High CYA

[pooldv]

No catch. We just love our clear clean pools and want to share.

Your CYA is high. But we knew it would be with using pucks. You are going to need to drain about half the water and refill to get it in the 50 range. Which is still on the high end of the 30-50 in the Recommended Levels.

Are you in an area with a high water table? Or concern about floating the pool? If so, you might want to drain a third and refill and then a third again.

After that test again and we'll go from there.

Were ya'll swimming in 65* water last weekend? Sheesh! Brrrrr!

 

[rbmckenz13]

I don't think we have high water tables. I'll check. Kiddos were swimming. Crazy. Gotta love em. Thanks. I'll do drain and refill this week and test again.

 

[kimkats]

You are getting it! Tim has you covered!

Did the kids come up shivering, lips blue saying "I'm not cold" while swimming? LOL

Kim

 

[tim5055]

Thanks again Tim. Really impressed with the responsiveness of this forum! What's the catch?

Here are my test results and comments. Next steps please.

Raining now. Water temp 65f. Water clear. Pump running 24/7.

FC 6
CC 1. Very mild pink color.
pH 7.8. Didn't do acid demand test.
TA 140. Pinkish. Never went super red.
CH. 0. No change to red. Blue stayed at bottom of solution.
CYA. 100. Used dilution technique. Non diluted method showed > 100.

Pool is looking nice but would like a little more sparkle.

Thanks TFP!

Ryan

You will get that sparkle!

Numbers don't look that bad. The first hing you need to do is get the chlorine up. With 100 CYA you should never be below 7 and target 12. Don't let friends or pool stores tell you that is crazy - it's not. For a while I had to run FC close to 20 due to high CYA.

You can probably return that baking soda, you probably won't need it for a long time. Or, tear one open & put it in the refrigerator to make is smell nice.

When conducting tests keep adding drops until any color change stops. Stop adding drops when the last drop you used caused no change whatsoever. Discard that last drop from your count.

What is your water source? Well, city water, something else? In a perfect world you really should get your CYA down to 50 or below. You can do that in a big water exchange or in little increments or something in between, Just know that any product that has CYA in it is out of your pool's diet for now. No tabs, no shock; none.

Here is your recommended levels for a plaster poo lusing bleach:

FC depends on CYA
pH 7.5-7.8
TA 70-90+
CH 250-350
CYA 30-50

See the big differenct with your numbers? It's your CH you need to add some to protect that pool surface. From Pool School:

You increase CH with calcium chloride, sold as a deicer and by pool stores, or calcium chloride dihydrate, sold by pools stores for increasing calcium.

For this skip the big box stores and check out Southern States or other farm stores who may have left over deicer sitting on a pallet in the back. If you must the big box stores or pool stores sell CH Up product.

 

[tim5055]

In your signature you say "Dolphin cleaning robot (intermittent, would like something better)". Most of the Maytronics units are great, what is wrong with yours?

If you have a little mechanical ability check out Marina Pool & Spa out of Denver. They are a Maytronics dealer and are willing to work with folks wanting to fix their units. They stock a lot of parts and are great on the phone.

 

[rbmckenz13]

Thanks Tim. While draining the pool I couldn't close off the 2 skimmer Jandy valves. Lost the prime on the pump. Stopped pump until I can figure out how to close those sticky valves. Grrrr. Love learning new things!

 

[rbmckenz13]

Proud of myself. I took the face plates off all of my suction Jandy valves to get a feel for which way the handle needed to be for the valves to be open/closed. Lubed up the seals a bit, put em back on in the proper direction (all valves off except for main drain) and it's back to draining like a champ. woo hoo! face your fear and it disappears.

- - - Updated - - -

water source is city water.

 

[rbmckenz13]

In your signature you say "Dolphin cleaning robot (intermittent, would like something better)". Most of the Maytronics units are great, what is wrong with yours?

If you have a little mechanical ability check out Marina Pool & Spa out of Denver. They are a Maytronics dealer and are willing to work with folks wanting to fix their units. They stock a lot of parts and are great on the phone.

