Background on the pool - it's old and the plaster is going in various places, but I'm hoping to get another season or two out of it (I've been saying that for years). We purchased the house in 2008 and at that time the guy at Leslie's was telling me our levels were high and that we should replace the water. Haven't done that (just added for evaporation over the years), and up until the end of last summer I had a pool guy. He moved, I decided I'd finally try to mange it myself.
Stupidly, over the winter months I kept adding chlorine tablets to the pool. When I finally decided to test the cholorine it was a very DEEP orange - way off the charts. Until last weekend I hadn't added any chlorine for a number of weeks (hoping it would burn off) and I was able to get it down to the 5-10 Cl Br color chart and it's in the 7.8 range on pH. That said, I'm still getting patches of algae on some of the walls, so just today I kicked up the pump to turn the water 3x / day.
Levels were as follow:
Cl Br: 5-10 range
pH: 7.8
FC: 12.5 ppm (25 drops x .5)
CC: .5 ppm (1 drop x .5)
TC: 13 ppm
CH: 1125 ppm (45 drops x 25)
TA: 170 (17 drops)
CYA: 60ish (I say ish because the tube leaks and I can't get a good reading...I need to seal the bottom w/ some epoxy or something later.
So - clearly a lot of readings that aren't great, but given the drought I'd prefer not to do a major drain until I remodel (unless I'm harming people in the pool).
I'll continue to do some research, but would love some guidance on how to improve things. Right now the only chemicals I have are chlorine pucks from Home Depot and the TFP test kit, so I'm essentially starting from scratch.
Thanks for the help.
Derek
Stupidly, over the winter months I kept adding chlorine tablets to the pool. When I finally decided to test the cholorine it was a very DEEP orange - way off the charts. Until last weekend I hadn't added any chlorine for a number of weeks (hoping it would burn off) and I was able to get it down to the 5-10 Cl Br color chart and it's in the 7.8 range on pH. That said, I'm still getting patches of algae on some of the walls, so just today I kicked up the pump to turn the water 3x / day.
Levels were as follow:
Cl Br: 5-10 range
pH: 7.8
FC: 12.5 ppm (25 drops x .5)
CC: .5 ppm (1 drop x .5)
TC: 13 ppm
CH: 1125 ppm (45 drops x 25)
TA: 170 (17 drops)
CYA: 60ish (I say ish because the tube leaks and I can't get a good reading...I need to seal the bottom w/ some epoxy or something later.
So - clearly a lot of readings that aren't great, but given the drought I'd prefer not to do a major drain until I remodel (unless I'm harming people in the pool).
I'll continue to do some research, but would love some guidance on how to improve things. Right now the only chemicals I have are chlorine pucks from Home Depot and the TFP test kit, so I'm essentially starting from scratch.
Thanks for the help.
Derek