New Pool Owner - Educate Me!

[bmoreswim]

And said slightly differently, with using pucks, since they add CYA with each puck, leaves you having a constantly changing FC requirement due to the needed ratio FC/CYA Levels. And an FC requirement that eventually becomes untenably high.

We find that it takes time for people to appreciate that what they’ve known their whole pool life as “the” way to maintain a pool is actually what causes problems for most people.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I'm not having too much trouble accepting it all. I've seen it in other aspects of my life plenty of times. Conventional and accepted wisdom is often just plain wrong!

I'm hoping we're okay on the CYA levels. We'll see. The test kit arriving on a Saturday or a Sunday works out well. Gives me a little time to go over it and learn it all.

One of the first things I need to do is deep clean my sand. I just read over the tutorial on that that's linked to in the guide. It has never been done here, and the sand was changed in '16. I also know we don't typically backwash it 3-5 minutes. But, I also think we backwash more frequently than it says, so maybe it's a wash?

I backwash after almost every thorough vacuuming, and after each spell where we might have a storm or something dump a lot of debris in the pool once we get it filtered out and cleaned up. We have a line of tall Leland Cypresses giving us some privacy around the pool but they can make quite a mess! I haven't really been waiting on filter pressure to jump 25%. Although IF filter pressure has climbed I HAVE been backwashing then too.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I just finished pool school. Lol

Now I have to basically read it all over again and record myself some notes to keep in the pool house until it all becomes more familiar.

 

[markayash]

I'm working through it. I'm a little past the point where it talked about adding some DE to the filter sand to improve efficiency, which somewhat prompted the mention of changing the sand. I was wondering if I should consider using a "better" filtering media.

I have read in the past about the sand grains, over time, wearing and becoming more round and smooth, this reducing their ability to "grab" contaminates and their effectiveness. If y'all insist that that's hogwash, however, it's fine by me! Not buying new sand or going through the trouble to remove and refill it works for me.

Jacks magic make a [product called Filter fiber and it's made to help sand and cartridge filters work better. I use a little on my cartridge filter..Not sure how it compares to DE price wise but they claim you don't need as much.

The Filter Fiber Stuff | Jacks Magic

jacksmagic.com

 

[duraleigh]

Any adequate sized sand filter should be capable of keeping your pool clean without the use of additives of any sort.

If you are having trouble with that (clean pool) it is usually because you are not running the pump enough hours for the filter to do it's job.

Backwash when your filter psi increases 25% over clean pressure. It is pretty wasteful to do it more often. Backwash until the sight glass on your filter shows no more debris.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I wouldn't say we have a problem with water clarity or filtering. I think we've been fortunate to keep a nice clean, clear pool. I think we've always run it 8 hours a day during the swim season. 24 hours while we're opening it up.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

If I understood pool school correctly, once I get this test kit, if I can verify that my chemical levels are where they need to be, and consistent, I can possibly bump down the pump run time, right? As long as it keeps the water filtered to a level of cleanliness that suits us? I would like to cut down the power bill at the pool house if possible.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I'm playing around with PoolMath right now. That app is AWESOME!

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I'm about to go crazy over here worrying about these levels being off and maybe getting worse and not knowing it or having the proper things to tackle it.

For giggles here is what I have on my test strips right now.

 

[JJ_Tex]

I wouldnt put too much stock in the test strips, but they do show very little chlorine in your pool. Are you adding liquid chlorine, or any sort of chlorine, while you are waiting for your test kit?

 

[mwemaxxowner]

We use tablets, which I'm going to refrain from adding until my test kit comes in. However, we've always had a hard time getting it to test much higher by adding tablets. It has always hovered between the 0.5 Mark and the 3 mark on the strip.

That said, we've also never had any algae or other issues either. We did have a nice green pool when we opened it up this year. But never once we got it opened up and had it open through the swim season.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

The test kit has been delivered! Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how it all works and get my water tested after the little one goes to bed tonight.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

The results are in!

First...I love the CYA test tube. It's a googaley eye in the bottom ?.

Alright alright, back to business. My free chlorine test did not turn pink to begin with, so I didn't proceed with any more chlorine testing.

CYA test....should you not be able to see the eyeball in the bottom AT ALL? I still felt like I could see it a little bit. It also seems to depend on lighting conditions around you. Anyway, I believe it to be between 70-80. At the 70 mark I pretty well couldn't see the black dot at all.

PH was between the 7.8 and 8.2 color according to my eyes and my wife's. I'll say 8-8.2. total alkalinity was a light pink at 15 drops, then one more drop was clearly pink. So 150-160. As of right now that's all I've tested. Being a vinyl liner, and not having any scale problems, I'm not immediately concerned with that. Should I be?

Also attached is the leftover tablets in my skimmer basket. I don't understand why the chlorine is so low. Seems like they do a poor job of actually increasing chlorine levels AND throw the cya out of whack.

I'm adding a gallon of bleach.. it's all I could find this afternoon. 7.1 percent.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I treat lumber at work, and I have to perform titrations non our chemical solutions to make sure my mix tanks came out at the right levels, so this isn't too foreign to me. I'm going to grab a couple of the disposable pipets we have in the lab there and bring them home. That will make a few aspects of this testing easier. For these purposes they can be rinsed and re used.

 

[JJ_Tex]

Good job on the testing, hopefully you can get your FC up to 8-10, since your CYA is 70.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I ran the numbers through pool math, looks like I would have needed to add a little over 3 gallons at the 7 percent.

Also, according to the website, Walmart has some 10% liquid chlorine in stock at around $3.50.

After dosing it with chlorine, and getting my free chlorine test up to registering something, my next step is testing fc, and cc then doing an oclt?

 

[mwemaxxowner]

If I test my calcium levels to make sure they aren't already high, what's the drawback to me using cal hypo to control my chlorine levels? Playing with pool math looks like I'd use about 1 lb a day? Looks like I'm coming out to 3 or 4 bucks a day on that. Maybe my guesstimations and math are just plain wrong? Lol

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

As long as you know the effects of using cal-hypo, there's nothing wrong with it. Pool math will show how much each pound will increase CH. It comes in granular form and it dissolves slowly. Mix well with your pool brush and don't allow it to sit on the pool surface.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

I *think* I understand the effects. To the best of my knowledge gleaned in the last two days ?, it does not contain CYA, but does use calcium to stabilize the chlorine, so it will increase calcium levels. I have a vinyl pool so somewhat elevated calcium levels aren't the end of the world, as long as it's not high enough to produce calcium scaling.

If there are other dangers associated with cal hypo chlorinating I'm not aware of them.

I almost like the idea of having a big bucket of cal hypo vs having to continually purchase so many bottles of bleach and store them.

 

[duraleigh]

what's the drawback to me using cal hypo to control my chlorine levels?

It virtually never goes away and your calcium levels get too high. You can control that by draining and refilling with low CH water but you are better off not to introduce the issue in the first place