Just introduced myself a day or two ago, and now have initial test numbers!

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F

Forkhorn

Member
May 3, 2022
7
Florida Panhandle
Pool Size
34000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Hayward Turbo Cell (T-CELL-5)
Hello all. Tonight I broke out the new TF-100 and ran everything and have some numbers. Pool is new. Plastered 12 days ago.
FC: 7.5
TA: 170
CYA: 20
pH: 7.8
CH: 175
Salt: 2000

So, after doing some reading here, this is my plan:
Get some CYA at the home improvement store in a few days and begin slowly bringing the CYA up.
Turned the SWG down from 70% to 60% to see what change that makes in FC.
I understand that it's good to not have much salt for the first month, but the pool builder added what is in there. So I'm going to wait two weeks, then bring the salt up to 3000. The SWG does not indicate low salt.

The TA being high is tougher. We're not around during the day much so aeration is hard, but this weekend when the pump comes on I can turn on the deck jets and aerate it really well. Also kids likely to be in it a lot on the weekend.
I assume the CH will drift up; I'm not planning any action there.
I have added muratic acid a few times over the past week - the pH keeps wanting to drift up. But I won't add any tomorrow.

Does this sound like a solid plan?

thanks all!
 
You should not wait too long to increase your CYA. With low CYA sunlight will eat up your chlorine. Don’t worry too much about TA as it will decrease slowly as you manage pH.

With a high TA (regardless if you reduce it or only manage pH) you are going to need quite some MA and quite frequently.
 
Thanks! I'll try and get some CYA in there on Friday (day after tomorrow).

Also I will add a little MA tomorrow.

Am I correct in thinking I'm ok on CH since it's probably creeping up? Or should I buy some CH increaser?
 
What is your fill water CH and how much fill water do you add due to evaporation?

I am surprised that salt was added this early in a new plaster cure. Also, are you sure your SWCG is operating at 2000 ppm salt? Few SWCG's operate at that low of a salinity.

With fresh plaster, it is best to keep CYA low and FC at 3 ppm or so for the first 30 days.
 
I haven't had to add any more fill water yet, but if it doesn't rain soon I will. I'll check my fill water's CH and get back to you.
I used the test strips that I bought with my test kit. It's not ultra-precise, but I think it was closer to 2000 than 3000.
Ok. I'll hold off on upping the CYA for another week or two.
 
Ok. I took some more numbers. I did some reading and decided to go on and bring up the CYA to 30, so I added 4# of stabilizer Friday and Saturday. Also, I added 4# of Calcium hardness increaser. Also I've been dribbling in a quart or so of MA pretty much every day to keep the pH below 8.

Here are the new numbers:
FC: 4.5
CC: 0.5 or maybe 0- it just *barely* turns pinkish
CH: 175. The 4# didn't do anything measurable, and it doesn't seem to be increasing on it's own, so I ordered a 25# bag of CH increaser that should arrive tomorrow. I will mix and add a few pounds to the pool each day. I want to get the CH up to 250ish.
TA: 140. This fell a little, which is good. I ran the deck jets a lot and there was a lot of swimming/splashing over the weekend.
CYA: 33-35. Hard to tell exactly when the dot disappears. But clearly the 4# bag of stabilizer did it's job and increased this from around 20 to the mid-30s. I'm not planning to add any more immediately, but once I get the CH up where I want it in a week or two, I'll add another bag and bring it to the upper 40's.
pH: 7.7
water temp: 84F
I may not be good at reading the salt strips. The SWG says 3200, so I guess that is the amount of salt. When I did the strips I guessed between 2000 and 3000. No plan to add more salt.

So anyway my plan is to add 25# of the CH increaser over this week and then run the test again next weekend and reassess. At the rate I'm going I'll add 3/4 of a gallon of MA over the week as well, but I'm looking forward to this need decreasing as the plaster approaches a month old.

Also, thanks to this forum for the suggestion to add the paint strainer bag on the skimmer baskets. They catch way more stuff; hopefully will not have to open the pump basket or backwash nearly as often. So far so good. Thanks guys!
 

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Update 5 weeks in. I am very thankful for this website. I gradually brought my CYA up to 50 and my CH up to 325. Added acid every few days to keep the pH down where it needs to be. Probably used over a gallon of acid the first week, but it's dropped to maybe a gallon every two weeks now. It really seems very easy now to maintain the pool, which has stayed beautiful and gotten a ton of use. Got a huge rain last week which overflowed the pool a little and so today I ran a full battery of tests and here are the numbers:

temp: 86F
pH: 7.8, will add another dribble of muriatic acid today over a return jet in the deep end. I probably dribble in a pint or so over the course of a minute, holding my arm out as far from the edge as possible.
FC: 4.0, CC: 0.5, TC: 4.5, happy with this level
CH: 275, I brought it up to 325 before the rain; I will add a bit more calcium to bring it back up.
TA: 110, this is always a little high, probably because my pH is always drifting a little high. Once I get where I'm not always adding MA, if this stays above the range, I'll add a little MA to lower TA and then run the aerators to raise pH back up, but not worried about that for now.
CYA: 45, this was 50 before the huge rain, so I'll add some more today

I feel like this is too easy. I really do appreciate this website for giving me confidence to maintain my own pool. A friend wants to borrow my test kit to check their pool levels too. Over the next month or two as the plaster finishes curing and MA usage continues to drop, I plan to bring up my CYA and CH levels to the bottom end of the recommended range here (CYA 70, CH 350) but I'm trying to err on the side of *less* in the water for now.

In other pool news, we got the water bill for filling, which was a *bit* over our normal usage (by about 34k gallons). Also, I'm going to update my profile with my equipment in case it helps anyone in the future.

Thanks again all.
 
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