Bushfire and pH

[yann]

Hi all

Getting lots of ashes and burnt debris from surrounding fire fronts.

I've noticed my pH kept going up much faster than usual and TA >120 when it usually sits around 70-80.

Is this due to copious amounts of ashes falling in the pool?

Any special treatment besides monitoring pH and TA and bringing TA back down to normal levels?

Thanks

By the way, I hope everyone safe from the terrible bushfires affecting the east and now south coasts of Australia.

Cheers

 

[AUSpool]

Hi Yann,
the ash itself is mostly inorganic but there’s likely a lot of unburnt organics, dust and dirt with it. The partially burnt debris is the same as leaves and debris from a storm. You’ll need to keep that out as best you can. Check and clean out the skimmer a little more often and keep an eye your filter pressure. I would test your FC a bit more frequent and adjust with liquid chlorine as needed. You’ll have to work on the TA and check your CH as it may creep up also.

Stay safe.

 

[imagineero]

Hi Yann,
Hope you’re staying safe, a terrible time for people living so close to danger. I lived in the mountains for many years, but now living in Cherrybrook. We’ve been getting very fine ash/soot in our pool almost daily, very heavy amounts of it on the days when the wind carries the Gosper mountain fire smoke into Sydney as thick as fog in some cases.

The ash isn’t very obvious during the day, but if I go out at night and shine a torch across the pool sideways, it’s incredible the amount of particulate on the surface. The very dry weather and severe winds haven’t helped either. The drought, heat waves, heavy wind and water restrictions have turned every lawn in Sydney brown. I tried increasing the run time of the filter, which helped a little.... but didn’t solve the problem. The fines just ended up on the floor of the pool and vacuuming just put them through the filter and back into the pool again.

The solution that worked for me was adding some DE to the skimmer basket. It sits on top of the sand in the sand filter and catches all the fine stuff. Our filter is an S600 and I found roughly 3 coffee cup fulls was enough. People generally add enough to make their filter pressure increase by 1 psi. DE is a little hard to find in Australia for some reason, and is sold under lots of different names. Bunnings doesn’t have it and most pool stores don’t carry it. You can get it online, I found it in a pool store in Gordon after ringing around. You have to get the stuff for pools, not the food grade stuff that is sold for consumption and gardening. I got a big bag of it for under $30 which will probably be enough for a couple of years.

 

[mooseau]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I've had no end of problems with my pool as of late and about 3 weeks ago my pool went cloudy. I tried SLAM, but that didn't work. I tried floc and vacuum. That improved the shallow end for about 6 hours, but all went back to cloudy shortly thereafter.

I've always wondered if it was algea or just that my sand filter and jetvac robot weren't catching the particles. My work colleagues don't have this problem but they have fancier robots. Thinking logically, what has changed is the bushfires and that my pool can't filter this out.

So reading this gives me hope I can solve this. I located a shop nearby that carries DE and going to give this a try.

 

[AUSpool]

Hi moose and welcome to TFP,

Adding one to two cups of DE will improve the performance of a sand filter which without any of your info in your signature is just a guess. If you add DE watch your filter pressure and although it’s a balancing act try to avoid backwashing to soon or often.

There are very few conditions that cause cloudiness, onset of algae is by far the most common. To be sure the only way start diagnosing your issues is from reliable test results. To that end kits from CCL are our best option.

 

[mooseau]

Fortunately the shop didn't have any. Because I got home, cracked open my new ClearChoice kit, and realised my CC is high. So what I must have is mustard algea. I've slammed the pool tonight and will check levels in the morning.

Current stats:
Temp: 27
FC: 24.0
CC: 1.0
PH: 7.2
TA: 60
CH: 440
CYA: 50
Salt: 5300
LSI: -0.33

I'm aware my Calcium is high. You can guess why. But I think there is a problem with the ClearChoice CA test. It said my levels were 550. Because I pool shop tested hours earlier, that wasn't right. I tested one of the test samples and it was 250. So the CA test is reporting about 25% higher. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but odd both tests were equally inaccurate. All other tests came close to pool shop numbers. Anyway, can't do anything about it whilst under water restrictions.

Any advice on this so far?

 

[AUSpool]

A SLAM Process is not a one off addition, you must continue at slam level for your CYA until you pass the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test.



With a SWG I would question your pH unless you’ve adjusted it down for the slam.

I assume you mean you got a CH result of 250ppm when testing the 200ppm CH standard solution. Did you do your own testing at slam level?

There have been reports of fine dust and ash. From the look of your water I would say you had the beginning of a standard algae bloom rather than mustard algae. Dead algae cells will leave a dust like deposit that needs to be filtered out. I would vacuum and filter before brushing. If it is not being completely captured by the filter try some pool grade DE. It can be hard to find so call around and when you find it you will need to buy a life time supply.

 

[mooseau]

Thanks. Yes, I'm following slam. Lots of milky backwash, lots of this dust every couple of hours. I'm sweeping every two hours, run robot vacuum every 4 hours and backwash every 4 hours. Did first OCLT and lost 2.5ppm and CC is 1.0

Normally my PH isn't this low. I did it for SLAm. Yes, all tests done myself prior to SLAm, so high CL wasn't a factor in the initial tests. I'll email Clear Choice. Not a big deal, I can compensate, but for the price, I'd expect near perfect numbers.

Glad this mightn't be mutard algea as I'll need even more CL.

Good to see Aussies on this forum.

 

[AUSpool]

Normally I would trust your testing over store testing. I’m not completely sure what’s going on with your CH test. Calcium in the standard solution is very stable and not likely to change but it could have been supplied as a high concentration batch. Another possibility is not enough of the reagent 2 or reagent 2 may have a low concentration. Reagent 2 is hydroxide and is used to raise the sample pH so the test only reads calcium. If the pH isn’t raised enough the test will measure total hardness buy measuring the magnesium as well as the calcium.

 

[mooseau]

Maybe the PH is too low and impacts the test? Makes little sense because I used the standard test which I expect would be PH balanced. Yes, I would normally trust this over the pool shop tests, particularly CA because it has fluctuated in the past. Their response was because they alternate between different machines. But that the standard solution is also high and in the same proportion leads me to believe something with the reagents it isn't correct. Or the sticker is off (which doesn't appear to be). Of course, I could be doing something wrong, as this is the first time I've used this test. It's just that I spend about an hour trying the other tests, and their results were in line with the pool shop test results.

I won't stress about it. I know it's too high and I know I need to let it drop. That's the purpose of the standard tests to calibrate in the unlikely event there is doubt.

With the hot weather, I expect more CL loss. Already in 6 hours, it dropped 2PPM. And backwash is just a milky mess. Which I assume is good.

In any case, Happy 'Sraya day and thanks for your support!