I'm planning to resurface my ~20-year-old in-ground plaster pool with Aquabright. I'll have glass waterline tile and Aquabright below the tile and an automatic cover that will mostly stay closed. I have an SWG that I plan to keep using. I have two questions: what's the desired chemistry, and should I do anything special with the grout?
Aquabright's maintenance instructions say to have CH 200-400 and TA 120-150. It also suggests using trichlor and MPS to maintain the pool. All of this seems somewhat dubious. My intuition is to add no Calcium (which will give very low CH, since we have very soft fill water), to keep TA around 60-80, CYA around 50 (which I've done for a few years with perfectly fine results), and to add a bit of borate if the pH seems like it fluctuates more than I like. And I'm not about to start using MPS or trichlor! The only downsides I can see is that this might cause warranty issues if they're feeling grouchy and that it could plausibly damage the grout around the waterline tile. The benefits are that I imagine that the SWG and the tile will accumulate less scale than it would if I added that 200-400 ppm of CH and that the low TA will keep pH more stable.
I'm not terribly concerned about the water damaging the pool heater, even though the pool guy assures me that it would be a terribly idea to have low CH.
Is there any reason to do something different? Is there a more stable grout formulation I can use that will resist etching by the soft water?
Aquabright's maintenance instructions say to have CH 200-400 and TA 120-150. It also suggests using trichlor and MPS to maintain the pool. All of this seems somewhat dubious. My intuition is to add no Calcium (which will give very low CH, since we have very soft fill water), to keep TA around 60-80, CYA around 50 (which I've done for a few years with perfectly fine results), and to add a bit of borate if the pH seems like it fluctuates more than I like. And I'm not about to start using MPS or trichlor! The only downsides I can see is that this might cause warranty issues if they're feeling grouchy and that it could plausibly damage the grout around the waterline tile. The benefits are that I imagine that the SWG and the tile will accumulate less scale than it would if I added that 200-400 ppm of CH and that the low TA will keep pH more stable.
I'm not terribly concerned about the water damaging the pool heater, even though the pool guy assures me that it would be a terribly idea to have low CH.
Is there any reason to do something different? Is there a more stable grout formulation I can use that will resist etching by the soft water?
