Happy new TFP user and Refilling Empty Pool

Jump to latest Follow Reply
U

UGOSC

Active member
May 11, 2019
27
El Dorado Hills
We recently purchased a new home/pool with sky high CYA. I emptied the pool this last weekend and completed a chlorine wash and power wash to the entire surface. I also cleaned and soaked the 4 cartridges in a TSP solution. I started filling the pool today (from homes city water) at a rate of 96 gallons per 13 minutes and expect it to take around 40-45 hours. We have a very odd shape pool and I want to get as close of an accurate volume level as possible.

Just in case my pool info is not present: Inground, pebbletec, apr 20k-25k volume?, Jandy Filter CL460, Jandy Main 1.5 main pump (second pump for waterfall), Taylor K2006 (with newbie using it)

The water is crystal clear

I have about 1,600 gallons in the pool so far and just completed a water test with these results using the Taylor 2006 kit.
FC - 0 (I added scoop after scoop and had almost no change after 10 scoops at the 25mml level)
CC - .06 (liquid turned clear after third drop)
I am a little concerned i made an error with the FC and CC since I could not get the color to change with the powder and didn't want to waste the entire container.
PH - 7.2
TA - 40
CH - 120
CYA - 0 (following the directions and adding the water into the small vile the black dot always was as clear as day)

Since the pool will take about 2 days to fill any suggestion on where to start with chemicals when I should start up the pumps etc. would be fabulous.
 
Good job on the tests. Since you are filling with fresh water, then that looks like your fresh water results. I suspect it is tainted a bit by whatever you used in the 'cleaning' process as your pH is lower than normal tap water. Most tap water has CC rather than FC. Water companies add chloramines to protect the pipes.
CYA is zero because you have to add it. Now is a good time to get 30 ppm worth of CYA granules dissolving in your water. Add 3 ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine when the pool is nearly full.
 
Please reread the FAS-DPD test procedure. It is one scoop for the 10ml test and three scoops for the 25ml test. Adding more powder doesn't help any. If you water is clear you don't have any chlorine. I wouldn't expect to see much in tap water.
 
Start the pump as soon as the skimmer is full. If you can isolate the main drain and draw just from that, then you can start circulating when the returns are submerged. You could actually do it sooner, but you don't really need all the splashing and spray. Yes, spray. There's a real good chance your pump can launch a stream across the pool where it will splatter against the opposite wall and spray a bunch of water all over the deck.

Once it's circulating, you can go ahead and add some chlorine and mess with the CYA. By the time you done messing with the socks/nylons and all that, the chlorine should have dispersed enough that you can safely test pH and TA again and fix them. If your readings stay close to what you have so far, raise TA to 60 first, and deal with pH a couple hours later. You might not even have to mess with pH after all.

If CH stays that low, you might need to raise it up a little to protect that expensive finish. If the walls have any scale left, some of it might dissolve back into solution. Get things full and running and balanced before worrying about that.
 
You all are super helpful and I truly appreciate it.
I will focus my attention on the CYA, Chlorine and then the CH. I def. do not want to damage the finish, super pretty.

I will run over to Walmart or Lowes (seems to be the highest recommended on TFP) now.

My only question now is do I add the CYA even though the pumps are not running and I am affraid they will not be running until tomorrow morning and do I add any bleach today?

Again thanks so much
 
UGOSC said:
You all are super helpful and I truly appreciate it.
I will focus my attention on the CYA, Chlorine and then the CH. I def. do not want to damage the finish, super pretty.

I will run over to Walmart or Lowes (seems to be the highest recommended on TFP) now.

My only question now is do I add the CYA even though the pumps are not running and I am affraid they will not be running until tomorrow morning and do I add any bleach today?

Again thanks so much
Click to expand...
General rule of thumb is you only test after the water has been circulating and you only add chemicals when the water is and will be circulating. Your pool won't develop algae in a day. You can safely say that there will be no CYA in the fill water and if there is any chlorine in the fill water, the sun will get it long before you can test it, so consider it zero, too. The rest comes after it's been circulating and retested.

