Calcium hardness

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Camarotjf

Member
Apr 5, 2022
11
Fontana Ca
Pool Size
12000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
How quickly will your CH rise? I live in hot sunny southern California and our house has hard water. My CH is 175 and my CSI value is -0.08. Im being told not to add anything to bring it up because it will rise on its own due to evaporation and before you know it it will be high. Thanks!
 
Hello. We'd need more info about your pool to better answer that. Is it Plaster? or Vinyl? Or Fiberglass?

What are your other readings? Especially pH and TA? A CSI of -.08 is good, no real cause for concern there.

Do you know the CH of your fill/auto-fill water? If you're not sure, can you test your fill water and report back?

(Also how are you testing, strips? Or a real kit like a TF-100, Taylor 2006, etc.?)
 
Im being told not to add anything to bring it up because it will rise on its own due to evaporation and before you know it it will be high. Thanks!
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That is correct.........follow it. How fast it rises will depend on the CH of your fill water

Add your city and state for more refined advice.
 
jesse-99 said:
Hello. We'd need more info about your pool to better answer that. Is it Plaster? or Vinyl? Or Fiberglass?

What are your other readings? Especially pH and TA? A CSI of -.08 is good, no real cause for concern there.

Do you know the CH of your fill/auto-fill water? If you're not sure, can you test your fill water and report back?

(Also how are you testing, strips? Or a real kit like a TF-100, Taylor 2006, etc.?)
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I'm using the TF pro kit. I just tested the water from my sink and it's only 125 CH so maybe I do need to add something. Here are my readings from today and I have already adjusted cya and ph after I took these readings. It's a small pebble tech about 12000 gallon pool
 

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What is your evaporation rate? How much water are you adding to your pool over the last month?
 
A CH of 125 in your tap is good. You can probably go several months before your CH gets outside of our suggested Range.

With lots of variables, I think you can probably go the swim season with no CH problems. That said, your 13 inches of rain in Fontana will not provide you with much relief.

I would test CH punctually every 30 days. When you get to about 500 or so, it will be a good idea to take some action.
 
duraleigh said:
A CH of 125 in your tap is good. You can probably go several months before your CH gets outside of our suggested Range.

With lots of variables, I think you can probably go the swim season with no CH problems. That said, your 13 inches of rain in Fontana will not provide you with much relief.

I would test CH punctually every 30 days. When you get to about 500 or so, it will be a good idea to take some action.
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I don't know the evaporation rate because I have an auto fill. My pebble tech pool is currently 175 CH. So you are saying the CH will rise even though the tap is only 125 CH and not to add anything to adjust it to 200 CH? Is that correct?
 
Camarotjf said:
So you are saying the CH will rise even though the tap is only 125 CH and not to add anything to adjust it to 200 CH? Is that correct?
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Correct. The CH you have in the pool water stays. You add fill water and the CH rises.
For instance - I evaporate right at 2 full pool volumes in about 16 months. My fill water CH is 250 ppm (Colorado River water) and thus my CH will be 750 ppm (give or take) in about 16 months. I now have a water softener just for my pool water. It reduce that CH rise dramatically.
 

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Your area sees about 70-80” of evaporation per year. So you likely will evaporate an entire pool full of water or more in any given year. That means your CH will increase at a rate of 125ppm/year.

Don’t add any calcium.
 
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mknauss said:
Correct. The CH you have in the pool water stays. You add fill water and the CH rises.
For instance - I evaporate right at 2 full pool volumes in about 16 months. My fill water CH is 250 ppm (Colorado River water) and thus my CH will be 750 ppm (give or take) in about 16 months. I now have a water softener just for my pool water. It reduce that CH rise dramatically.
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You are awesome! Thanks for your help!
 
Just one more mention.. Your CH will rise somewhat quicker (due to your auto-fill) -if- you have pool leaks (not talking evap here). But as others have said, you're really G2G already since the CH rise will be really slow.

JoyfulNoise said:
So you likely will evaporate an entire pool full of water or more in any given year. That means your CH will increase at a rate of 125ppm/year.
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That's a good way to look at it, if you evaporate an entire pool's worth in a year, your CH will go out the amount of CH that your auto-fill tests at. I never thought of it that way, great tip! @JoyfulNoise
 
Hey Cam

I live down a few minutes from you. My tap water CH is also 125. Before I added a softener to my fill line, I typically saw my CH level increase 30%-40% over the course of the season. I would resist the urge to increase CH. Keep CSI on the negative side. My CVWD water has a TA of 130, which pushes TA and pH up as evaporation increases. This means I need to be vigilant in testing and adjusting pH. With the lower CH level, you can run TA and pH a bit higher for now. If you find it difficult to manage the ever-increasing CH levels, consider connecting the fill line to a water softener.

Best wishes!
 
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Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
Hey Cam

I live down a few minutes from you. My tap water CH is also 125. Before I added a softener to my fill line, I typically saw my CH level increase 30%-40% over the course of the season. I would resist the urge to increase CH. Keep CSI on the negative side. My CVWD water has a TA of 130, which pushes TA and pH up as evaporation increases. This means I need to be vigilant in testing and adjusting pH. With the lower CH level, you can run TA and pH a bit higher for now. If you find it difficult to manage the ever-increasing CH levels, consider connecting the fill line to a water softener.

Best wishes!
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I was playing with the app and it looks like if I keep ph on the higher end 7.8 or so until the calcium comes up that will keep my csi in check which should keep my pool from eroding/ etching. Am I understanding this correctly? I have been considering a whole house filtration but I'll deal with that later. LOL
 
mknauss said:
Correct. The CH you have in the pool water stays. You add fill water and the CH rises.
For instance - I evaporate right at 2 full pool volumes in about 16 months. My fill water CH is 250 ppm (Colorado River water) and thus my CH will be 750 ppm (give or take) in about 16 months. I now have a water softener just for my pool water. It reduce that CH rise dramatically.
Click to expand...
Marty...where can one find average evaporation rates for a given area? Maybe I'm not researching with the right query.
 
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