First tests completed, now what?

[Chatty Cathy]

I received the TF-100 kit and performed all tests with the following results:
CYA = 110
FC = 65
CC = 0
TC = 65

CH - added 50 drops of 0012 and never turned blue
TA - added 100 drops of R0009 and never turned red

PH = 7.2

So, based on this, what do I need to do and in what order? My CYA is high, so should I address that first? I also have staining on the plaster and suspect some is organic due to high volume of leaves and pine straw that dropped this winter. Also may have some iron although we are on municipal water. We have heavy rust colored staining on the skimmer baskets and we also fight rust ring in the house on the toilet bowls of the two bathrooms that don't get used/flushed often. Would a non drain acid treatment help solve both these issues? My pool is 9 years old and of course the pool company is saying we should consider a re-plaster and they are surprised it lasted this long. SERIOUSLY?!

 

[triptyx]

I think you might have made a mistake on that FC number. Can you retest please? Use a 10ml sample and divide the number of drops by 2.

As for the plaster, if the pool is holding water and you're ok with how the plaster looks, it's not time just yet for a replaster.

I'm not sure what's going on with the TA/CH tests to be honest - I'll let an expert handle that.

 

[OTPirate]

Did your water sample turn blue or yellow with the TA test? It will do that with high Chlorine. What are you chlorinating with? Let's not worry about your CYA yet until we try doing some of those tests again. Read Pool School (button at top of page) over and over again (I have to read it often!) I know it can be overwhelming, just keep plugging along-it will be worth it!

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Cathy, I gotta agree with Triptyx that something is off with your test results.

I would ask that you run them again and then give us the values like this:

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA

Starting with the FC test- put 10cc of water in the vial. Add one heaping scoop of powder and twirl to mix. Add the drops of reagent a little faster than one second each drop. Count the number of drops and divide by 2. That number is your FC.
Then without wasting time (because left on its own it will turn pink again) add five drops of the reagent to test for CCs. It may (or may not) turn pink, but if it does go back to the 871 reagent and add drops again and count, then divide by 2. That is your level of CCs. If at the start of this test the reagent never turned the sample pink, that means you don't have any CCs (yay!)

Are you sure your pH is 7.2? Did you hold the comparing tube up against something white? I'm worried that your pH may be lower?

For your TA, Start with 25cc of pool water, you added the 2 drops of R0007 and twirled, then added 5 drops of R0008 and twirled it so it was a nice green? Then added your R0009 one drop at a time so that it would go from green to pink (then HOT PINK!)... that HOT PINK! is my ending point. Then multiply the number of drops that got you to HOT PINK by 10. That's your TA number

For CH- Into 10cc of pool water you add 10 drops of the little bottle R-0010 and twirl, then 3 drops of the blue bottle R-0011, then drops of the R-0012 until it turns.


For the CYA, make sure it was sunny outside when you do this and your back is to the sun. If it is higher than 100ppm, dilute 1/3 cup of pool water with 1/3 cup of tap water and mix. Then use this mixture for your pool water sample and do the test again, but double your results.

yippee

 

[Chatty Cathy]

Okay retested and took pics of test results if anyone wants to see colors and CYA did not reach the 100 mark on the tube. About one lines worth below the tube,so not sure how to tell how much.
FC= 65
CC=0
TC=65
PH = 7.2
TA=80
CH=600 PPM

My chlorine is high as the daily test tube was dark orange. The PH was a perfect match to 7.2 color - light pink.

So it appears I have a high chlorine, high calcium, high alkalinity and high CYA problem. What to adjust first?

 

[AimeeH]

Welcome to TFP.

Still need clarity on that chlorine number, as that is highly unlikely. With a 10ml sample using the tf100, that would have to be 130 drops of r-0871 to turn your sample clear?

Don't worry. We can help.

 

[kimkats]

Cathy, If you CYA is that high you need to remove and replace some water It could be even higher than 100. What you can do is put half pool water, half tap water in the shaker container. Do the test again and double the number.

When you test CYA on GLANCE in to see the dot. Do NOT stare or you will see it.

Kim

 

[duraleigh]

Hold off on addressing the stains for now. Before you do anything, please tell us what your water looks like.

 

[Chatty Cathy]

The water is clear and smells Strong of chlorine! I have a pool maintenance service and they have always used pucks and powder/granular chlorine but I have told them of my CYA problem and he says he can do liquid chlorine; so once I get it back down, hopefully it will stay down. I don't know anything about how to drain the pool. Can I place a hose on the discharge side of the main pump and run it to my french drain in the yard to the sewer? Will it pump empty that way or do I need to rent/buy a sump pump? If I am going to have to empty and refill the pool, I'm thinking I may get it acid washed while it's empty so I don't have to empty and fill again to take care of the stains.

 

[triptyx]

A heads up - if your pool service is going to use liquid chlorine, they're going to have to stop by nearly daily to dose the pool. If you go that route, be ready to have your own supply of bleach (unscented, plain, NOT Splashless, NOT easy-pour) on hand to give the pool a daily dose during the summer.

Draining using the pump will be slow (and may be impossible if you don't have a main drain and a working diverter valve for your skimmer if the drain is plumbed through the skimmer). If you're going 100%, you'll likely want to rent a submersible pump. Please be aware of water table problems and do not end up floating your pool shell - that will be a costly, if not terminal mistake. If your CYA is actually 110, you really could be just fine draining only 50% though.

