A little history
Been keeping water testing records for my 1st year but readings were taken with strips and I know now that was a mistake, but with what I had I stayed in pretty good margins. I also went to the pool store for testing every couple of months. But I recently bought a ColorQ Pro-7 test kit a couple of weeks ago. http://www.lamotte.com/en/pool-spa/digital-testing/colorq/2056.html
My problem started a couple of weeks ago when I noticed my SWG couldn't get above 2.7 even if set @ 100%. Being a new pool owner, I thought something was wrong with it so I called warranty. They sent their guy out and he immediately went to test the water and I was shocked to learn the numbers. I won't go over all of them in detail now but basically my chlorine was 10 or more, my CH was @ 800 & high CYA also. NOW...I had my test results from the pool store just a month prior to that dated 11-12-13 and everything was pretty much ok, so something happened in 3-4 weeks. I have no idea what. So that's what alerted me that I really have to test properly with the right equipment and way more often.
So, what I did from there was diluted my pool 2'x about 4 hrs. each time, then added 2lbs. of Chlor Neutralizer to jump start getting that Chlorine down (a little at a time of course) then added a bag of salt, and a little soda ash. Now all those treatments were over several days and testing along the way.
My current pool reading now are:
FCI - 1.48, TCL - 1.70, PH - 7.4, TA 96, CH - 476, CYA 104 Salt 2800 (SWG OFF)
I cleaned my cartridge filter & SWG yesterday to get rid of any residual chemistry and start fresh there also. I'm currently right now this morning diluting the pool again because as you can see my CH & CYA are still to high. I'm going to dilute quite a bit this time.
My house water readings that I'm diluting it with are:
FCI - 0.80, TCL - 0.80, PH - 7.2, TA 86, CH - 4124, CYA 7
Once diluting is finished over the next couple of days of running the pump I'll adjust the PH, ALY, salt etc. to bring back into balance and hopefully my CH & CYA have come way down because I did notice yesterday some chalkiness around the top of tile above the plaster. The finish of my pool is called Hydrozzo. I got on my hands & knees and used a green clothe scotch pad and pool water and went all the way around the pool and scrubbed the tile. It got about 80% of it. I know now that keeping your PH & ALY balance will keep scaling in check and those are the most important numbers from what I have been reading.
So here's my question:
On this website I've read all the basic chemistry info, the ABC's etc., which I understand mostly now EXCEPT this issue of FCL and Total Chlorine. The website says, if your FC is above 0.5 you need to SLAM the pool. I don't know what SLAM means but I'm assuming it means shock. Assuming that's true, some shock has calcium in it and I don't need anymore of that. So help me here please on what type of shock I need to be using, how much & how often. ALSO, on the—Chlorine / CYA Chart—http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock I find the SWG Pools chart hard to understand. Especially in the column where it says "Shock FC" and then has a number depending on your CYA. Can you all give me a definition or a simpler way to understand this and what type of shock etc. that I mentioned above?
[bAny other observations you can make based on this info are very welcomed:[/b]
My pool even through these recent issues has always "looked good" this first year and does to this day. But it won't if I don't get this chemistry thing in check and get this hardness issue resolved.
Thank you for this website.
Martin / Houston, TX
Been keeping water testing records for my 1st year but readings were taken with strips and I know now that was a mistake, but with what I had I stayed in pretty good margins. I also went to the pool store for testing every couple of months. But I recently bought a ColorQ Pro-7 test kit a couple of weeks ago. http://www.lamotte.com/en/pool-spa/digital-testing/colorq/2056.html
My problem started a couple of weeks ago when I noticed my SWG couldn't get above 2.7 even if set @ 100%. Being a new pool owner, I thought something was wrong with it so I called warranty. They sent their guy out and he immediately went to test the water and I was shocked to learn the numbers. I won't go over all of them in detail now but basically my chlorine was 10 or more, my CH was @ 800 & high CYA also. NOW...I had my test results from the pool store just a month prior to that dated 11-12-13 and everything was pretty much ok, so something happened in 3-4 weeks. I have no idea what. So that's what alerted me that I really have to test properly with the right equipment and way more often.
So, what I did from there was diluted my pool 2'x about 4 hrs. each time, then added 2lbs. of Chlor Neutralizer to jump start getting that Chlorine down (a little at a time of course) then added a bag of salt, and a little soda ash. Now all those treatments were over several days and testing along the way.
My current pool reading now are:
FCI - 1.48, TCL - 1.70, PH - 7.4, TA 96, CH - 476, CYA 104 Salt 2800 (SWG OFF)
I cleaned my cartridge filter & SWG yesterday to get rid of any residual chemistry and start fresh there also. I'm currently right now this morning diluting the pool again because as you can see my CH & CYA are still to high. I'm going to dilute quite a bit this time.
My house water readings that I'm diluting it with are:
FCI - 0.80, TCL - 0.80, PH - 7.2, TA 86, CH - 4124, CYA 7
Once diluting is finished over the next couple of days of running the pump I'll adjust the PH, ALY, salt etc. to bring back into balance and hopefully my CH & CYA have come way down because I did notice yesterday some chalkiness around the top of tile above the plaster. The finish of my pool is called Hydrozzo. I got on my hands & knees and used a green clothe scotch pad and pool water and went all the way around the pool and scrubbed the tile. It got about 80% of it. I know now that keeping your PH & ALY balance will keep scaling in check and those are the most important numbers from what I have been reading.
So here's my question:
On this website I've read all the basic chemistry info, the ABC's etc., which I understand mostly now EXCEPT this issue of FCL and Total Chlorine. The website says, if your FC is above 0.5 you need to SLAM the pool. I don't know what SLAM means but I'm assuming it means shock. Assuming that's true, some shock has calcium in it and I don't need anymore of that. So help me here please on what type of shock I need to be using, how much & how often. ALSO, on the—Chlorine / CYA Chart—http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock I find the SWG Pools chart hard to understand. Especially in the column where it says "Shock FC" and then has a number depending on your CYA. Can you all give me a definition or a simpler way to understand this and what type of shock etc. that I mentioned above?
[bAny other observations you can make based on this info are very welcomed:[/b]
My pool even through these recent issues has always "looked good" this first year and does to this day. But it won't if I don't get this chemistry thing in check and get this hardness issue resolved.
Thank you for this website.
Martin / Houston, TX