I have a new plaster pool that was built this spring and put online in June in New England. It was filled with water that was trucked in. It was converted to saltwater at the beginning of July. The pool is roughly 25,000 gallons, saltwater and has a heat pump and cartridge filter. Initial plaster protocol was followed for a month, daily scrubbing 2-3x and addition of muriatic to maintain the pH between 7.4-7.6. We did have an issue with the pool guys somehow dropping the pH and alkalinity when they added the salt and cya, Im guessing they added muriatic as well or the cya just really killed the alk. Alk dropped to around 40, pH dropped to 6.8. Was told to keep brushing sides, but after 3 days of brushing with only slight increases in alk and pH I added Leslies pH increaser (supposedly just bicarb) to bring it back over 80. Tests at this time showed copper at 0.2ppm. One week later 0.3ppm, and just recently, about 3 weeks later 0.4ppm. During this time pH has been 7.4-7.8 with muriatic acid additions every other day or so. Alkalinity did dip to around 50 after we got 6" in rain in a week that required a few water level lowering sessions in between storms. Salinity has dropped from 3200 to 3000, but still in range for the salt cell. Alkalinity has been brought back up to 80 with Leslies pH increaser after the storms were over and the water level was decent. I have not added anything else chemical-wise, except a little bit of thiosulfate back in July to lower chlorine because the swg was initially set way too high.
So my questions are:
-Where could have the copper come from? Even if the water was a "corrosive" for 3 days, the heat pump is titanium not copper. No algaecide
-Are Leslies tests even accurate for copper? Their tests are usually way way off for salt, chlorine and calcium hardness compared to my taylor tests, and somewhat similar for alkalinity. Im hesitant to spend a ton of money on correction if their tests are not reliable.
-They may have used some sequestering product during the fill up, Im not sure, but if they did, could that be losing its effectiveness after a month and now releasing copper back into the water?
-Whats the best course of action to take to remove/sequester the copper? A drain and refill is not an option, besides the ridiculous cost to do it, the ground is so saturated with water. Leslies suggested culator, but I haven't done anything yet.
Oh current values
FC 4 taylor 2.5 Leslies
pH 7.6 taylor 7.4 Leslies
TA 80 taylor 70 Leslies
CH 275 Taylor 201 Leslies
Iron 0.2 Leslies
Copper 0.4 Leslies
CYA 49 Leslies
Thanks
So my questions are:
-Where could have the copper come from? Even if the water was a "corrosive" for 3 days, the heat pump is titanium not copper. No algaecide
-Are Leslies tests even accurate for copper? Their tests are usually way way off for salt, chlorine and calcium hardness compared to my taylor tests, and somewhat similar for alkalinity. Im hesitant to spend a ton of money on correction if their tests are not reliable.
-They may have used some sequestering product during the fill up, Im not sure, but if they did, could that be losing its effectiveness after a month and now releasing copper back into the water?
-Whats the best course of action to take to remove/sequester the copper? A drain and refill is not an option, besides the ridiculous cost to do it, the ground is so saturated with water. Leslies suggested culator, but I haven't done anything yet.
Oh current values
FC 4 taylor 2.5 Leslies
pH 7.6 taylor 7.4 Leslies
TA 80 taylor 70 Leslies
CH 275 Taylor 201 Leslies
Iron 0.2 Leslies
Copper 0.4 Leslies
CYA 49 Leslies
Thanks
Last edited: