Confused with keeping Fc at the right levels

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Yes, you must have some, because you've been using dichlor. You may or may not have some left over from last year. If you've added any stabilizer, that will be there as well.

CYA doesn't wear off the way chlorine does. (in truth, there is a minimal loss, but it's not significant). CYA does get lost when water leaves the pool - backwashing, splashout, draining after a rain storm, draining for winter, that type of thing. Otherwise you can consider it to be remaining in the water.

So if we use Pool Math, and reasonably accurate pool volume, and pool math says to add X lbs to achieve Y PPM CYA, we can assume that's how much is in there.
 
needsajet said:
Yes, you must have some, because you've been using dichlor. You may or may not have some left over from last year. If you've added any stabilizer, that will be there as well.

CYA doesn't wear off the way chlorine does. (in truth, there is a minimal loss, but it's not significant). CYA does get lost when water leaves the pool - backwashing, splashout, draining after a rain storm, draining for winter, that type of thing. Otherwise you can consider it to be remaining in the water.

So if we use Pool Math, and reasonably accurate pool volume, and pool math says to add X lbs to achieve Y PPM CYA, we can assume that's how much is in there.
Click to expand...
ya and we added a bottle of stabilizer two weeks ago when we were silk going to the pool store. They told us to add the entire bottle. Not sure why is not in there..

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OK, so that would have added about 15 PPM CYA, which you can use as the "Now" level in Pool Math. It's not enough to be noticeable in the CYA test. But you can use Pool Math to get the amount of stabilizer needed to get to 50 PPM CYA by entering 50 in the "Target". If you have a sense that your pool is 25,000 gallons, it's a good idea to start using that figure.
 
Awesome. Thank you. That's helpful to at least have an idea of a starting point. By the way I just tested my fc this morning and is at 3. So thats a good thing. My pH is still 7.8.. I think. The pink colors kill me.

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So I just had people over . My FC this morning was 3. But I think I know why? I added the dry acid last night to bring down my ph and ran the filter. I brushed the whole pool and then went in . Apparently the pump ran the whole night instead of turning off( my fault).

Anyway we had people in it today..I just rechecked my fc and its either .5 or 1. At the .5 it looked like it still might have been slightly tinged pink. Anyway my ph is back up to 8.2. At least thats the color I see. I tried to find Stabilizer today but they were out. I am going to have to go check a different home depot.


So now I gotta re add the dry acid and I guess some dichlor?
 
Definitely get the pH in range, yes. I again recommend a switch to muriatic acid for controlling your pH rise. We can give you some advice on how to avoid breathing the fumes. The dry acid is adding sulphates to the water which is serving no useful purpose and can cause problems.

The dichlor is fine right now, but please let me know how much you add this time, and how much you have to get rid of. When I know that, I can give you a plan for using it up. Liquid chlorine is your best bet for chlorine additions otherwise.

You need to get that stabilizer increased. You can buy it at a pool store if need be. They should have both granular and liquid, with granular being the better buy.
 
Hey needsajet...

I have 8 12 oz bags left. I will go check my other home depot tomorrow for the stabilizer and muriatic acid( I can get that there right)? I had exactly the right amount of dry acid to put in the pool tonight to get my level to 7.5...well hopefully. So I added it tonight and running my system for about two hours.


I will get muriatic acid tomorrow although I think I am very nervous about it. Im fine with getting switched over to liquid chlorine


So a couple questions:

Should I run my pump all night or is two hours good to work the dry acid through?
Im not familiar with non liquid stabilizer. I saw it mentioned in the info . Is that something I can put directly into the pool? How long do I run my pump when putting that in?
do I add dichlor tonight since my fc was .5-1?


One other thing, our water definitely was salty today. The kids noticed it. I know I have a swg but is that ok? My oldest got out because of itchy legs and when I got out my arms were tingly . Would that be due to the high ph? Is that just in our heads? I don't think it could be chlorine since I don't have much in my pool.

I know we added 8 bags of salt last time and the pool store said we were at 3200ppm. So it shouldn't be an issue right?
 
This is a good link about chemicals, so please review it: Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

Muriatic acid is available from building supply places, yes. Could be in paint department, or with mortar and cement, or with pool supplies. If you're a bit shy of it, start with 15%. It will cost you a bit more than 31% until you're confident, but the milder concentration has less fumes. Open, measure and pour with the jug downwind from your face and you'll be fine. You can wear household rubber gloves for extra protection of your hands. Pick up some safety glasses while you're there and wear those when handling liquids like muriatic acid and bleach. If you splash any on you, don't panic, but do rinse it off with tap water within a couple of minutes. It doesn't burn suddenly or anything.

Two hours should be plenty to mix acid and chlorine.

See stabilizer in above link for the method for adding it. Your water will become nicer for swimming when you get the stabilizer in.

I would keep the FC at 1.5 PPM or more for 15 CYA. Try shooting for 2.0 PPM FC until the stabilizer is in. Dichlor is fine for now. I'll get back to you about using up all that dichlor, but it may not be possible. Do tell us how much you put in.

Regarding salt, did you add 8 bags after it tested at 3200 PPM, or is it at 3200 PPM after adding the 8 bags? Some salty taste is entirely normal. People vary on ability to taste the salt, but most pick it up around 3500 PPM. Children would tend to taste it at lower levels, unlike us oldies!
 
needsajet said:
This is a good link about chemicals, so please review it: Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

Muriatic acid is available from building supply places, yes. Could be in paint department, or with mortar and cement, or with pool supplies. If you're a bit shy of it, start with 15%. It will cost you a bit more than 31% until you're confident, but the milder concentration has less fumes. Open, measure and pour with the jug downwind from your face and you'll be fine. You can wear household rubber gloves for extra protection of your hands. Pick up some safety glasses while you're there and wear those when handling liquids like muriatic acid and bleach. If you splash any on you, don't panic, but do rinse it off with tap water within a couple of minutes. It doesn't burn suddenly or anything.

Two hours should be plenty to mix acid and chlorine.

See stabilizer in above link for the method for adding it. Your water will become nicer for swimming when you get the stabilizer in.

I would keep the FC at 1.5 PPM or more for 15 CYA. Try shooting for 2.0 PPM FC until the stabilizer is in. Dichlor is fine for now. I'll get back to you about using up all that dichlor, but it may not be possible. Do tell us how much you put in.

Regarding salt, did you add 8 bags after it tested at 3200 PPM, or is it at 3200 PPM after adding the 8 bags? Some salty taste is entirely normal. People vary on ability to taste the salt, but most pick it up around 3500 PPM. Children would tend to taste it at lower levels, unlike us oldies!
Click to expand...
Haha true. It was before the 3200ppm. Will review that . I know I read it but will do it again. Ok that acid doesn't sound too scary.. Thanks again!

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Just a quick note about your swg, in case you don't know.

When you change the percentage the system runs at, don't think of it as changing the amount of chlorine produced by the SWG, but rather the amount of time the SWG is producing chlorine.

It sounds the same, but isnt. If you run your your system for 4 hour at 100% it will make chlorine the whole time. But if you run it at 50% for 4 hours, it will produce the same amount of chlorine when it is running, but will only run 50% of the time (resulting in 50%less chlorine).

Why is this important? Because you may decide to run your pump longer in order to keep your pool clean, but don't want to over chlorinate so you lower the %.

Right now Cya is your problem, but let's say you get it to where it should be, but still your 8 hours is is not cutting it at 100%,then you may need to increase the pump run time in order to boost production. (if that's the case, than the cell might be too small for your pool, but this is just a hypothetical example).

Personally, depending on my salt level I run my pump 24/7 with my swg at about 20% when getting the pool ready. So it is active about 5 of the 24 hrs. Once my levels are good, I drop the run time to about 10hrs at about 50% and it still. Active for 5 hrs.

Running it lower, longer keeps your chlorine level more or a straight line (Vs wavy), and also will make your cell last longer. Of course increasing your run time costs $ too, so it's a balancing act.

Maybe you already knew all that, bit if not I hope it helped.

Joey

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BestJoeyEver said:
Just a quick note about your swg, in case you don't know.

When you change the percentage the system runs at, don't think of it as changing the amount of chlorine produced by the SWG, but rather the amount of time the SWG is producing chlorine.

It sounds the same, but isnt. If you run your your system for 4 hour at 100% it will make chlorine the whole time. But if you run it at 50% for 4 hours, it will produce the same amount of chlorine when it is running, but will only run 50% of the time (resulting in 50%less chlorine).

Why is this important? Because you may decide to run your pump longer in order to keep your pool clean, but don't want to over chlorinate so you lower the %.

Right now Cya is your problem, but let's say you get it to where it should be, but still your 8 hours is is not cutting it at 100%,then you may need to increase the pump run time in order to boost production. (if that's the case, than the cell might be too small for your pool, but this is just a hypothetical example).

Personally, depending on my salt level I run my pump 24/7 with my swg at about 20% when getting the pool ready. So it is active about 5 of the 24 hrs. Once my levels are good, I drop the run time to about 10hrs at about 50% and it still. Active for 5 hrs.

Running it lower, longer keeps your chlorine level more or a straight line (Vs wavy), and also will make your cell last longer. Of course increasing your run time costs $ too, so it's a balancing act.

Maybe you already knew all that, bit if not I hope it helped.

Joey

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


I didn't know that so thank you.. I think the swg is throwing a wrench into me trying to learn all this. My husband is concerned about how much it will cost to run it so much. I know right now we have it on 100% four hours in the morning and four hours at night. The more I can learn the better... thank you so much!



I just checked my ph this morning after adding the dry acid last night and got it to 7.5. So that should be good( I hope). My chorine is at .5 though. My pump just started running when it tested, so think it will probably go higher. I am going to get the stabilizer today and hopefully once I get some in, that will stabilize anything. I kept freaking out that my chlorine was so low. But I think it finally clicked that it needs to be in sync with the cya. So if my cya is nil...maybe at 10.. a chlorine of 1 to 1.5 isn't horrible correct? This cya /chlorine ratio is just not sinking in . I think I read pool school fifteen times..haha

- - - Updated - - -

needsajet said:
This is a good link about chemicals, so please review it: Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

Muriatic acid is available from building supply places, yes. Could be in paint department, or with mortar and cement, or with pool supplies. If you're a bit shy of it, start with 15%. It will cost you a bit more than 31% until you're confident, but the milder concentration has less fumes. Open, measure and pour with the jug downwind from your face and you'll be fine. You can wear household rubber gloves for extra protection of your hands. Pick up some safety glasses while you're there and wear those when handling liquids like muriatic acid and bleach. If you splash any on you, don't panic, but do rinse it off with tap water within a couple of minutes. It doesn't burn suddenly or anything.

Two hours should be plenty to mix acid and chlorine.

See stabilizer in above link for the method for adding it. Your water will become nicer for swimming when you get the stabilizer in.

I would keep the FC at 1.5 PPM or more for 15 CYA. Try shooting for 2.0 PPM FC until the stabilizer is in. Dichlor is fine for now. I'll get back to you about using up all that dichlor, but it may not be possible. Do tell us how much you put in.

Regarding salt, did you add 8 bags after it tested at 3200 PPM, or is it at 3200 PPM after adding the 8 bags? Some salty taste is entirely normal. People vary on ability to taste the salt, but most pick it up around 3500 PPM. Children would tend to taste it at lower levels, unlike us oldies!
Click to expand...


I found out my store has the liquid cya. I read the article for putting cya in.. but that was for granular. I am assuming I pour the liquid in the deep end of the pool in front of the return? Is it the same that the pump should run for 24 hours? How long before someone can swim ?
 
Checking in with an update:

This morning my ph was 7.5 yay! My fc was .5 boo. But my swg also had just started to run so I assume (maybe wrongly) that my fc would go up a bit . Today I planned on adding the cya . I had added a gallon 2 -3 weeks ago when I was going to the pool store. From what I understand, cya shouldn't just go away. So with everyones help we are estimating it to be maybe 10 ? I did the test and could see the black dot with the tube filled. It was murky but I could definitely see it. So my goal was to get my cya to 30or 50 (some told me to take it to 30 and some to 50 so not really sure which one to do). I am finishing up my dichlor which adds cya also.

Today the sprinkler guys were working on a leak and were sucking out the water and dirt and it went right into my pool by accident. We caught it quick and turned our pump on. I posted and asked what I should do and was told to bring it up to an fc of 12 (loosely based on a 10 cya). So I added 4 lbs of dichlor which also should add 10 ppm of cya.


So I guess I should start with a 20 cya? Or do the test again? My whole town seems to be out of stabilizer. I went to three different places and they didn't have any. So I had to go the pool store who only had the liquid. But my cya needs to be upped so I had to buy one.. I think I need two gallons to bring my cya to 50. I was so frustrated this morning ,I forgot to check my pool math and only bought 1 gallon. I also had the pool store trying to sell me other things so wanted to get out of there. Not to mention it was $32 .

So I wanted to move slowly anyway even though my husband is going to go crazy having to run the pool 24 hours (is that right?) twice. But now that my fc is supposed to go to 12.. Can I still add the stabilizer?
 
Good progress, I can tell you're making good use of pool math. I just need to summarize and have you confirm that I've got the recent chem additions right.

One gallon liquid stabilizer added from before this thread started
Two 12 oz packets of dichlor before today's addition
2nd gallon of liquid stabilizer today
And your sense is that the pool is 25,000 gal

I'll be right back with numbers, but if you see this, let me know if that sounds correct.
 
needsajet said:
Good progress, I can tell you're making good use of pool math. I just need to summarize and have you confirm that I've got the recent chem additions right.

One gallon liquid stabilizer added from before this thread started
Two 12 oz packets of dichlor before today's addition
2nd gallon of liquid stabilizer today
And your sense is that the pool is 25,000 gal

I'll be right back with numbers, but if you see this, let me know if that sounds correct.
Click to expand...
Liquid stabilizer was put in two weeks ago before I got here, so no measurements. But since being here I have done cya and that's where I can fill whole tube and still see dot although murky.

last night added dry acid and now down to 7.5. No chlorine added last night.

this morning fc was only . 5
pH 7.5. Had issue with sprinkler people putting dirt in pool. Put 4 bags of dichlor in my pool to get to fc 12

have not put in stabilizer yet.. not sure if I can worth the fc high? could only find liquid stabilizer. Going g to do it tonight

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