Considering that you can add chemicals 15 minutes to half an hour apart, you can have it all done in an hour. There's no need to rush and try to get ahead.
 
  • Like
Reactions: UGOSC
Finally have the pool filled and determined the the pool is 9 feet deep and 17,000 gals and not 11 feet deep and 23,000 gals. Happy I took my time and measured the water.

I have started the pumps and I have added 3quarts of 6% bleach and I have add 4lbs of CYA granular to the pool in pantyhose as suggested on another thread.

I will test the water when I get home in a couple of hours and post the results.
 
Excellent.

Do not be surprised to find no chlorine left. In fact, expect it. The CYA won't have dissolved and dispersed enough to protect it yet. Totally normal, and if any nasties blew in while the pool was filling, they got killed.

CYA testing will likely have to wait a few days so you'll be home to test it in full sunlight. Poolcalculator says 3 lbs should get you to 28, so you'll know pretty quick if you're in the ballpark with volume.
 
Thank you. I actually add 4lbs of CYA and it is slowly, very slowly dissolving. I will check the chlorine in the morning and add what is needed again and then check again tomorrow night.

My understanding is that I need to first get the CYA and chlorine stable and then move onto the other chemicals is that correct?
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
UGOSC said:
Thank you. I actually add 4lbs of CYA and it is slowly, very slowly dissolving. I will check the chlorine in the morning and add what is needed again and then check again tomorrow night.

My understanding is that I need to first get the CYA and chlorine stable and then move onto the other chemicals is that correct?
Click to expand...
Nope. Don't wait on the CYA to dissolve. I just said to get FC & CYA going because you don't need to test them on a fresh fill. Now that the pool is full and circulating, you can test the rest and make adjustments.
 
UGOSC said:
With the great help I think I am off to a pretty good start.
The CYA is almost all dissolved so I have not tested that today and will tomorrow
My current readings are as follows
FC = 3.4
CC = 0
PH = 7.4-7.5
TA = 80
CH = 20
Click to expand...
Is that a typo, or did your CH test drop 100ppm?

Next comment: don't do the FC/CC test with 25 ml. Use 10 ml and one scoop of powder and count each drop as .5. It's precise enough for our purposes and saves a lot of reagent.
 
Re: CH - Wow, I didn't catch that but yes it did. It only took two drops. I am guessing I made a mistake the first time around but I'll double check it tomorrow. I am watching and re-watching how to perform these tests trying to get them right. I wasted a lot of CYA powder the first time around after watching the Tayler video on testing (it said to keep adding a scoop until it changes color).

That is great advice on the FC/CC test!
 
Get a good test on CH, you need to get it to at least 250 ppm to protect your pebbletec pool surface.
 
WOW! Am I misunderstanding something. I am at 3.4 and I need to get to 250?

Just making sure I am doi g this correctly. I filled the vile to tge 25 line and added two scoops of powder which turn ed the water pink. I then added drops until the water was clear again which in this case was 17 drops and multiplied that by.2

Boy am u feeling like a newbie
 
You are talking about FC - Free Chlorine. I am talking about CH - Calcium Hardness.

For your FC testing, use a 10 ml water sample, one scoop of powder, and then each drop to clear is 0.5 ppm FC.
 
New testing this morning 5/17/19.
It looks like my CH is way low but I am not sure how that can happen. I tested the water out of the tap and it is also at 20. But according to the information I have read have calcium this low is bad for pipes which makes me question why our tap water would be so low.
Since it looks like I have to add calcium I am thinking of having them test the water just to make sure I am not messing something up
Thoughts?
FC = 2 (Added 1 qt bleach)
TA = 80
PH = 7.8
CH = 20
 
Does your water come from the San Juan Water District? I pulled up their water quality report and it shows Hardness at 20 ppm. So you have very soft water. You will need to add calcium to get your CH to 250+ and then monitor monthly.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply