My pool is really odd......It looks like a lumpy kidney with a spill over fiberglass spa connected to it. The base slopes wildly. Really not impressed with the design. Shallow end is too deep and deep end is too shallow. It is classified as a non-diving pool for good reason. Even so, the designers placed a "diving rock" at the deep end. ( I put flower pots on it to discourage anyone from getting hurt.) The papers left from the folks who installed it show two design names...Lagoon Left and Calypso. In the deepest part it is 8'8". In the most shallow section it is 42 inches deep. The info on total gallons comes from the company listing 18,039 gallons in the pool and 500 in the spa. I WISH this was a rectangle. I would not bang my head so often when I try to swim and putting a screen over it would be infinitely more workable.
Used a percentage for my drain off the total pool volume of 18k. Since the pool math tool said I needed to dump 44% to adjust the CYA......I decided to approach this with care and dump 25% and adjust, then dump another 25% if need be. Figured an average depth by taking the deep end measurement and adding it to the shallow end and dividing by 2. Water level in the shallow end is really only 38". (42" includes the trim) Added 8 feet( 8.5 figure also included trim) and divided by 2 giving an average depth of 5.55, rounded to 5.6. Divided 65.5 by 4 and arrived at a 16.3 inch drain. That would leave 22 inches of water in the shallow end. Took base line readings of my pool water and tap water. Worked projections for my water balance by factoring the pool water at .75 and the fill water at .25. Added the results together for my expected change. Did not factor in the spa . Figured I would work out that difference later. Worked out well.
Numbers went like this: Pool water x .75 + tap water x .25= expected change/ final tested value this morning
chlorine 6.0 x .75 + 0 x .25= 4.5 / 7.0 see note below
note: I knew chlorine would be low so I used the anticipated reading to determine how much chlorine
to add last night after refill was complete. Math tool recommended I add 84 ounces of bleach to hit a target of 7.5.
I added 56 ounces and planned to add the rest after morning testing. Morning read was 7.0.
PH 7.7 x .75 + 7.0 x .25 = 7.5/ 7.7
added 4.8 oz muratic acid this morning to adjust down. retest 4 hours later 7.5.
TA 95 x .75 + 35 x .25= 80 / 80
CYA 90 x .75 + 0 x .25= 67.5/ 65
CH 200x.75 + 0 x .25 = 160/160
Will adjust up to 250 because of the fiberglass spa and equipment
Copper .4 x .75 + 0x .25 = .3/? can't test directly for this but my calcium hardness test
did not require the usual 6 drops of reagent to see my result.
Took sample to pool store this afternoon when I went to replace some of my testing materials. They used a machine to read data. Most of their numbers were fairly close to mine with the exception of my chlorine read.
Figured it may have something to do with my need to use the 2005 kit because I was out of the FAS-DPD titrating reagent and the 40 minutes the sample spent in the car. Bought some more Reagent and ran my test when I got home. My reading was higher than theirs. I used the 2ppm factor and at 27 drops ( 5.4) my solution was still clearly pink. No shift till 28 and it was even brighter at 29.
The sample read out from the pool store was as follows:
free chlorine 5.41
total chlorine 5.41
combined chlorine 0
ph 7.7
Hardness 167
Alkalinity 77
CYA 64
Copper .2
Iron .1 ( never had this before)
Borate 0
Saturation index -0.27
So far, I figure I need to add 39 oz of bleach, 4 oz of acid, 14 lbs of calcium chloride, dump 22% of my water next weekend or wait out the winter with this level. Tonight we will open the valves for the skimmers and the spa , add my needed chlorine and retest in the morning to get a handle on how much more calcium and I need. Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks for crunching the numbers.
If you don't mind, I would like to seek some advice. In may , my calcium hardness was off the page from the EZpool build up. The hardness reading was 600. My cya was 99, my TA was 0, and my ph was 7.0. TDS was 475 and phosphates were 300........thank you EZ pool. My spa developed a leak from the light fixture. Took a couple weeks to get someone in to help fix it. Dumped tons of water and adjusted my numbers a bit at a time and switched pool over to trichlor tabs which then raised my cya level back to 90. Went to straight bleach. Things looked good. Light came loose from its attachment again in July, no signs of leakage, and we had someone come fix it again. Asked the tech if there was water in the light and he said he did not recall any. Is this light safe or should I have them pull it out and put a new one in. There is a lot of staining around where the light sits in the spa wall. Any recommendations?
appreciate the help, lyn