Hard keeping Calcium up (pun intended)

[Bigdog43]

I've been slowly but surely trying to get my calcium up above the 250 mark. Granted it's not something I've spent a lot of time on, but I've added A LOT this summer. I'll get it up there and then it'll fall back down to 230 or 220. I guess i have a couple questions,

1) any particular reason this is happening, I thought I read once you got calcium in your water, you were good to only test it once in a while. Could my new plaster from two seasons ago still be leaching it up?

2) Would it make sense for me to switch to Cal-Hypo for a little while until I get my calcium up in the sweet spot of acceptable zone?


Latest numbers if that helps:
FC: 6
CC: 0
PH 7.6
TA: 80
CY: 40

 

[ProStreetCamaro]

I am a new pool owner so take what i say here with a grain of salt. From my understanding you only loose calcium through splash out or draining the water. Do you have a lot of kids or adults splashing all the time or a water feature that might be splashing some water out? Are you having to add water to the pool very often? Calcium doesn't get filtered out and it doesn't evaporate and it doesn't get consumed by anything so it has to be slash out. Somebody more knowledgeable will come along shortly and correct me if I am wrong (and i very well could be lol). But from my understanding its very much like CYA. Only way to lower it is to drain some water from the pool and put fresh in. Calcium level that is too low will actually seek out calcium and start pulling it from the plaster and that degrades the plaster over time. So its best to keep your calcium at the recommended levels.

 

[Foxy]

My understanding is the same as ProStreetCamaro, but I'm also no expert. I live in an area with naturally hard water, fill water is around 300 here, so our calcium will build up to over 1000 in our pools over a couple of years. Might it be a testing error or bad reagents?

 

[Bigdog43]

Just tested my fill water which I probably should've done in the first place. It's about 40.

Yes I do have a water feature and yes I do have some splashing going on.

Guess that's my answer folks. Thanks!

 

[Richard320]

The Calcium is either leaving the pool via splashout, rain overflow,and backwashing or it's coming out of suspension and forming scale on the walls. It doesn't evaporate. Only you know how religious you've been about maintaining pH and how much fill water you've been adding or how much you've had to drain off.

If you're losing the CH, certainly you can chlorinate with Cal-hypo. Down at the bottom of poolmath there's Effects of Adding Chemicals. A little number crunching will tell you how much you can safely add. Then just don't buy more than that and you needn't worry about overshooting. Poolmath can tell you the daily dose of Cal hypo just as easily as it can for bleach.

I'd say you're lucky if you can do it. One pail of Cal-hypo could last months, and leaves you with a useful pail instead of dozens of empty jugs.