I'm new to the board and am renting a house with a pool. I'm trying to learn how to take care of it so I've done lots of reading here. (great site by the way) I've been using test strips, but think I'm going to buy a kit. From my previous post, I mentioned that my CYA was testing really high. I was trying to figure out what to do, so I went to the pool store. Of course, I walked out still confused and with $150 in products.
Here are the numbers for his test followed by the numbers for the test strips I did at home. I was surpised to see the numbers were very different for CYA and FC
CYA 40 mine: 150+
TC 1.0 mine: 1
FC 1.5 mine: 10
PH 7.2 mine: 7.2
TA 114 mine:120
Calcium Hardness 100 mine: 100
I mentioned to him that I had been using AquaChem test strips and that I had a much higher CYA. He then told me that it was really around 80 and nothing to worry about and he had put down 40 because that was ideal and it's no big deal for it to be 80. I asked him about the relationship of CYA to FC and he went on to say that 1.5 was just where I need to be. We talked about preventing problems and he sold me something to increase the calcium hardness (25 lbs) and some algecide 60%. He told me to put one bottle of the calcium stuff in each day for 5 days, put in 1/4 bottle of the algecide now and then put a does in 1x per month (in the summer 2x per month) and said to go ahead and adjust the TA with the 5 lbs I had already bought by putting in 1/2 today and 1/2 tomorrow and to supercholrinate/shock the pool (already had some shock plus) and to do this on the same shedule as the algecide. He said I would need to use probably 2-3 skimmer sticks (the previous owner left some) per week during this time of year and through most of the winter. He also said to still run my pump 8 hrs. each day during the day, not at night and when the temp got consistently cool, I could cut the pump off completely unless it was going to be below freezing then I would need to run the pump over night.
So, now I've spent a couple of hours reading and trying to figure out what to do. Any advise? Should I dive in to BBB? Why would my strips ready high on CYA and his test didn't?
TIA,
Pam
22,000 gallon IG vinyl pool
Here are the numbers for his test followed by the numbers for the test strips I did at home. I was surpised to see the numbers were very different for CYA and FC
CYA 40 mine: 150+
TC 1.0 mine: 1
FC 1.5 mine: 10
PH 7.2 mine: 7.2
TA 114 mine:120
Calcium Hardness 100 mine: 100
I mentioned to him that I had been using AquaChem test strips and that I had a much higher CYA. He then told me that it was really around 80 and nothing to worry about and he had put down 40 because that was ideal and it's no big deal for it to be 80. I asked him about the relationship of CYA to FC and he went on to say that 1.5 was just where I need to be. We talked about preventing problems and he sold me something to increase the calcium hardness (25 lbs) and some algecide 60%. He told me to put one bottle of the calcium stuff in each day for 5 days, put in 1/4 bottle of the algecide now and then put a does in 1x per month (in the summer 2x per month) and said to go ahead and adjust the TA with the 5 lbs I had already bought by putting in 1/2 today and 1/2 tomorrow and to supercholrinate/shock the pool (already had some shock plus) and to do this on the same shedule as the algecide. He said I would need to use probably 2-3 skimmer sticks (the previous owner left some) per week during this time of year and through most of the winter. He also said to still run my pump 8 hrs. each day during the day, not at night and when the temp got consistently cool, I could cut the pump off completely unless it was going to be below freezing then I would need to run the pump over night.
So, now I've spent a couple of hours reading and trying to figure out what to do. Any advise? Should I dive in to BBB? Why would my strips ready high on CYA and his test didn't?
TIA,
Pam
22,000 gallon IG vinyl pool