FC is 0, CYA is 0 -- Oops!!

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outplayist

outplayist

0
May 14, 2015
14
New Orleans, LA
We have a 16x32 IG pool with a SWG that has been completed for about a year. I've been letting my husband handle all of the chemistry and maintenance, and come to find out, he hasn't done much. He has been adding salt and acid when needed, but never anything else (he has NEVER, not even once, added stabilizer). It's a large pool that gets 100% sunlight in the heat of Southeast Louisiana and is open year round. Not surprisingly, our FC and CYA are now next to nothing. I've been researching and reading ever since I discovered these issues, and I'm in the process of getting everything where it should be. As of today, salt is 3,000 ppm, PH is 7.8.

My question is this: what do I tackle first? Do I add bleach to bring the chlorine up, then CYA? Do I add CYA and then let the SWG chlorinate? Do I run a "chlorine boost" on the SWG after adding the CYA? I'm obviously very new to all of this, but I'm ready to take the first step towards getting the pool properly balanced. I've ordered a Taylor K-2006 test kit (currently using dip strips and Pentair Rainbow 2-in-1 test kit), and it should be here in a couple of days. I can bring a water sample to a local pool store as soon as tomorrow morning if needed.

Please advise on what my first step should be while I continue to educate myself on proper pool maintenance. Thanks in advance!
 
The SWG will be too slow, get some chlorine in there ASAP. I would not trust CYA reading from test strips or a pool store.

Wait a couple of days until you get your test kit to add CYA. Remember, it's easy to add, difficult to remove.....

Keep testing and "assisting" the SWG with liquid chlorine. The more you use the boost mode the more you shorten the life of the SWG.

How much Pool School have you read? Start with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
 
Welcome to TFP!

Start raising CYA now, but don't raise it all the way at once. CYA is easy to raise, difficult to lower, so sneak up on it in two or three steps, rather than going all the way at once and risk overshooting.

Add 2 ppm of chlorine manually this evening.

As soon as you get your kit, please post a complete set of water test results.
 
Good for you for taking care of the pool the correct way--------TFP and a good test kit.

For right now add bleach each day and brush.

As soon as your test kit gets there let us know and we can run you through the tests.

Don't bother going to the pool store. They will just try to sell you stuff after there "free" test.

Kim
 
Thanks so much everyone! The test kit will be here tomorrow, and we added bleach per poolmath last night. We're up to safe levels of FC and will add stabilizer once the kit gets here.

I don't know how much it's worth, but these are the results we got from the dip strips and current test kit this morning.
image.jpg image.jpg
 
We have plenty of acid and were going to add some this evening once the rain stops. Poolmath says we should add 30 ounces of MA to drop the pH to 7.5, but we regularly add an entire gallon and don't see that much of a change. Thoughts? Should we just add the 30 ounces first and then recheck before adding more?

I can't wait to get my test kit in tomorrow and be able to see where we REALLY are with all this.
 
My guess is that your PH is SOOOOOOOOOO high you have not dropped enough to really test it and know how high it really is.

Test, add, run pump for 30 mins. retest, add, run pump 30 mins. Do and redo until you see it change.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Kim
 

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This is how it went down.

Hubby said he didn't feel comfortable with me handling the acid and that he would take care of it. I explained that we would add 30 ounces per poolmath now and recheck every 30 minutes as needed. He went out there and added the entire bottle anyway, saying that he's added that much before and it's never gotten too low. Well here's where we are now.
image.jpg

Needless to say, he got more than just an "I told you so". Nobody adds chemicals but me from now on. Chlorine has been kept up, pH is the disaster that it is, it's been raining all afternoon and getting worse, so hopefully we'll get a little dilution from that (pH-wise), and unless you all say otherwise, we will be doing NOTHING else to this pool until I can post full test results when my test arrives tomorrow :)
 
The only plus side here is that we have been having a bit of scale buildup on the waterline tiles (really noticable, as they're black tiles), so perhaps this highly acidic water will help to lighten that a bit (I've already ordered 2 cases of pumice stones to remove it manually - just waiting for a couple of free days and a few more hands). But that's another post for another time.
 

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