New Pool Owner in Mesa, AZ

Jump to latest Follow Reply
It being at 17 PSI after backwash sounds much better to me than 20 psi did, and more at where I would expect it to be. (not my level of expertise, but a clean pressure of 20psi, just sounded higher than all the others I've dealt with).

Now remember though, since 17 psi is Your actual clean pressure, it changes where the 20-25% mark hits for future backwashes. 20% will raise it by 3.4, and 25% will raise it by 4.25. So you'll need to backwash at around 20-21 psi to ensure you maintain your filter at its maximum filtering pressure because any amount over that you'll start seeing more of a decline with each rise in the filter's ability to do its job. You guys are doing great. Keep up the great job, and have a wonderful night.
 
6:00 pm FC 21.5, down .5 in 4.5 hours

The psi stayed at 17 most of the day, but is now up to 28. Should he have to be back washing every day?

Our 3 year old granddaughter was playing in the dirt outside earlier this evening. I happened to walk outside and find her with a cap off of some kind of jug, filled with pebbles and dirt. She was walking towards the pool fence and I told her she is to never put anything in the pool or even inside the pool fence. She was right by the fence and was heading towards the area of the cover for the water supply opening. There are 2 holes on top of that cover. I think she was planning to dump the dirt and rocks in there, so Rusty got down and took the cover off and found a few pebbles and quite a bit of dirt which he flushed out into the pool. Leave it to the grandkids...lol.

9:20 pm he just checked the gauge again and it's back to 18 right now, but is also running at a slower speed right now. He just said he cleaned the skimmer and that seemed to bring it down a little.

9:20 pm FC 20, down 1.5 in 3 hours 20 minutes CC 1

Bumping back up to 22 for the night.
 
This "water supply opening" you mentioned, is it a pool water leveler? If so, it may be a partial cause to this SLAM dragging on as there could be some nasties hiding in there and they are flowing into the pool as water is being added. If its the water leveler, flush it out really well - including the line leading to the pool - using a hose. After its flushed out, pour a little chlorine directly into it. Then let it sit for about an hour. After letting it sit, add a bit more chlorine and then engage the float to allow water to flow and run it for about 3-5 minutes to allow it to flush the contents into the pool. This should clean it out pretty good. Check the chlorine in the pool about 30 minutes later and add if needed. If you see more stuff come out of the pool inlet pipe, it may take a few days to kill it all.

Trying to eliminate any and all possibilities of places for junk to hide can be difficult. As your timer is set to run the in-floor cleaner daily, there is little possibility that there is anything hiding in that system at this point because SLAM level water has been circulating through that system. Your overnight loss and CC levels on your AM testing have varied a bit - so something may be getting into the water somewhere/somehow.

You can always hope your granddaughter just helped you to eliminate the LAST hiding place. :p

You guys have been doing a GREAT job! Keep up the good work.

As an aside: If you want to know when the pool was built, try calling the city of Mesa building permits division. They should be able to look up any permits issued by your street address.
 
+1 on what Gene said about the water supply opening, and how to clean it properly.

No, you shouldn't have to backwash everyday (But if the pressure rises like that you really have no choice but to backwash it). Why it is having the high daily rises I have no idea, perhaps Gene will know something about it. (I just hope there's nothing wrong with it). The only way other than if it has something weird going on in there that it would rise is if it is filtering out a lot of debris, or Rusty is vacuuming out a lot of debris to it, which I can't imagine there being that much debris in there to raise it like that. LOL If there is still that much debris left in there you might want to plan to SLAM quite awhile longer.:shock:

As far as the grandkids, I completely understand, my little grand stinkers do the exact same thing. When I cleaned out my pool at the beginning of Summer, I can't even tell you how many little pebbles of pea gravel I vacuumed out of there, but it was a bunch of them that the grandboys had thrown in there. LOL Gotta watch them every sec for sure because if there's something they can get in to, or do, they certainly will.