As for disposing the water, you'll want to check your local county/city ordinances as to the removal of pool water. Some places are ok with you putting it into the street, others require it go into your personal sewer cleanout, it depends on the locality.

 

[Chatty Cathy]

When I redid it, it turned yellow, but was looking for red the first time so I added too much reagent and still no red result. I read the pool school notes again and that time I saw the note about it being yellow if I have high chlorine, which I have. I have pool service and they have used pucks and powder. I have not added any chlorine since last Friday and removed all pucks from the chlorinator in the discharge line after the pump. I saw it was set on 4 and has a dial setting from 1 to 10 to adjust how much chlorinated water gets circulated back into the line. I sent my service company an email about the high chlorine and CYA and asked about using liquid chlorine and he said he can do that. I want to learn more about this so I can stay on top of the chemical balance when we are here but we travel a lot and I have to have the service when we are out of town for extended periods, especially in the summer time. It is cool right now so chemicals do not burn off quickly but in the summer when the temps are in the 100s, it needs at least weekly checking and I do not have an auto filler so I have to have someone add water due to evaporation while we are gone. Will be going to Canada for a month from late July to late August, so I have to keep the pool service. Thank you all for your help. My husband used to take care of all this but he had a traumatic brain injury 7 years ago and has severe short term memory issues (only remembers new information about 20 mins) and has trouble with executive function and cannot do activities that require more than three or four steps. He gets lost in the pool water chemical analysis tests and forgets what he's testing, etc. so I have to learn this. This is the 3rd pool company I've had in two years. I had a neighbor that took care of it (along with his) until he moved a couple of years ago. This company has been the most responsive when I've had issues (leak in chlorinator, fixed my vacuum, etc.). The other companies took my money every month but never returned my phone calls for several days or weeks when I had problems. The other pool company before, turned on my water to top off the pool and forgot and left it on when we were out of town for two weeks and we came home to a $500 water bill and the pool water was all out of balance from all the fresh water that ran into it for so many days. I am overwhelmed but I want to know how to do things and recognize when I have a problem so it can be corrected quickly. It is too much of an investment to let it get ruined by poor maintenance and neglect, plus we really do enjoy using it we we are home and the grandkids love it!

 

[Caco]

Hi Cathy

First of all take a deep breath and relax. It is only pool water and most things are easily recoverable.
We have all pretty much started where you are, a little confused and overwhelmed
But it really is easy following the methods here and you will pick it up in no time

I am going to give you some general advice on pool care and on what I think you could do, but I would like an expert to follow up and give you precise advice

First off the ph test is not accurate when your FC is over 10. So we would look to fix that later

FC and CYA are related. We add FC to our pool depending on how high our CYA is.
For example my CYA is 30, so I target my FC daily at 6 and never let it drop below 2
You can find your values here Chlorine/CYA Chart

Now your current level is 65 and you would not really want to go above your shock (we call it slam) value of 39
Your FC will come down on its own, or you can chemically bring it down (I think with hydrogen peroxide??)
Or you could do a partial water change, approx a third of your pool to get it down to a better level, then let it drop the rest of the way down naturally.

You could also start finding all of your whites and give them a rinse in the pool, would be great for getting stains out

For the second CYA test was that a diluted test? If so can someone please chime in with what number

CYA did not reach the 100 mark on the tube. About one lines worth below the tube,so not sure how to tell how much

is likely to be?

I would think that you would need to have a CYA of approx 50. So if your CYA is 100 that would indicate replacing 50% of the water. Hopefully someone will soon clarify your test result given above and we have an idea of where you stand

The high calcium could have come from powdered/solid chlorine or from your source water. You could test your water from an outside tap (to avoid any water softeners you may have) to see what your fill waters calcium is, and what effect a water change will have on the calcium level.
High calcium can be managed through balancing your pools CSI. It is something we can tweak (and you can learn) later. Lets just keep with the basics for now

Plaster stains can also be dealt with later. They are specialised treatments that you can do and we have instructions and lots of helpful members that can help you with that, when you feel ready to tackle them

You may want to investigate installing a SWG for the future. It does make managing a pool while you are not at home much easier

It does sound like you have found a pool service you are comfortable with for while you are away for long periods. You will just need to let them know what levels you expect your pool to be maintained to. We can help you with that.

So I am suggesting that you do the following:
Enter all your pool details into poolmath (top of page)
Confirm if the CYA test is diluted
Test your source calcium, so we know what will happen when you drain and refill
Do a drain/refill on your water to bring your CYA into line
This will also bring your FC down
Allow your FC to drop to 10 so you can test your ph and then we can balance that
Keep asking questions here

And relax, you have done the best thing which is found our forum. We will hold your hand and guide you through this. You will learn it all before you know it

 

[triptyx]

If you couldn't see the dot on the CYA test, you need to do a dilution test.

In a clean container, mix even parts pool water and tap water - 1/3 cup of each is fine. Swirl the container to mix the sample, then use that diluted sample to run the CYA test as indicated. Multiply the test results by 2 - this will give you a better idea of your actual CYA. The lines on the test are exponential, so you can't make assumptions if you don't get all the way up to the 100 line about how much CYA you have.