Calcium incresed from 250ppm to 450ppm within a few days

[iggy]

Hi All.

New Pool filled Jan 2008.
I thought I had my new pool under contol the past 6 months but we had a major change in my calcium lelevs increasing from 250ppm for the past 6 months to 450ppm in the past week.

The only thing that happened was a rain that added about 1" of water in the pool and I added one packet of Leslie's shockit with the orange strip call ChlorBrite.

The weird thiung is that any liquid test I do or the store we get 450 ppm. I use the strips it shows 250ppm. I just did a liquid test a few minutes ago and it was 450ppm and I made sure I mixed well between drops and still came up with 450ppm. Stuck in a fresh strip and it showed 250 PPM.

I plan on taking my water to 2 differnt pool stores today to see what they come up with.

FC 5
TC 5
pH 7.6
Alk 80
CYA 70

 

[JasonLion]

There are various ways to do the CH test wrong, but if you have had it for a while and were getting good numbers before it seems unlikely that you are doing it wrong. The reagents can go bad, though that usually only happens if they get very hot. Periods of extremely low PH can leach calcium out of the pool walls.

 

[iggy]

Thanks JasonLion for your thoughts.
Yes I have been testing for awhile and know my numbers.
The test kit
My pH is usually been 7.4 - 7.8 and I check it often but you mentioned that leeching which may be possible as the pool is only 6 months old. It also could be that my city water which is hooked up to my automatic fill could have increased hardness since I filled. I will keep you posted.