Draining my pool and using calcium trap?

sassywahine · Mar 10, 2012

First I would like to thank you all, this forum has helped me so much and I appreciate all your insight. :whoot:

I've had my house for almost a year and when I bought it the pool water was gross, so I assume they emptied and refilled the pool.

I was thinking about draining my pool and repairing a cover on the bottom that is cracked and checking all pop ups and clean the bottom of pool that has some scaling.

The calcium levels have always been extremely high, but the water in Vegas has a lot of calcium. I saw another poster, granny geek, had posted this regarding another post:
One can always use a calcium trap in line on the hose feeding the drip/sprinkler/etc., systems.

It got me thinking, can I use a calcium trap on end of hose when I refill the pool to cut down on the calcium?
I've also read people saying you shouldn't drain pool and refill, so I'm wondering if it's bad to drain? ( I have a plaster pool)

Thanks for all your help.

duraleigh · Mar 10, 2012

1. I am not aware of any effective "calcium trap" to lower CH coming from your hose......at least one that would give you ANY volume to make it worthwhile.

2. Draining your pool CAN allow it to pop out of the ground if the water table is high. I would suspect yours is not in Las Vegas but you should be sure it is not before you drain.

sassywahine · Mar 10, 2012

I would assume water table is not high here, I know someone who's pool has been empty for 2 years. :hammer:

There's the one for a mister system which is $20 and there's one for RV's that's $90. I'm not sure how many gallons either of these handles and I'm sure the RV would better, wondering if anyone has tried?

phipsi1237 · Mar 10, 2012

I live in North Vegas. I drained it about 2 weeks or so ago with no issues. My fill water has a CH of about 270. As for the Calcium trap, if you have an auto-fill, you might be able to place it inline there. Then as water evaporated, the autofill would replace with lower CH water. Not sure, but just a thought.

JasonLion · Mar 11, 2012

The small in-line calcium filters aren't anywhere near large enough or effective enough to make a meaningful difference. Even a whole house water softener has a rough time keeping up with the water demand of a pool, requiring frequent recharging cycles.

sassywahine · Mar 11, 2012

Thanks for info, I thought I had a clever way to cut down calcium, snap.

It's reassuring that phipsi1237 has a calcium of 270, mine has always been 500-750 since owning the house, so I'm hoping that refilling the pool might help.

Thanks :sun:

257WbyMag · Mar 11, 2012

You would be surprised at just how high some of our members' CH levels are in the desert southwest. One can operate a pool with CH levels of 700+ by paying attention to things like the calcium saturation index and controlling the CSI with TA and pH adjustments. It can be done but it takes work and attention.

JamesW · Mar 11, 2012

Tap water in Las Vegas averages about 76 ppm calcium, which equates to about 190 ppm calcium carbonate. You can test the tap water now to see where it's at. There might be a water conditioner place that would rent you a temporary setup for filling the pool.
http://www.lvvwd.com/assets/pdf/wq_summary_lvvwd.pdf

http://www.lvvwd.com/wq/facts_hard.html

The total hardness is about 298 ppm (expressed in units of CaCO₃). The calcium accounts for about 190 ppm and the magnesium accounts for about 108 ppm of the total hardness.