High Calcium with TF Test Kit

[cobra46]

Hi All,

I just received my TF Test Kit and my first test revealed a troubling result. First my pool has only had water in it for about 45 days.

Up until now I have been using a HTH 6 Way test kit and at first had good test numbers. As I had posted in another post, I started having trouble with my hardness test. After adding the indicator drops the water turned yellow. If I titrated it out anyway I got the same result (CH=280) as when the color was normal. I didn't worry too much about this situation because I knew mew new test kit was coming.

My first set of numbers using the TF Test Kit

FC 6.5
pH 7.4
TA 160 (I have been running my waterfall a lot to try and decrease this)
CH 470
CYA 45 (I am slowly increasing this up to 75)
Temp 79

My TA had been slowly trending down from 120 down to 100 with the HTH. I didn't using both test kits on the same day.

My tap water has a CH of 30. I have heard of calcuim leeching out of the plaster. Should I be concerned about my CH level? Will it slowly decrease as water gets splashed out and the auto fill fills it back up. Should I do a partial water change?


Thanks

Kevin

 

[JasonLion]

While your CH level is a little high, it isn't a serious problem right away. Just keep your PH below 7.6 until you can get the TA level down to a more reasonable number and you will be fine.

Fresh plaster will increase the PH, TA, and CH levels in the water fairly rapidly for the first three or four weeks. Presumably that is how your CH got so high.

There is also a possibility that there has been some kind of testing error. If the TF-100 numbers remain the same the next time you test then I would believe the TF-100 numbers over the HTH numbers.

 

[duraleigh]

Kevin,

It's never a bad idea to back up the TF-100 test with a second result (like from a pool store you trust) but, generally speaking, the CH test has been pretty reliable based on feedback here on the forum.

As Jason said, you're okay as long as you keep your pH down.