Complete beginner, have the test kit, pool is open, now what?

[poolshrinker]

I have the Pool school book, and read it but a little overwhelmed. I also have the TF100 test kit, which just arrived this week.

First dumb question: what do I collect the water in? Just a glass jar, plastic cup, bucket???

I had the pool folks open the pool this year as they had some other stuff to do (install stairs, etc). The water was not green or anything, but had rainwater and dirt from the last 6 months. They vacuumed and scrubbed the sides.

They did the initial water analysis 5 days ago and report the following:

FAC: 0
TC: 0
CC: 0
PH: 7.8
Total Alk: 81
Calcium Hardness: 125
CYA: 9

“Water Blance Recommendations:

• PH is high - add 2.75 lb of GLB pH Down (did not do)
• calcium hardness is low - add 17.5 lb of GLB Calcium Hardness Up (did not do)
• CYA is low - add 2 lb of GLB stabilizer (did not do)
• Add 3 pounds of shock (“ GLB SuperSonic is a highly effective multi-purpose product that sanitizes, clarifies, prevents algae and shock treats your pool” - wife did this)

“Sanitizer system recommendations:

• Free available chlorine is low - shock the pool using an appropriate shock product and add 2 GLB Large 3” tablets (did not do)
• Remember to add 2 GLB Large 3” tabs every week or so (did not do)

“Oxidizer Recommendations:

• Remember to add 16-32 oz GLB Supersonic weekly (did not do)

My initial test using the K-1000 showed undetectable chlorine and pH of 7.8

I’m not sure I need to SLAM, because the water is pretty good looking and the pool is not dirty.

1. Do I need to SLAM?
2. If so, is the process: 1. Raise CYA to at least 30 ppm; 2. Lower pH to 7.2; 3. Add liquid chlorine (bleach)
3. If I don’t need to slam, I still think i need to add CYA and lower pH a little, then add chlorine.

Am I on the right track? I’m having trouble knowing where to start.

 

[poolshrinker]

Right now we have a bunch of the 3” chlorine tabs leftover from the pool store. That , plus the fact that pool strength bleach is hard to find right now, is going to have me use those tabs to try to bring the chlorine up. The pool store opens Friday and we’ll pick up some GLB stabilizer at that time.

When I opened the floater basket, there are 4 partially dissolved 3” chlorine tabs still in there which were placed 5 days ago, before the pool store did its analysis. The chlorine is still basically undetectable. So we’re having either trouble because the tabs are dissolving so slowly, or because there’s just not enough there, or because our CYA is so low the sunlight we’re getting is destroying the chlorine.

 

[poolshrinker]

Bump

After 3-4 days, I’ve added about 90 oz of 10% liquid chlorine. I added 7 pods of the 8 oz HTH CYA, at which point my CYA was about 25 (9 originally). I have since added 4 more pods and will check again tonight. Hope I’m in the 30-40 range.

The chlorine is now consistently measurable (good thing) but it seems to drop consistently. There is no algae in the pool, it has been scrubbed clean. Is this just the CYA being too low to maintain the chlorine level? I’m hoping that with CYA 30+ that will be less of an issue. We have had warm and sunny weather (70+ with some breeze) even before CYA got over 15, so could that be part of the problem?

Another question is the pool heater seems to have inadequate flow pretty frequently. The sand filter reads pressure of 17, was 10 before adding CYA last night. Is that enough to cause the pressure problem? The CYA instructions said not to backflush for 24 hours - but it’s now been 18 hours and we want our heater working overnight.

Thank you

 

[mknauss]

Sounds like there is a good chance you have algae in the pool water. What does the water look like?

Raise your FC to 5 ppm or so and do an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test tonight.

 

[mknauss]

Also, if you just used the CYA pods and did not put them into a sock, if you backwash expect to lose a portion of the CYA you added.

 

[IceShadow]

Post a full set of test results from your TF-100 kit. You can collect water in whatever you want - just try to get it from 18” or so down at least. Do NOT use anything glass near the pool. I use a plastic Tupperware container.

How does the water look? A photo would help too.

 

[poolshrinker]

OK, thanks guys. I’m feeling a little better now.

The chlorine stopped dropping shortly after my last post, and the daily chlorine and pH tests have been right in range. CYA stabilized at 35. Good tip on the sock - I thought the pods would address that problem but I will use a sock next time.

I did have to backflush the filter, and then let too much water out of the pool, causing filter and heat pump issues but adding water back fixed the problem.

This led to the discovery about water evaporation, and after doing some reading late last week I realized we’d probably lost considerable water since the pool was opened 10 days earlier (now 14 days). We had not been putting our solar cover on because I hadn’t had a chance to clean it yet, and frankly, I didn’t realize how important it was. It should have been obvious on a cool night when I saw steam coming out of our pool... Thinking that no cover during the day contributed to chlorine loss, as well. We got the cover cleaned and put back on and since then, water loss dropped way down and chlorine loss has basically stopped. Tonight I’ll do a full set of weekly tests and post them.

PS - water looks crystal clear.

 

[IceShadow]

We lost 2" of pool water in 2 days when I was heating the pool with cold nights before the solar cover.

How did you get a CYA reading of 35? Keep in mind that the test is logarithmic - you can't test between the lines. So you just round up to the nearest 10.

 

[poolshrinker]

Oh, good to know. So 40. It’s actually much closer to 30 than 40 but either way - I’m done.

 

[Silver_2000]

how did they measure CYA of 9 ?
Ive only seen it in whole numbers, 10,20 ,30