Hardness Too High?

[spillaes]

Hi,
We have a 7,000 salt water pool in Central Florida. I've taken over the chemistry myself. Using the Chlorox Test Strips, it tells me the hardness is maxed out on their scale, ~1000ppm. The TFT Test Kit gives me a Calciuim Hardness reading of 300ppm. I know our local water is fairly hard (115 ppm as calcium carbonate), but this time of year, it's often refilled with rain water. Total alkalinity was also very high, 220ppm, if that matters.

I can see hardness deposits on the walls. My question is - Do I have a problem? Total Hardness is "high" but my Calcium Hardness is at the higher end of acceptable range? If there's a problem, what can I do? Thanks!

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum.
Post a full set of test results from your TFT test kit. Throw the test strips away.

 

[spillaes]

Ok, tossed those strips and just used my kit!

FC 0.5 (oops)
CC 0 (double oops)
CYA 50
pH 7.6
TA 90
CH 275
Salt 3000

Obvioulsly strugging with the chlorine right now. Where should I set the chlorinator? 60% output?

 

[mknauss]

Add liquid chlorine to get to 10 ppm FC. Do an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test tonight if you can.

Set the IC to create 4 ppm FC per day. At 60% output, it would need to run 8 hours per day.

Once you confirm passing an OCLT, plan to raise CYA to 70 ppm.