When my grandson was about 2 yrs old we took the door knob off our upstairs door, before they came in from out of town, because he'd learned to open a door, we didn't have a lock on it, and we didn't want him to fall trying to climb the steps, so we just removed the door knob so he couldn't open the door. I kid you not within 10 mins of him being in this house he had already taken out his plastic screwdriver from his Bob the Builder toolbox, stuck it in the hole where the door knob had been removed, and opened that upstairs door. Them little boogers are smart, and they know exactly what they're doing.

The slight higher in the drop in FC level tonight might have been dirt related, but we'll see if it changes the numbers or not, but hopefully it won't effect them much at all. I like that .5 drop again earlier tonight though. I also hope the CC-1 disappears overnight too. You guys have a wonderful night. :)
 
It could be the gauge sticking. Mine does that once in a while. I just flick the side of it and it usually drops back to my normal. I plan on ordering a new one from tftestkits to include with my next order.

If flicking doesn't change the higher indication, a backwash is in order. There is still stuff in the water somewhere as your overnight chlorine loss and/or CC shows.

Let us know more about that water supply opening and what it looks like inside there.
 
Thanks CJ - yes, a glycerin filled gauge. :wink:
I am still using the original gauge - 16 years old..... it's time :p
 
7:00 am FC 18, down 2 overnight (9 hrs 40 min). I know we said we were bumping it up to 22 last night, but Rusty was really tired and decided to go to bed instead...lol.

We think CC is at .5 this morning. Rusty said he couldn't decide if it was clear or still pinkish so he put a second drop in which didn't change it so he's pretty sure it was .5

Do you ever question whether your test water is still pink or actually clear? We quite often aren't 100% sure if it needs another drop or two. I think we have that problem because of the reflection of things around Rusty where he does the test like the tannish colored walls seem to give it a pinkish color sometimes. One time there was an orange towel laying nearby that was causing it...lol. I told him I think we should use a white piece of paper by the test so we can tell better.

Rusty has already flushed/cleaned out the supply area. He will put some chlorine in there like advised above. It is a levler with a float in there. Our drip system has a leak, so we haven't been using this water supply line.

The psi was 18 this morning. Rusty doesn't think it is sticking, but will check it when it gets high again before back washing.

I believe everything you said about your grandchild. My now 4 year old grandson lived with us for about a year and a half recently. He and his little sister get into everything. They seem to have a kind of street smarts for lack of knowing what else to call it. Their mom is always telling them to go get this or that out of a closet or the refrigerator, etc. As a result, I couldn't keep them out of anything. They are very independent! He was opening every kind of baby safety device out there by the time he was 2 and always helping himself to stuff from the refrigerator.

Sorry, I thought I posted this hours ago. I've been babysitting grandchildren and just got back on here and discovered that it didn't post earlier.
 
Your levels are looking better again, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that was the last of it, but we will see.

I have had issues at times with trying to determine whether it is pink, or clear, and a lot of times if you wait a sec or 2 too long, the pink will show back up anyway, which with a new tester can really throw them for a loop lol.


What I do on mine is I use the worst case scenario as IMO it is always better to be safe than sorry, and that way at least if you have a problem you can address it quickly. Also if you are ever in doubt say like during an OCLT or something you can always retest it with 25ml water sample too as it is a little more accurate because it puts it at .2 vs .5 so that's another suggestions should you ever find yourself in a bind where you really just aren't sure of the results.

But considering you've been at CC 2 for the past 2 days I will gladly accept the .5 reading, and I'm very glad to see it again. :whoot:

Anyway, I'm hoping you guys are on the homeward stretch now and it is soon stops the crazy fluctuations. LOL on Rusty conking out before bump up last night. He's been working hard keeping it maintained for a while now, so I'm sure he is tired. Hopefully not much longer. I'm looking forward to see what tonight's bedtime FC and CC are and then those in the morning because I know you guys are soooooo very close. Keep up the great job, and have a wonderful night. :)
 
So, yesterday's numbers are all messed up. The morning reading at 7 Am was FC 18, down 2 overnight, CC .5
He bumped it up to 20.

i got a call from my daughter and left home to go babysit while Rusty was at work, so we weren't able to test again until about 5:45 pm. Rusty said his results were FC 15, so he added enough chlorine to bring it up to 21. Then he tested again at 10:30 pm and the results FC 23 CC 1.5. He doesn't know if the first test or second test was wrong, but he knows our pool doesn't make it's own chlorine...lol. Whenever we've retested after about a half hour after an add, we've gotten the number we expected.

