Hey everybody - I'm really excited - finally putting water in my new pool. I made a note of the number of gallons shown on my water meter right before we started filling, and I'll check again when it's full to get a measurement of how much water is in the pool (and then again for the spa, I guess). Our water pressure isn't the best - it's been going for about 24 hours now, and still has a way to go. We have basically no water pressure in the house during this process - I suppose we've used at most 20 gallons in the house during this time - we've been going elsewhere to eat and do other water-using activities.
The water has a greenish color to it. Algae already? The neighbor has a few big crape myrtle trees that hang over the pool. I've cut a few of the branches, but there are some left, and we got a *ton* of flowers and buds in the water, which we've scooped out. The flowers and buds would tend to leave a brownish-yellow stain on our white travertine decking, and so I'm thinking that color, along with the blue of the pebble surface, is what's causing the green.
I got the TF100 test kit in the mail a couple of weeks ago. The water out of the tap in our kitchen measures at 7.5 pH. The water in the pool is already off the top of the test kit range, but it looks like it would be 8.5 to me. I suppose this is because of the fresh plaster? The builder gave me a few bottles of hydrochoric acid. I'll wait to see what they say to do with it.
Anyway, I'm posting more out of excitement than anything - I have yet to take the builder's "pool school", so I don't know much at all. This will be a salt water pool - I understand that for the first 30 days, it will use regular chorine, and the pump will run 24/7. After that, we put in the salt. None of the equipment is running at the moment. I'm expecting a "start-up" crew to come by in an hour or so and start it up, if the water level is high enough. If it's not, I'm a little worried because we're going into the holiday, but hopefully they can tell me what to do when the time comes.
I do have a question about getting crape myrtle stains out of white travertine, but I may post a separate thread for that.
The water has a greenish color to it. Algae already? The neighbor has a few big crape myrtle trees that hang over the pool. I've cut a few of the branches, but there are some left, and we got a *ton* of flowers and buds in the water, which we've scooped out. The flowers and buds would tend to leave a brownish-yellow stain on our white travertine decking, and so I'm thinking that color, along with the blue of the pebble surface, is what's causing the green.
I got the TF100 test kit in the mail a couple of weeks ago. The water out of the tap in our kitchen measures at 7.5 pH. The water in the pool is already off the top of the test kit range, but it looks like it would be 8.5 to me. I suppose this is because of the fresh plaster? The builder gave me a few bottles of hydrochoric acid. I'll wait to see what they say to do with it.
Anyway, I'm posting more out of excitement than anything - I have yet to take the builder's "pool school", so I don't know much at all. This will be a salt water pool - I understand that for the first 30 days, it will use regular chorine, and the pump will run 24/7. After that, we put in the salt. None of the equipment is running at the moment. I'm expecting a "start-up" crew to come by in an hour or so and start it up, if the water level is high enough. If it's not, I'm a little worried because we're going into the holiday, but hopefully they can tell me what to do when the time comes.
I do have a question about getting crape myrtle stains out of white travertine, but I may post a separate thread for that.
