted to know the proper procedure.

After putting this much Calcium Plus in the pool couldn’t it de-balance other chemicals in the water?

Also what could have caused this problem? Like I said up until this year and we have had the pool for 30 years we never had any problems like this.

Finally, is there a cheaper alternative to this instead of buying Calcium Plus?

Thanks for all the advice and help.

EDIT - I should add, is there anyway to fix the yellow stains? They are rather unslightly I might say.

 

[woodyp]

Pool School here only recommends that you have 50 ppm Calcium for a vinyl liner pool on the low end. Really no point in adding any more than that. Use the pool calculator in pool school using your gallons and you should be just fine. Those yellow stains most likely have nothing to do with calcium levels. Hold a puck on one for a minute and see if it disappears or lessens any.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Do the spots feel rough? be careful with the puck trick on vinyl, could bleach the spot out - may see a reaction faster than one minute. Try rubbing a vitamin c tablet on the spot, if the spot fades then it may be iron.

you don't need to spend $150 in CH increaser for a vinyl pool. Nonsense.

 

[Helltech]

Thanks for the quick replies. I had no idea, both Ace and the the pool place told us we needed about 250-500ppm. Regardless even to get it up to 50ppm we need 19 pounds. I had already ordered 50 pounds for 90 dollars from out catalog, guess I was slightly hasty I did that before I even posted here. Guess I'll have some for future use.

The spots are not rough, and they are not dirty. Just discolored.

Ill try that puck trick, thanks.

 

[beezar]

Guess I'm too late, but you don't need to get the expensive Calcium Plus stuff. Just get some Peladow or Dowflake (basically calcium chloride used for deicing) at any hardware store (unless you live in the south where no deicing is needed).

Much cheaper, and works great.

 

[Helltech]

Thank you! I was looking for an answer like that, it will come useful in the future.

 

[257WbyMag]

Welcome to TFP!

See if you can return your calcium. There is no need to have any calcium in a vinyl lined pool. Plaster surfaces require calcium in order to equilibrate with the calcium in the plaster so that pitting does not occur. There is no calcium in vinyl and so there is no call to add any or maintain a residual level.

It sounds as though you may have some metal staining taking place. Follow FPM's reccomendation and try holding a vitamin C tablet against the stain. If it lightens, it's a metal stain and we will tell you how to treat it. If it doesn't change it, post that too and we will go from there.