Anyone in Surprise Az? CH question

[kmoore392]

I just drained half my pool because of CYA being to high. When I check for calcium hardness it’s telling me I’m at 150. I want to bring it up but am hesitant because of AZ being notorious for having hard water. I check the fill water and it comes out to 25ppm. Is there anyone in Surprise that has tested their fill water? Should I raise my CH or just run a higher PH to keep the CSI in a more comfortable range?

 

[spoonman]

I’m in Peoria and the fill water is in the 300 range. My CH is at 1425 and I’m trying to manage it before it eventually needs to be drained.

 

[triptyx]

Please retest your fill water (can also make sure you're not trying to fill the pool from a water softener line). Most of southern AZ has fill water at or exceeding 250ppm.

 

[duraleigh]

Yeah, I'll bet your filling from softened water........actually, that can be a very good thing. Bypass your softener until you reach about 300 and then use the softened water to maintain that level.

 

[kmoore392]

Unfortunately there is no softener at my house. But I did look up an annual water report for Surprise. It’s showing in 2016 that calcium hardness tested at 35-37 ppm. I know the water comes from a company called Epcor.. so maybe it’s softened in their processing?

 

[triptyx]

Today I learned that Surprise has low CH water. Very interesting! I wonder if they are on pure aquifer or perhaps avoided integration of CAP water into their water system? Good find!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Today I learned that Surprise has low CH water. Very interesting! I wonder if they are on pure aquifer or perhaps avoided integration of CAP water into their water system? Good find!

SURPRISE!!! You have soft water...

I love the name of that City!! And they're home to spring training camp for several ball clubs. Beautiful stadium and park there.

You are very, very, very, very blessed to have that kind of water. When I get my quarterly water report from Tucson water and I see the CH listed at 250ppm, I'm doing a happy dance of joy!! Hard western water is terrible for everything - people, pools, landscape plantings, household equipment, faucets & fixtures, block walls, etc, etc.

 

[kmoore392]

I can’t believe it myself! But at least I know I’m not going crazy when checking my CH haha!

So where should I set the CH at? I’ve got it up to 175 at this time. I was adding very small amounts calcium chloride to get it to that amount.

 

[triptyx]

Recommended levels are 250-350ppm. I might start it at 250ppm and see what happens. We have a lot of evaporation here, so I'm curious if it will still go up over the season, or whether the amount you splash out while swimming will keep it mostly in check.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

How are you chlorinating the pool?

Is the pool covered?

 

[kmoore392]

How are you chlorinating the pool?

Is the pool covered?

Just the 10% liquid chlorine from Walmart, no cover.

 

[kmoore392]

Recommended levels are 250-350ppm. I might start it at 250ppm and see what happens. We have a lot of evaporation here, so I'm curious if it will still go up over the season, or whether the amount you splash out while swimming will keep it mostly in check.

That’s what I was thinking.. I’m not savvy enough with this pool yet to figure out whether it will go up over the season or not. So why not set it at the lowest and see what happens.
I really hope I can get the white ring around the tiles to go away if I have the CSI in check. I didn’t do much of anything over the winter with the pool.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I would say that you could get your water up to 200ppm CH and then stop. There’s a small enough calcium load from the fill water and evaporation that it will increase year over year. If you want to chlorinate with cal-hypo for a while (pre-dilute in a bucket of water) then you can figure that every 10ppm FC added with cal-hypo will add 6ppm CH. so that would mean you could add as much as 40ppm FC to build up another 25ppm CH. I would suspect that would be about 20 days or so worth of chlorination.

Up to you.

 

[kmoore392]

I would say that you could get your water up to 200ppm CH and then stop. There’s a small enough calcium load from the fill water and evaporation that it will increase year over year. If you want to chlorinate with cal-hypo for a while (pre-dilute in a bucket of water) then you can figure that every 10ppm FC added with cal-hypo will add 6ppm CH. so that would mean you could add as much as 40ppm FC to build up another 25ppm CH. I would suspect that would be about 20 days or so worth of chlorination.

Up to you.

That’s not a bad idea either..I’ll look for some cal-hypo this weekend. Thanks!

 

[TiredOfWorking]

I live in southern Surprise. My fill water had 200ppm CH last week.

 

[kmoore392]

I live in southern Surprise. My fill water had 200ppm CH last week.

I just now tested mine again and it came out to 25ppm. Different water sources maybe?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I just now tested mine again and it came out to 25ppm. Different water sources maybe?

Are you sure your pool fill line isn’t hooked up to water softener? That would explain your unusually low CH.

 

[kmoore392]

Are you sure your pool fill line isn’t hooked up to water softener? That would explain your unusually low CH.

I’ve lived in this house for 4 years.. have yet to run into and type of softener anywhere.

I just bought some CH standard solution from tftestkits and will test with that just to verify I am doing the test correctly.

However my tests have been consistent while slowly raising CH. I’ve been raising it by 25ppm at a time and it matches my test results when I check it a week later.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

That would be very odd that you’d have such different water in the same municipal district. I suppose if someone had their own well and someone was on municipal water, then you’d see a difference. But a 10X change in CH from the same water supplier doesn’t make any sense.

 

[kmoore392]

That would be very odd that you’d have such different water in the same municipal district. I suppose if someone had their own well and someone was on municipal water, then you’d see a difference. But a 10X change in CH from the same water supplier doesn’t make any sense.

It does seem odd.. but I looked on the City of Surprise website and see the report. It’s a different one than I posted before but still shows in the range that I am getting on my tests. I’ll test the standard solution from tftestkits and post the results, although I don’t think I can be that far off if I keep getting the same results.