This morning 8:00 am FC 18, so if his last test result was accurate last night, we dropped down 5 overnight in 9.5 hours.
CC 1.5 again this morning. He just bumped it back up to 20. He didn't do any brushing or vacuuming yesterday.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Well poo, Bonnie, that darn CC is rearing it's ugly head again at 1.5ppm perhaps it is from the clean out of the supply area, yelp you might have had a bit hiding in there too. I was hoping you guys had it clear in there finally, BUT with that large drop, and a CC again of 1.5ppm, I spect not. :( Hopefully only one more round to go, and it will be done. (But see this is why we stay on it because if all that was in there and it does not get killed out completely then you guys would have a forever recurring algae issue, and never been able to get any chlorine in there to hold long at all.

As Gene said the other day, it might take a couple days to clean out what the supply line let in, so just hang tough guys, and keep bumping up that chlorine back up to shock level or slightly higher to get it killed out quickly, and keep on top of the brushing, and vacuuming.

Have a nice day, you guys will get it, I promise you will. :)
 
Humm that is odd, I hope there's nothing wrong with the reagents.
We do need to try to figure out what has happened, and whether it was a calculation error, add error, testing error before the add, or a reagents issue, but one thing we know for certain is that your pool is Not making it's own chlorine :).


Let's see what the next test shows, and go from there, that's about all we can do. You guys have a wonderful day, and let me know if you determine what happened.
 
What brand of bleach/chlorine are you using? What's the listed percentage? If available, what's the date code on the bottle?

Did you get the reagent through TFTestkits or elsewhere?

What size sample are you using? How much powder are you putting in?

Double check your gallons in pool math to be sure it reflects the correct pool size. Something isn't right.
 
Tge bleach was bought from NPS pools in Mesa on Gilbert Rd near Baseline. It is 10% hypochlorite, Desert Formula Ultra- filtered liquid Chlorinator. We don't see a date on it.

The reagents were all bought at TFTestkits. We just received them on Saturday.

If the 11:40 FC 25 reading was correct then we lost 9 over the following 5 hours some of which could be contributed to adding about one inch of water between those 2 readings. 4:40 FC 16. Bumped up to 20.

When we did the 4:40 test, we did it first withe same bottle of powder and drops then redid with the same powder and the other new bottle of drops, then redid again with the new bottle if powder and drops. All 3 tests came out the same so I think the reagents are fine. We did all of them with 10ml water sample.

Rusty brushed down the pool before adding the water so that might have also contributed to the high FC drop, but we don't see how it could have dropped 9 as it has never dropped that much before from adding water and brushing and even when we fond age hiding areas.

10:00pm FC 17, down 3, bumping up to 21. We will recheck in a little while to see if we got the expected result of 21 from this chlorine add. I'll post those results soon.

Just did the retest at 11:00 pm FC 21, as expected. Also tested CC 1.

Have a good night! We will start testing again in the morning.
 
It appears the reagents are fine so we can mark them off as the cause. The date on the bottle would look like something like For Example- 15234 (this would represent the 234th day of 2015).

I'm suspecting it's resulting from a calculation, testing, or add error, so just double check each step to try to prevent the discrepancy along the way because this late in the SLAM accuracy is very important especially to determine the exact overnight losses.

So until we can determine for sure what caused the discrepancies, it should be able to be caught easily by doing a retest at least 30 mins after the add each night. (it won't help much through the day, unless you also recheck 30 mins after each add of chlorine to ensure it too lands at the anticipated Target, but this is the only way to confirm exactly where you are really starting, and ending at, so we can determine exactly how much is really being lost. (NOTE:you can also use a 25ml sample if need be, if a 10ml is unable to confirm the results).

I hope this helps and I'm looking forward to seeing what your morning level shows. You guys have a wonderful day :).
 
8:00 am FC 20 CC 1, yay only down 1 overnight and we rechecked the chlorine add last night for accuracy. Rusty is leaving for work at 9 am and won't be back home to retest until close to 6 pm.

He is bumping it up to 23. I told him he should retest in 30 minutes to see if we get the desired result from the chlorine add.

He just looked at the gauge. It is at 18. It's been staying at 17-18 for a few days now.

He did the retest FC 24, so it was up 1 more than expected. We won't be retesting until this evening.
 
5:45 pm FC 17, dropped 7 in the last 9 hours., bumping it back up to 21.

Here we go again, only lost one overnight and now 7 through this hot, sunny day. Anyone know what the record is for the longest number of days for a SLAM to work? I'm beginning to think we are going to break it, whatever it is...lol. Rusty better send his guardian angel Murphy out of Arizona!! He's hung around long enough!

Rusty tried spraying water from the hose across the area of the crack on the step. No dirt came out of there and no water seemed to go in, so that's good. It did cause a very very small piece of plaster to break off, but nothing major.

We are getting frustrated with how much chlorine this pool eats up. The only time it didn't eat chlorine was when we had the pool Rx thing sitting in the skimmer. Rusty said he was told that the pool Rx has copper in it and that using it will keep the sun from depleting the chlorine. It's supposed to stabilize the chlorine or something like that. Does anyone know anything about Pool Rx and if it's something we can use again after we get done with this slam or will it cause more problems down the road! Can it be used along with the proper chlorine levels just to hel keep those levels up?
 
Good grief Bonnie. Yea, I think you guys are going to be the SLAM time frame winners at this rate for sure. I keep running everything we've done over and over trying to figure out what the heck is still causing the problem. If it's algae still, where the heck could it be hiding we have had you guys turn that pool upside down already. It's possible because of the pool RX that it could be algae and metals both causing the problem?
I personally know nothing about the Pool Rx, but I'll do some research on them, and ask around to see what I can find out. Of course here we recommend not using things that will add any unwanted or unnecessary things to your pool including copper, because it can make you have more issues because of that. Bleach, borax, baking soda or acid is usually all it takes to keep your pool clean, balanced, and properly maintained.

I was talking with another member earlier today about the difficulty your guys have had and as soon as it looks like the numbers are starting to stabilize, and like you might finally be getting close to being able to pass OCLT then Bam here you go again. Is there anything around your yard, your neighbor's yard, factories close by, ( lol crop dusters flying overhead lol you can tell I'm from KY :)), or anything that you know of that could be emitting things into the air or anything? Also we were even discussing the citrus tree, and I'm going to question that with our Experts too, as who knows, perhaps the citrus tree are emitting citric acid somehow into the pool causing the continuous backslides, but something is going on that isn't being found or killed out or something and we've got to locate it. About how close is the citrus trees to your pool?

Another thing I want you guys to do if you don't mind is to clean out your vacuum, and the vac hose really well with the garden hose, and see if you get anything out of it. Then again check/clean behind the light, recheck the skimmers, the lines, the returns, anything that allows any water, chemicals, or anything back into the pool, or anything that could possibly be harboring algae. I going to ask some of Experts to get involved with us here too, to see if they can find what we're missing so we can hopefully get you fine folks cleared out. I really thought after the supply cleaning and the Fc drop, and CC rise that once that ran it's course that would finally be the end of it, but nope, I guess not because the numbers again tell us otherwise. :(

Would it be possible for you all to take a water sample to the pool store, and have it tested for metals to see what it is now showing? It could be possible I suppose that you might need to add some kind of sequestrate to resolve this issue, but a test for metals will help us determine what may or may not be needed. Anyway, I'm sorry that the numbers did it again on your guys. I'll try to get some Expert's advice on this to try to get this resolved because apparently we are still missing something somewhere, be it algae, metals, both, or ?, and it appears that Slamming alone isn't taking care of it, and it's just going to continue to keep causing you problems over and over again.. So, if you all will get a water sample checked for metals to see where they are now, I'll be working on the my end, and we will go from there. Have a wonderful night :).
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply