New pool CYA - Does my strategy sound OK?

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J

JCarsten

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Jun 19, 2014
42
Edmond, Oklahoma
They are putting the finishing touches on our pool today and beginning to fill.

We're putting in 100% well water from our irrigation well (I should be able to get some tests done on the water tonight since we just had the tap put on it earlier today).

I have a SWG and am already planning on using liquid chlorine to maintain FC until I get the SWG up and running. However, I want to get some CYA in it as soon as possible. I'm targeting a final CYA level of 70.

At 12,500 gallons, pool math tells me I need about 7.3 pounds of CYA. I bought two 4# canisters at Walmart over the weekend. I was thinking I could take advantage of the non swimming time by floating a noodle in the pool while filling, and tying a nylon filled with CYA on each end of it. That would hopefully allow some of it to dissolve during the fill to be available when I finally got the water in place and added the bleach.

Somebody on this site told me the other day not to go from 0 to my final amount all in one step. So my thought is that during the fill, I can hang stockings containing one of the 4# canisters from the noodle. If that mostly or totally dissolves during the fill, it looks like per pool math, I would be in the neighborhood of 35-40 CYA.

With a full pool and the first 4# of CYA dissolved, I could then begin dissolving another 3# and adjust my chlorine as if I were at my final CYA level of 70. By then I should have the SWG in full gear and be able to fine tune it to a final target of 5 FC at 70 CYA. Once that second 3# of CYA dissolves, I would wait a week and test CYA, then add the additional 1/3 of a pound (or more if needed) based on what my CYA tested at that point.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan? I've read enough on this site to really want to make sure I get a solid handle on the pool's chemistry right out of the gate.
 
Does it sound like a reasonable plan - - Yes. Since you're going to do 4 and without testing toss in three you could also just do 6 or the whole seven to begin with. That last addition after your test is your safety.

You can also help things along by kneading the sock of CYA and or having it in front of the incoming water. If you just let it float and dissolve it can take days for a larger amount like that. If you treat it like a wet washcloth and wring it out, let it soak a couple seconds and wring again, again, again for a couple minutes a couple times a day you can get it in there in a day .. or two. Depends on how often and long you spend helping it. Also depends on how fast the pools filling. If you're filling with a garden hose it might not matter that it takes it three or four days to dissolve.
 
Thanks for the response. Yes. We'll be using a garden hose. I figure 2-3 days to fill (I haven't checked the pressure coming off this hose yet since it's a new faucet on the well). I like the idea of doing 6# all at once. I was just trying to find a reasonable step up. But if we're not swimming while it's filling, I guess it doesn't really matter how large the first step is, as long as I am not going over the pool math recommendation.
 
Because dumping water is the only way to reduce CYA, everyone wants to be careful to not have to dump their water. That and in some places water is gold - almost literally $$$$

Did you have any recommendations on when to start adding some bleach ?? Not sure I'd want to wait three days till it's full before I added some to prevent anything from starting.

You could also do some tests on the well water and that way you'll already know what you'll need to do for pH and ... once it's full or near full. You wouldn't need to do chlorine or CYA since the well water will be zero.
 
One of the guys I talked to said to target about 3 ppm FC with liquid bleach while I getting the SWG up and running and adding the cya, but wasn't clear on when to start adding the bleach. I guess I could get it about 1/3 full by eyeball and just start adding bleach based on that? I'm assuming with a SWG I will not be able to run it until the water is in and the salt is dissolved
 
Is your irrigation water clean water? If you think you will need to SLAM to start off, I would only put in enough CYA to get to around 20-30... this will save you from having to take your chlorine levels up so high to do the SLAM process.

If it were me, I would maintain the pool for a couple of days using chlorine at 20-30cya to be sure that you don't have anything using up your chlorine and causing CC before you increase the CYA to SWG levels... It might save a lot of chlorine.
 
UPDATE - just got pics from home. They are filling as we speak. Should I go ahead and get some level of bleach in it? I'm just not sure how much to put in because it is not completely full yet

- - - Updated - - -

As far as the cleanliness of the water, I have not tested yet. It has been feeding our sprinkler system only since we moved in
 
How certain are you of your pool size (gallons). I put a sump pump in my pool as it's filling. I throw some CYA in a sock and tie it to the sump pump - dissolves in just hours. I stick one of them suction bath mats to the pool floor so the CYA isn't in direct contact with the liner. I do this as soon as there is a few inches of water in the pool. I eyeball the amount of water. 4 inches is about 1/12, and add the appropriate amount of bleach (less a little). It isn't exact but at least there's some bleach in the pool. I dump my salt in before the pool is full as well. The sump pump provides good circulation. By the time my pool is full my CYA and salt has dissolved. You need to wait 24 hours after adding your salt before turning your SWG on. I wait 2 days. I test the bleach a few times during the fill to make sure it hasn't all dissipated in the sun. This approach works for me. I have never needed to SLAM my pool. I think I may be a little over-protective with this method (48 hours for salt to dissolve and constant additions of bleach), but it works for me. When the 48 hours are up I target the chlorine level for what's appropriate for the amount of CYA I've added, and fire up the SWG.
 
Maybe you want to wait to see how a couple inches or a foot in the pool look ?? He has a good point. I'm drinking out of my well so I do just toss water into the pool. If yours is an irrigation well and you're unsure of clarity following Suziqzer would be a safer way to go.

Yes on needing the water full and salt mixed in before the SWG can get to work.
 
Can someone put some in a clear glass and tell you how it looks?

My well water is great water. VERY clear and some of the best tasting water you could ever want to drink. Low PH so I just turn my return up and let it roll the water. I hope yours is good also.

With it being well water I would guess there is NO FC or such in it. Have the bleach ready to go and some way to stir it into the water.

