Hello TFP, first post here after reading regularly for about a month.
I just purchased a home with a pool, so I'm a complete pool newbie. It was traditionally chlorinated, and had old junky equipment and half of it was broken. I had a pool company come out to get me an estimate on replacing basically everything, and do a conversion to salt. At the beginning, it wasn't crystal clear, but definitely wasn't green; I'd say it was slightly murky. He didn't give me any specific test results, just said it was safe to swim in for the time being. Good enough for me, and my kids were happy.
Anyway, they came out 3 days ago, replaced the pump, booster pump, pool sweep, pool light, spa light, added a SWG, and dumped a bunch of salt in the pool as I lit a pile of money on fire. I tried to capture all of the equipment in my signature. My pool is a blob, so it's hard to get the exact capacity. The pool guy estimated it as 18-20K, including a ~1K gal spa. He said to run the pump for 24h to dissolve the salt, then plug in the SWG. I did exactly that, and 48 hours following the install (and 24h since the SWG was powered on @ 70%), the pool is now a murky green (pics attached).
Since I have exactly nothing on hand, I went to Leslie's (yeah yeah, I know). They tested my water and came up with:
FC = 2.0
CC = 0
pH = 8.0
TA = 120
CH = 150
CYA = 55
Salt = 3800
Temp = 80'
They said it looked pretty good and was still safe to swim in, but gave me some Muriatic acid to drop the pH, and some Calcium Hardener, as well as tried to upsell me on a bunch of other weekly chemicals. I declined those and took home the acid and Calcium Hardener. I plugged my test results into Pool Math, and it said to drop the pH to 7.6 I'd need 22oz of 31.45% Muriatic acid, so I did just that and ran the pump for 4 hours.
Amazon delivered my Taylor test kit later that night, so I just did my first test this morning. My complaints about the titration tests aside (is it red? is it pink? it was clear, but oh wait, it turned a slight shade of pink 20 seconds later, etc), I came up with the following.
FC = 4.0 -- This test is tough for me since it seems the titration turns the sample clear, but it'll come back to a suuuuper slight pink hue 20 seconds later after sitting. Should I be adding drops until it can sit for, say 30-60 seconds, without turning from clear to pink?
CC = accidentally dumped my FC test sample before reading the directions for this test, oops
pH = 7.8
TA = 140
CH = 190
CYA = 48
Salt = salt test kit comes later today, so no reading yet, but I wouldn't think it would change much from yesterday
Temp = 82'
I've been trying to read up on the order of balancing. It sounds like I should try to tackle pH/TA first, then the rest. Pool Math says to reduce TA, to drop the pH to 7.0 - 7.2, and for me to drop to 7.2, I should add a whopping 82 oz of Muriatic acid. That could totally be right, but it sounds like a fairly large number. The sheet that Leslie's gave me said to not introduce more than 29oz of acid at a time, and to do it in chunks of 29oz, run pump for 4 hours, then do another chunk. So, I just dumped 29oz of acid in and kicked the pump on, and here's where I am now. I'll do another pH/TA test in 4 hours.
So, I suppose my questions are:
- Is it correct to tackle pH/TA first?
- I've read that low chlorine and also high TA can cause a green/murky pool. Is that correct?
- My question above regarding the FC titration test and the shades of pink.
- Anything else to blast my green away? How long am I looking at to make my kids stop asking me 30 times a day why our pool is green?
- Is there a best/cheapest place to buy chemicals online, or do I just suck it up and buy at Leslie's? It seems like Amazon has Muriatic acid for way more than Leslie's sells it for.
I've been reading ABC of pools and the Pool School stuff as much as I can, but there's so much info it's hard to retain everything, so I apologize if my questions were answered there! These forums have been a great source of info so far. Thanks for reading my wall of text!
edit: I forgot to add, we have a MASSIVE oak tree right next to the pool. Despite it providing a ton of shade, no matter how much I have my kids skim with the net, there's always oak leaves in the pool! There's 1 skimmer in the shallow end, and I just installed a weir door on it. It gets some of the leaves and junk, but definitely not most of it.
I just purchased a home with a pool, so I'm a complete pool newbie. It was traditionally chlorinated, and had old junky equipment and half of it was broken. I had a pool company come out to get me an estimate on replacing basically everything, and do a conversion to salt. At the beginning, it wasn't crystal clear, but definitely wasn't green; I'd say it was slightly murky. He didn't give me any specific test results, just said it was safe to swim in for the time being. Good enough for me, and my kids were happy.
Anyway, they came out 3 days ago, replaced the pump, booster pump, pool sweep, pool light, spa light, added a SWG, and dumped a bunch of salt in the pool as I lit a pile of money on fire. I tried to capture all of the equipment in my signature. My pool is a blob, so it's hard to get the exact capacity. The pool guy estimated it as 18-20K, including a ~1K gal spa. He said to run the pump for 24h to dissolve the salt, then plug in the SWG. I did exactly that, and 48 hours following the install (and 24h since the SWG was powered on @ 70%), the pool is now a murky green (pics attached).
Since I have exactly nothing on hand, I went to Leslie's (yeah yeah, I know). They tested my water and came up with:
FC = 2.0
CC = 0
pH = 8.0
TA = 120
CH = 150
CYA = 55
Salt = 3800
Temp = 80'
They said it looked pretty good and was still safe to swim in, but gave me some Muriatic acid to drop the pH, and some Calcium Hardener, as well as tried to upsell me on a bunch of other weekly chemicals. I declined those and took home the acid and Calcium Hardener. I plugged my test results into Pool Math, and it said to drop the pH to 7.6 I'd need 22oz of 31.45% Muriatic acid, so I did just that and ran the pump for 4 hours.
Amazon delivered my Taylor test kit later that night, so I just did my first test this morning. My complaints about the titration tests aside (is it red? is it pink? it was clear, but oh wait, it turned a slight shade of pink 20 seconds later, etc), I came up with the following.
FC = 4.0 -- This test is tough for me since it seems the titration turns the sample clear, but it'll come back to a suuuuper slight pink hue 20 seconds later after sitting. Should I be adding drops until it can sit for, say 30-60 seconds, without turning from clear to pink?
CC = accidentally dumped my FC test sample before reading the directions for this test, oops
pH = 7.8
TA = 140
CH = 190
CYA = 48
Salt = salt test kit comes later today, so no reading yet, but I wouldn't think it would change much from yesterday
Temp = 82'
I've been trying to read up on the order of balancing. It sounds like I should try to tackle pH/TA first, then the rest. Pool Math says to reduce TA, to drop the pH to 7.0 - 7.2, and for me to drop to 7.2, I should add a whopping 82 oz of Muriatic acid. That could totally be right, but it sounds like a fairly large number. The sheet that Leslie's gave me said to not introduce more than 29oz of acid at a time, and to do it in chunks of 29oz, run pump for 4 hours, then do another chunk. So, I just dumped 29oz of acid in and kicked the pump on, and here's where I am now. I'll do another pH/TA test in 4 hours.
So, I suppose my questions are:
- Is it correct to tackle pH/TA first?
- I've read that low chlorine and also high TA can cause a green/murky pool. Is that correct?
- My question above regarding the FC titration test and the shades of pink.
- Anything else to blast my green away? How long am I looking at to make my kids stop asking me 30 times a day why our pool is green?
- Is there a best/cheapest place to buy chemicals online, or do I just suck it up and buy at Leslie's? It seems like Amazon has Muriatic acid for way more than Leslie's sells it for.
I've been reading ABC of pools and the Pool School stuff as much as I can, but there's so much info it's hard to retain everything, so I apologize if my questions were answered there! These forums have been a great source of info so far. Thanks for reading my wall of text!
edit: I forgot to add, we have a MASSIVE oak tree right next to the pool. Despite it providing a ton of shade, no matter how much I have my kids skim with the net, there's always oak leaves in the pool! There's 1 skimmer in the shallow end, and I just installed a weir door on it. It gets some of the leaves and junk, but definitely not most of it.
