Calcium high after water softener refill??

[Donna P]

Hi all, my calcium levels were off the charts high, so I drained my fiberglass pool about 60% and replaced it with water directly from a full house water softener. When doing a test of the home water (by itself) all levels are normal; the calcium is about 200. but after refilling the pool, the calcium level didn’t even seem to budge.
Other Numbers before draining were within normal ranges and had been normal all winter

Here are the numbers, after refill:
TCH/FCH- 1 (only using a tablet at that time, but will increase with liquid chlorine)
PH-7.7
ALK-90
CYA- 40
calcium appears to be almost 1000
So why is my pool still so calcium happy??

 

[HermanTX]

Are you saying that the softened water (from the full house water softener) is 200ppm? That should be zero if the water softener is working correctly.
Also, a water softener regenerates after x amount of gallons (mine is set at 3500 gals) so when it hits that usage it goes to a regen that may take a hour or more. At that time the water going through is not be softened. Most regenerations are set up to start in the very early morning hours (when people are sleeping and zero water usage).
Hope this helps.

 

[mknauss]

Are you testing your CH with the reagents from the K2006? How old are the reagents? I find I have to do the metal interference procedure for CH testing to get an accurate result.

Calcium Hardness

A drop-based test that measures the hardness in your water. Once measured, it is used … Read more…

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Donna P]

Hi there, thanks for responding.
I replenished the water softener with salt and ran a regeneration right before I re filled the pool. There’s a water spigot connected to the softener in the garage that I used to refill and in testing the water right from the faucet, the calcium is now very low. Admittedly, I used the stick test, as I’ve found the calcium level has always been pretty much in line with the Taylor level. But my kit is now over a year old.
So you’re saying I need a specific metals test? At this point though, would anything even remedy the issue?

 

[mknauss]

I am sorry, but we cannot give any guidance based on test strips. Get refills for your test kit.

 

[HermanTX]

There’s a water spigot connected to the softener in the garage that I used to refill and in testing the water right from the faucet, the calcium is now very low.

Please post a picture of your water softener inlet system.
Please read the link that Marty provided. You will see the following in the notes with regard to his comment on metal interference

• The sample may turn purple during the test, or go to blue for a moment and then turn back to red/pink. This is called a “fading endpoint” and is caused by interference from metal ions. If this happens, do the test again, but this time add five drops of R-0012 before adding any R-0010 or R-0011L. Remember to count the initial five drops in the total.
  In extreme cases, a fading endpoint may occur even when adding five drops of R-0012 at the start. If that happens, mix pool water with an equal quantity of distilled water, test that, and then multiply the result by two.

 

[Donna P]

Hi there, Attached is the softener set up. Using a 25ml water sample, after 20 drops of R0010 and 5 drops of R0011L, the sample was purple. After 2 drops of R-0012, it was blue. As I already assumed, calcium is within 200-250

 

[mknauss]

Using a 25ml sample, each drop of R0012 is 10 ppm of CH. So the CH is essentially 0.

 

[Kat-A-Tonic]

Are you multiplying the number of R-0012 drops by 10, or by 100 as you did on the softened water?

 

[HermanTX]

Hi there, Attached is the softener set up. Using a 25ml water sample, after 20 drops of R0010 and 5 drops of R0011L, the sample was purple. After 2 drops of R-0012, it was blue. As I already assumed, calcium is within 200-250

This faucet appears to be on the outlet side of the softener. Not critical but do you have a valve on the inlet side that you can turn off water going into your softener? Just for knowledge only not important. But your test for CH yields 20 ppm not 200ppm. When you use 25ml water sample and add 20 drops of R-0010 and 5 drops of R-0011L then your number of drops of R-0012 is multiplied by 10 so with 2 drops it is 20ppm. Basically no calcium so your softener seems to be fine.

 

[Donna P]

Yes, I believe there is an inlet valve up top. If I ever wanted non-softened water, the external spigots are not connected to it. And yes, 20ppm is correct, i think I wrote 200 because I was reading about someone else’s calcium issue and saw 200
So the 40% of water I couldent drain must have a HUGE amount of calcium to corrupt the fresh 60% , and I’ll just have to live with it, I guess. The water is crystal clear, though, and everything else is perfectly balanced.