I've a 12,000gal fiber-glass indoor salt water chlorine generator pool. I have had it for about a year, but let the pool guy maintain it. This year, before I started swimming - I decided to maintain it myself, without really knowing what I was getting myself into. The pool guy said it's easy to maintain and you don't have to do much. On his advise, I turned on the super-chlorination at the start of summer. Due to an emergency at work, I had to go on a trip and forgot to turn it back off. I was running the filter for about an hour a day.
After I came back, I turned the generator to Auto and started swimming. Water was crystal clean, so I didn't think anything was wrong. Then after couple of weeks, my skin started to get super itchy on the days I was swimming. Eventually, I decided to order some AquaChek 7 strips. I got them yesterday, and tests are super-high. That's when I looked for help online and found this website - and learned a LOT about what I need to do to maintain it. I didn't know anything about pool maintenance, so I apologize in advance if I still use some terms incorrectly. After going through the forum, I'll be ordering the Taylor k-2006 kit in a day or two to get exact results. Anyway - enough of my sad story - I knew chlorine in my pool was going to come out high, but I'm really surprised pH is very high levels as well. These were my results:
Free Chlorine - 20+ (strip goes up to 20, color was darker than the highest level)
Total Chlorine - 20+ (strip goes up to 20, color was darker than the highest level)
pH - 8.4+ (strip goes up to 8.4, color was darker than the highest level)
Total Alkalinity - 120
Cyanuric Acid - 30-50
Total Hardness - 250
So, I come here for help. I've drained about 500 gallons of water, but then stopped and figured before doing anything - I should ask the people here. Help me out, what should be my first step towards getting the chemistry right.
Thanks for reading and any help will be much appreciated.
After I came back, I turned the generator to Auto and started swimming. Water was crystal clean, so I didn't think anything was wrong. Then after couple of weeks, my skin started to get super itchy on the days I was swimming. Eventually, I decided to order some AquaChek 7 strips. I got them yesterday, and tests are super-high. That's when I looked for help online and found this website - and learned a LOT about what I need to do to maintain it. I didn't know anything about pool maintenance, so I apologize in advance if I still use some terms incorrectly. After going through the forum, I'll be ordering the Taylor k-2006 kit in a day or two to get exact results. Anyway - enough of my sad story - I knew chlorine in my pool was going to come out high, but I'm really surprised pH is very high levels as well. These were my results:
Free Chlorine - 20+ (strip goes up to 20, color was darker than the highest level)
Total Chlorine - 20+ (strip goes up to 20, color was darker than the highest level)
pH - 8.4+ (strip goes up to 8.4, color was darker than the highest level)
Total Alkalinity - 120
Cyanuric Acid - 30-50
Total Hardness - 250
So, I come here for help. I've drained about 500 gallons of water, but then stopped and figured before doing anything - I should ask the people here. Help me out, what should be my first step towards getting the chemistry right.
Thanks for reading and any help will be much appreciated.