My Dolphin, on occasion (maybe 50% of the time), will start up, run 5 feet 1 direction, 5 feet the other, then stop. I'll have to stop/wait/re-start multiple times to get it to operate normally, which then it will run the entire cycle and do a pretty good job, although it does occasionally miss some pretty significant spots of the pool bottom. i'm thinking the unit is probably 7 years old.

 

[pooldv]

Proud of myself. I took the face plates off all of my suction Jandy valves to get a feel for which way the handle needed to be for the valves to be open/closed. Lubed up the seals a bit, put em back on in the proper direction (all valves off except for main drain) and it's back to draining like a champ. woo hoo! face your fear and it disappears.

- - - Updated - - -

water source is city water.

Good work! Way to dig in and make it better.

 

[rbmckenz13]

OK. I drained 50% of the pool and filled it up. Water is clear and it is warming up in Tulsa, OK!

Here are my test results:
FC 0
CC <1, can CC exist without any FC?
pH 7.9, acid demand test needed 1 drop to get to 7.6, 2 drops to 7.4
TA 130
CH, sample didn't turn red, couldn't get it to turn blue, i guess I'm at 0. is that odd after refilling 1/2 of pool?
CYA 55 (woohoo! killed the high CYA with the draining!)

I'm going to plug this into Pool Math and see what I need to add. Any advice?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[pooldv]

Good job getting the CYA down!

Put chlorine/bleach in there pronto! Round up to CYA 60 for this chart, Chlorine CYA Chart. Which says that your minimum chlorine level is 5. Never let your FC drop below 5 or algae will start to grow. It also says to target FC of 7, so try to keep your FC at 7 at all times. If anything aim a little higher, not lower.

Ta is a little high, not an emergency, but you can lower it gradually per this, http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/129-how-to-lower-lowering-total-alkalinity

CH can't be right, but is not a critical number today, it can be retested and worked on in the coming days/weeks.

Ph needs to be reduced to 7.4-7.6. It will likely tend to rise because your TA is high. Waterfalls and aeration will cause PH to rise faster. It is important to keep it under 8.

Have you read this, Recommended Pool Chemicals and Recommended Levels?

Order of importance
FC #1 by far
PH also important

How do you plan to chlorinate your pool going forward? How to Chlorinate Your Pool

Good work so far! Now the Pool School and sparkly pool begins!

 

[rbmckenz13]

So am I SLAM'ing now? Thx Pooldv! Chlorinating w bleach 8.5%. I have read the 2 articles and need to read again as well as the TA article.

 

[pooldv]

If your water is clear and the pool isn't using more than 2-3ppm of chlorine per day then no need to slam. Yeah, I had to read all that 30 or 40 times before I figured it out!

 

[rbmckenz13]

daily testing. how much Chlorine?

Under normal clean operating conditions, how much bleach will I be adding each day?

(EDIT: Please keep your posts together as much as possible. I have merged this one with the rest of your thread - Duraleigh)

 

[duraleigh]

Re: daily testing. how much Chlorine?

Lot's of variables, most important of which is your CYA.

Most properly balanced pool use 2-3 ppm daily.

 

[rbmckenz13]

How do I do the math to figure out how much bleach equals 2 ppm?

 

[n240sxguy]

Click on the poolmath link. You can figure it there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kimkats]

Here is a link to the pool math. It is easy to use. It is something every pool owner needs to learn to use.

http://poolcalculator.com/?utm_sour...om&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=redirect/

Kim

 

[pooldv]

That link is poolcalculator.com.

Here is a link to PoolMath on TFP. There is also a button up there ^^^.

 

[rbmckenz13]

i knew about the Pool Math calculator, but I remember reading somewhere on the site how to calculate how much bleach equaled X ppm......i suppose I can just rely on the calculator, but i think i'll probably try and hunt down the actual formula so i can just know it...........thanks for the replies.