First post, and first results from Taylor K2006 - Recommendations?

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KevinP

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Jun 26, 2014
6
Canada
Hi everyone,

First off, I wanted to introduce myself. I'm fairly new to the world of pools after purchasing a home with an "under appreciated" 20x40 pool in late 2013 (full details in signature). We tore it basically back to the hole in the ground and completely renovated it for the long run (it's a thing of beauty now! :)). Meanwhile in terms of chemistry I stumbled through last summer with some guidance of the pool store and their "pool school" (read: chemical marketing) but my wallet sure suffered.

After having them open the pool in the spring ($400 for them to remove the safety cover, prime the pump and dump some chlorine in???) we promptly were served up with an algae bloom. Well $200 later through algaecide, phosphate remover and other nonsense the algae came back. Next visit I was sold chlorine to shock the pool but the amount recommended by the store wasn't even close to enough after looking into it myself, and low and behold I was back at the store days later buying more chlorine - the first batch completely wasted/consumed by the algae fight.

Fed up I finally turned online, figuring if I'm going to own a pool I'm going to know what I'm doing and take control of the situation. And so I found TFP and was an instant convert :) I've truly enjoyed educating myself from the great resources here and the community seems amazing!

I've since shocked (well SLAMed) the pool (unfortunately only had test strips to go by at the time so there was some guessing involved) and for the past few weeks our family has enjoyed pristine, clear water. Next step is to keep that trend going based on the recommendations here I ordered the Taylor K2006 kit (wanted the TFTestKit but not really possible in Canada).

The kit finally arrived yesterday so I ran through my first test last night, and fortunately the results are actually pretty good I think:

FC 5.4
CC 0.2
pH 7.4
TA 110
CH 170
CYA 33

My question from all of the experts here is what is your initial thought on the results? Would you adjust anything? My thoughts based on my new (and hopefully accurate) TFPC knowledge are:
  • the FC is a bit high, but I'd prefer to run it near the top of the range to be safe. Any concerns?
  • Do most of you SLAM you pool at CC of 0.2? I've read up to 0.5 is okay with the ideal of 0.0?
  • I'm considering doing the acid/aerate method to lower TA a bit. Is it necessary at 110?
  • our setup has an off-line chlorine feeder, and not knowing any better at the start of the season I was sold a $80 bucket of tabs from the pool store. I'm planning on using as many up as I can (knowing now the implications of CYA up, pH down) before hopefully switching to liquid chlorine after that and getting into the true BBB method. Because of the potential pH drop over time I'm thinking also I should work to raise pH up to maybe 7.6 or 7.7?

Thanks for any insights and sorry for the long post - figured I should give some background! I feel like I'm getting a good understanding of the concepts but in terms of priority I'm not sure what to tackle first :)
 
Welcome to TFP!

Your FC is fine. You could go a little lower, but there is no need to do so.

On the CC test, if one drop clears the pink then you are just fine.

There is no reason to lower TA unless you are actually having a problem. If the PH goes up annoyingly quickly, then lower TA. If you continue using trichlor tablets you might actually want to raise TA a little, though if trichlor is only temporary there probably isn't any point in that.

It isn't critical or anything, but yes raise PH to around 7.8. You never want PH going below 7.2, so catching it around 7.4 is a good idea.
 
I'd just go swimming. The aeration caused by swimmers should help offset the pH drop caused by the pucks somewhat.

You obviously grasp the basics, and you're probably testing obsessively, so if anything dips too low, I'm sure you'll catch it in plenty of time.

Have you seen Effects of Adding Chemicals in poolmath? If you plug ion the volume, you can see how much each 8 ox puck will raise CYA and can then estimate how many you can add to hit your target. Then you don't need to test so much. You'll run out of CYA reagent too quickly if you test ot weekly.
 
Thanks Jason! Yeah I think I'll raise PH up because it's borderline low. I was going to run out and get some Borax today based on pool math, but am wondering if I should go with aeration instead since borax will also raise TA? Thoughts?
 
Richard320 said:
Have you seen Effects of Adding Chemicals in poolmath? If you plug ion the volume, you can see how much each 8 ox puck will raise CYA and can then estimate how many you can add to hit your target. Then you don't need to test so much. You'll run out of CYA reagent too quickly if you test ot weekly.
Click to expand...
Thanks Richard, good tip.. based on my pool size I'm getting a 0.9 CYA increase per tab which is pretty high.. I'm at about 33 CYA so I should probably cut it out in about 10 tabs ideally I think (I'd like to stay in 30-40 range?). We do get a lot of rain/runoff where I'm draining to waste periodically to avoid overflow. That may buy me some extra tabs with the fresh fill.

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JasonLion said:
While you are using trichlor, aeration alone won't be enough to maintain the PH. When you stop using trichlor then aeration is generally enough.
Click to expand...

Great thanks. Borax it is. I will enjoy spending $10 on Borax at Walmart to adjust this, rather than $30+ at the pool store on PH Up :)
 
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