Calcium testing

[Ame]

I have tested my CH shows 0. Tested a few times. Taylor test says shoud be 250-350. I did a calculation and it says to add 438oz. Of calcium chloride. Could that be right? The pool is 4.5 MO Old. My SWCG, was set at 50%, I lowered to 40%. To move my chlorine level lower. My target for chlorine is 5.
My other test results: water temp =78, FC= 8, PH=8.3, TA=170, CYA=75, SALT=4200, CH=0.0

 

[Jimrahbe]

Ame,

An FC of 8 is just fine.. With a target of 5, there is no problem being a little high, which is better than being too low.

You are in AZ so it is hard for me to believe that you do not have CH in your water. Most AZ pools have very high CH..

Let's see if we can get one of our AZ members to chime in... Calling @mknauss

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[mknauss]

I assume they did not fill the pool from a water softener, that would have been very unusual.

Typical CH of fill water in Phoenix is right about 250 ppm as it is Colorado River water.

Check your testing method.

 

[Ame]

I used the tf 100 Taylor test kit. Maybe my reagents are bad/old

 

[mknauss]

What is the age of the reagents? Have they been stored in a climate controlled environment?

 

[Dirk]

As another troubleshooting tip: have someone else test the CH, using the same kit, reading the directions themselves, without you back-seat driving. That might reveal a testing error you're inadvertently doing. It's virtually impossible to get CH-zero water into a pool out of a faucet, just about anywhere in the US, certainly not in the southwest. Did you fill your pool from a faucet? Or was it trucked in? From a well? I don't think you could even fill a pool with a water softener, it would take weeks, as it would have to regenerate several times a day. Or it would bypass hard water into the plumbing until the regeneration was complete, so you'd get some CH just from that. It has to be a testing error.

 

[Ame]

My reagents are from 2013. Only my CH. All other agent's are new. I'll try with new stuff

 

[Dirk]

Mystery solved.