Is it this easy?

[poolshrinker]

Have been at my new pool for four weeks now. Seems like it’s a piece of cake now!

Weekly I check free chlorine and chloramines, TA, CYA, CH per my test kit. They were all exactly where they needed to be last time. It took 5 minutes.

About every other day I check pH and TC. They are right in range. It takes 2 minutes.

That’s all I need to do? No weekly shock or algaecides or anything else? This seems almost too easy.

I did learn that we need to use our solar cover, otherwise we lose a lot of water and chemistry is harder to stay balanced. It’s no problem. We pull it off early afternoon on sunny days when the kids will swim, put it back on around 8 pm when they’re done.

 

[Jimrahbe]

ps,

I have three saltwater pools that I have had for a total of about 25 years.. In that 25 years I have never added a single bag of Pool $tore "shock"... In fact, I often don't answer SLAM questions, as I have never had algae and have no experience doing a TFP SLAM...

It is simply that easy... I keep my FC at or above my target and add a little MA once a week to control pH. Kind of boring after a while.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Richard320]

No brushing? No vacuuming?

The chemistry is actually the easy part once it's dialed in. About two weeks' learning curve and then coast for years.

 

[Thomas89]

Hey Poolshrinker, what test kit did you purchase?

 

[ship of fools]

You’ll find you’re actually testing more often than you need. Cya, ch, ta & ph typically don’t change too often

 

[mariane]

T = Trouble
F = Free
P = Pool
explains it

 

[poolshrinker]

great, I’m not missing anything too obvious!
We do run the vacuum after we swim, but that takes no work.
We brushed a little at the beginning of the season but so far, one month on, there is no algae or anything else to brushh.

 

[mariane]

Weekly I check free chlorine and chloramines, TA, CYA, CH per my test kit. They were all exactly where they needed to be last time. It took 5 minutes.

As ship of fools said, there's no need to check all these every week.
-CH is not important for vinyl pools. Once you know what you have and it's not too high you can stop checking it for the season.
-CYA changes little, only with rain and addition of new water and that is not a lot. So if there's not a lot of that going on, you don't need to test it as often. Evaporation also has little effect.
-TA should stay pretty stable, which will help with pH swinging less.
-FC you can even test TC daily just to make sure you have chlorine in the water. But if FC has to be above 5 for your pool, then TC is not very accurate.
-CC you'll notice that after a few times there is no CC. Maybe check for CC after a storm when a lot of debris ends up in the pool. Or with kids and "you know what they do in the water" hehe, check CC. Especially when you notice the "sparkliness" looks off and it's slightly cloudy.
-pH remember to check daily to get a feel for how stable it is. Splashing/aeration will force it up and you'll need to use muriatic acid to bring it down. Some people need to use MA a few times a week if it rises often.

Once you've been doing this for a while, you'll get to know your pool so well, you'll know when something "just doesn't look right."

 

[poolshrinker]

thanks for those tips,
yes I’m learning that CYA and CH aren’t changing and I’ll stop testing soon.

Our pH has the opposite problem, it drops regularly because we get a lot of rain. I’ll need to add some baking soda soon.

Now what do you mean by “if FC has to be above 5 for your pool”?

 

[Jimrahbe]

ps,

I doubt it is the rain..

What are you sanitizing your pool with???

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Richard320]

Now what do you mean by “if FC has to be above 5 for your pool”?

If your CYA was 100, your minimum FC would be 8. So your target would be higher that the colormatching block tester can read. You'd have to use the FAS=DPD tester every time.

 

[mariane]

what Richard320 said.

 

[poolshrinker]

ps,

I doubt it is the rain..

What are you sanitizing your pool with???

Thanks,

Jim R.

What do you mean by sanitize? I am keeping the chlorine and pH and other parameters in check. What additional steps do I need to take?

Why do you think it is not the rain?

 

[IceShadow]

What do you mean by sanitize? I am keeping the chlorine and pH and other parameters in check. What additional steps do I need to take?

Why do you think it is not the rain?

He’s asking what form of chlorine you add. Tablets with trichlor, granulated trichlor/dichlor, granulated cal-hypo, liquid chlorine, saltwater generator...?

 

[poolshrinker]

Pool liquid chlorine. I haven’t had to add any in 2 weeks. Then we threw in a couple of 3” tabs, but I don’t want to do that any more as I think that’s when the chlorine got a little high. It might e necessary when we are using the pool more often but right now we’re using it 1-2x per week. Next week it will be dry and in the 70s and even 80s so I’ll see how pH and TC do with more regular use.

 

[IceShadow]

The pucks are highly acidic, which is likely where the pH decrease comes from. That's why pool stores have you keep your TA up in the low 100's - to counteract tabs. If you stick to liquid chlorine the pH won't drop like that. The tabs also add CYA which is good in small amounts to protect the FC from the sunlight, but in large amounts will stop the FC from being able to sanitize. So if you do use tabs, you'll have to keep an eye on the CYA as well. (This is why we typically recommend liquid chlorine for sanitizing.)