I have an indoor pool and decided to bite the bullet and learn how to manage the chemistry myself. (I am a nerd at heart so this came naturally.)
I initially got a WaterGuru S2 and it reported off-the-charts FC. (It only reports up to 12.9 and my guess is I was well into the 30s before I reduced it.) I also noticed the water was somewhat cloudy and there were white chalky deposits on the bottom and on the steps. I found TFP via searching for what was causing the white deposits.
After a few days of reading this forum I got Pool Chemistry 101 under my belt and the cause was clear: I’d been using trichlor pucks in a feeder for the last year or so, not really paying attention to the levels and just using test strips periodically. Since this is an indoor pool, you probably know where this is going: FC was too high, yes, but CYA was off the charts (>100) and the chalky white stuff was calcium from the pucks. pH was also high (>8).
Interestingly the WaterGuru reported random and incredible values for TA, CH and CYA. Like CYA of 385 (!). So I took the TFP advice and bought a Taylor test kit and took some real measurements. I still didn’t have a decent CYA number, though, because I didn’t realize you need to look for the black dot in bright sunlight; I was reading it indoors.
I was able to get pH and FC into reasonable ranges with chemicals. But to my dismay, I learned here that there is no way to lower CYA short of water exchange. So using the pump-and-fill exchange method detailed here, I exchanged about 50% of the water in the pool. This got CYA down to ~50 (I learned how to read the black dot test properly) but… now my water was green.
Experts here will know my water turned green due to iron in my fill water. The good news is that by running a brand new filter and running the Dolphin pool bot a few times it cleared the iron out in about 24 hours. The Dolphin fine filter was coated in brown; this suggests to me that running the Dolphin multiple times (I probably ran it for 4x 3-hour cycles) is a viable way to remove iron from your water.
I’ve now got it pretty close to ideal, which feels like quite an accomplishment:
FC 7.5
pH 7.7
CYA 45-55
TA 90
CH 340
And of course I‘ll only use liquid chlorine from now on. And even now the WaterGuru reports just absurd numbers for CYA (it says 158 one test and then 350 the next). My observation is that the WaterGuru is actually pretty close to the Taylor readings on FC and pH but is utterly useless on the other three values. So there’s really no reason to use the 5-way tests in my opinion.
Thanks to everyone whose makes TFP such an amazing resource!
Dave
I initially got a WaterGuru S2 and it reported off-the-charts FC. (It only reports up to 12.9 and my guess is I was well into the 30s before I reduced it.) I also noticed the water was somewhat cloudy and there were white chalky deposits on the bottom and on the steps. I found TFP via searching for what was causing the white deposits.
After a few days of reading this forum I got Pool Chemistry 101 under my belt and the cause was clear: I’d been using trichlor pucks in a feeder for the last year or so, not really paying attention to the levels and just using test strips periodically. Since this is an indoor pool, you probably know where this is going: FC was too high, yes, but CYA was off the charts (>100) and the chalky white stuff was calcium from the pucks. pH was also high (>8).
Interestingly the WaterGuru reported random and incredible values for TA, CH and CYA. Like CYA of 385 (!). So I took the TFP advice and bought a Taylor test kit and took some real measurements. I still didn’t have a decent CYA number, though, because I didn’t realize you need to look for the black dot in bright sunlight; I was reading it indoors.
I was able to get pH and FC into reasonable ranges with chemicals. But to my dismay, I learned here that there is no way to lower CYA short of water exchange. So using the pump-and-fill exchange method detailed here, I exchanged about 50% of the water in the pool. This got CYA down to ~50 (I learned how to read the black dot test properly) but… now my water was green.
Experts here will know my water turned green due to iron in my fill water. The good news is that by running a brand new filter and running the Dolphin pool bot a few times it cleared the iron out in about 24 hours. The Dolphin fine filter was coated in brown; this suggests to me that running the Dolphin multiple times (I probably ran it for 4x 3-hour cycles) is a viable way to remove iron from your water.
I’ve now got it pretty close to ideal, which feels like quite an accomplishment:
FC 7.5
pH 7.7
CYA 45-55
TA 90
CH 340
And of course I‘ll only use liquid chlorine from now on. And even now the WaterGuru reports just absurd numbers for CYA (it says 158 one test and then 350 the next). My observation is that the WaterGuru is actually pretty close to the Taylor readings on FC and pH but is utterly useless on the other three values. So there’s really no reason to use the 5-way tests in my opinion.
Thanks to everyone whose makes TFP such an amazing resource!
Dave
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My favorite tire store of all time was in Annapolis. Universal Tires.
Good decision to follow Trouble Free Pool Care methods. You will be rewarded.