New pool owner with newly installed SWG & aeration

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm really happy to have found this forum, as I purchased my home last August, and the pool was crystal clear. After a week or so of using the pool -we noticed that my daughter was getting rashes where her bathing suit chaffed. Being new to maintenance - I had made sure that there was chlorine in the feeder, but had not checked the TA until this happened. Took a sample to Leslie's and proceeded to spend over $200 - $300 in chemicals and finally pool maintenance help to balance, then get rid of algae. The bugs and frogs loved my pool.

This year we replaced the chlorine feeder and old failing Hayward pump with a new Pentair and a Breeze SWG. I've seen the topic raised, but was wondering why an SWG provides more aeration than a normal chlorine system? I don't have water features, just the main return and 2 jets.

I inherited a test kit, but wanted to make sure I was getting accurate readings. I took a sample to Leslie's to see what they had to say and found that my readings were off by a little, but fairly close.

Right now, I'm working at getting the TA down from 170 to the 80-120 range. I've added 5 pounds of dry acid(from Leslie's) in 3 separate doses and need to continue bringing the TA down. After reading here - I went out and picked up a gallon of muriatric acid at tractor supply and will do an additional 1/2 gallon dose this evening.

I also threw Culator pack into my skimmer to work on the yellow stain on the vinyl liner. I've been running the filter pretty much 24/7. Water looks crystal clear - and other than some vacuuming, I'm pretty happy with everything so far. I'm looking forward to starting the BBB method!

I'm new to pool maintenance and would welcome any comments.
Current readings:
total available chlorine - 5ppm
FC - 5ppm (It's been raining and I've been running the salt cell at 100%... just bumped it down to 75% today.)
Salt - 3700 3500-4500 recommended for SG Breeze
CH - 50 way low
CYA - 40
TA - 170
PH - 7.4

Copper&Iron 0
Phospates 200

 

[Bama Rambler]

Welcome to TFP.
The best thing you can do for yourself is get a good test kit. There's a link in my sig to the best one out there.

If we can believe the numbers you gave. (it's not you, it's pool stores in general).

With a vinyl pool don't worry about the CH. Mine's been zero for years.

Your TA is too high but as you adjust the pH down with acid the TA will come down. As long as the pH isn't rising faster than you can keep up with it, don't worry about actively trying to lower it. I also suggest that you let it come down to about 60 or so instead of 80-120.
Your CYA isn't high enough for a swg. However, if that's a pool store reading it could be wildly wrong. The CYA test is the one they're consistently wildly wrong about. If it is a pool store test, I wouldn't do anything about it until you get a good test kit and test it yourself.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick response.

I've always wondered if the pool store folks like to sell product, or are any better at reading results than I am.

Just did a quart dose of Muriatric acid and will test again in about 4 hours.

Took a look at those test kits. Will definitely look into purchasing one soon.

 

[linen]

Welcome to tfp, ggoodwinj3

Just did a quart dose of Muriatric acid and will test again in about 4 hours.

Give it an hour with pump running and test again...no need to wait 4 unless you are away from the pool.

For test kits, the tf-100 has the best bang for buck.