Kim
 

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You can add a little cya as GreatCanadian suggested and then a little chlorine for peace of mind as you fill... you will want to estimate what your amount of water is before you add anything, and be sure you have some way of mixing that water, like a sump pump, if you do make any additions before the pump can do the work for you.

If you have a test kit handy, it might be good to test your water and see where you are starting from.

Another thing you might want to check for is metals in your water. Iron will show itself if you put water in a glass and add chlorine to it.. turns brown w/iron (don't ask me how I know), blues and yellows can happen too. The water will still be clear, but colored. Sometimes the metals will fall to the bottom and you can vacuum them out, if this doesn't happen you will need a sequestering agent to suspend them in the water and make them clear. Because we have high iron content in our well water, we make sure to run our pool water through our softener before adding to the pool... that's not possible for everyone. Using irrigation water, you may have some metals to deal with as I'm guessing it's not been treated.
 
Thanks for all the replies. Here's what I know now:

- It's filling a LOT faster than I thought. As of this morning, I was a little over halfway full. Actually shocked the pool guy a little. He was running a vacuum pump inside the liner to get out any wrinkles, etc. while we filled. It was a little amusing to hear him chewing his crew's butts because they didn't tell us to stop filling the pool at the level of a piece of tape they'd put on the liner. I guess we were supposed to stop the water and call him so that he could get the vacuum hose out of the liner. He's on his way out now to see whether he needs to actually drain some of the water in order to remove the vacuum.

- I did not have a chance to run tests on the water last night. I was fixing some sprinklers damaged by the pool crew and it got dark (and late). However, there was still a lot of crud in the pool that our contractor still plans to vacuum out once he gets the pool filled and the pump and filter running.

I can report that the water is crystal clear, even as of this morning. I am sure it is high in TA. We have pretty hard water and high in alkalinity. I brew my own beer so I have had my tap water (which comes from a source a few miles from here) tested. It runs 7.7 to 7.8 pH out of the tap. And my neighbor fills her pool with well water and told me last night she is constantly fighting high pH.

Talking with the pool guy this morning, it sounds like he should have the pool vacuumed and the pump and SWG working later today. Since there was still a little construction crud in there, I didn't think it would do me any good to put any bleach in until he had the gear working and the pool vacuumed. Not only would the construction dirt likely eat the chlorine, we're going to be cloud free and about 100F today. So what the organics didn't eat, the sun would.

The irrigation well is not drilled deep enough to be considered "potable". But I'm pretty impressed with how clear it is coming straight out of the hose.

If he's got everything hooked up, salt in and cleaned when I get home, I can test the pool water and post results here.

If not, I can at least draw some water off the well and test it for everything except chlorine and CYA.
 
Just curious, what does your neighbor use to maintain her pool ?? Curious what might be causing her constant high pH problem.
 
kiss4afrog said:
Just curious, what does your neighbor use to maintain her pool ?? Curious what might be causing her constant high pH problem.
Click to expand...

She has a SWG and as far as I am aware, uses that for chlorination and muriatic acid to maintain pH. I don't think she does much else. I've been trying to get her to take a look at this site.

When I say "constantly fighting" I mean mostly after a heavy rain or needing to top off her pool water for one reason or another. Our ground water has a pretty high pH around here. She told me last night that anytime she has to put a significant amount of water in the pool, she needs to adjust pH
 
Just to update this. We have the pool in place and filled. Our pool installer added "some" CYA in a sock on Wednesday (7/9) once we were full and had the pump going. I wasn't there, so I don't know how much he did. He also shocked the pool on Friday while I was at work. SWG but he was trying to get ahead of it I guess since we were using well water with no chlorine and starting from zero on all chemicals.

So I am going with the assumption that there was likely some level of CYA in the shock he used. FC levels held high all weekend once the SWG was up and running regularly. I was actually around 7-8 FC consistently over the weekend so I am going to work on the pump run time and SWG % to try to bring the FC level back down into the 3-5 range bit.

I put 2# of CYA in a sock in the skimmer basket before I left for work this morning. I figure since the SWG is holding FC with no trouble (even with the hot, sunny temps we had this weekend), that I am good to bring the CYA up gradually to avoid over-shooting. The plan now is to just leave the CYA test alone until a week from today. That should allow plenty of time for the stuff he added originally, whatever might have been in his shock, and what I added today, to dissolve and register on the CYA test.

Depending on what I have at that time, I can determine how much I more I need next week to get it in the 60-80 range.
 
Would be really nice to know how much (lb/oz) he added and what he used for shock and how much, oh well. :hammer:

Good plan to wait a week on the CYA test and the stuff in the sock you have presently you can hasten it's addition to the water by kneading that sock a bit now and then. Wringing it out like a washcloth a few times helps.
 
One more question (for now)
I got home today and my daughter informed me that when she got in the pool this afternoon, she went to check the CYA sock (this morning's sock with 2# in it. Apparently I had not tied the knot in the sock as well as I thought. There was an empty sock in the skimmer basket. Meaning all 2# went straight into the system at some point today. Is this a problem?
 
JCarsten said:
One more question (for now)
I got home today and my daughter informed me that when she got in the pool this afternoon, she went to check the CYA sock (this morning's sock with 2# in it. Apparently I had not tied the knot in the sock as well as I thought. There was an empty sock in the skimmer basket. Meaning all 2# went straight into the system at some point today. Is this a problem?
Click to expand...
Only if you need to backwash.
 
+1 with Richard.

It just means it went into the pumps impeller and then into the filter and it's dissolving in there. It will still be up to a week till it's going to be reading on your CYA test.

If you backwash before then whatever is still in the filter goes out the drain hose :evil:
 

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