New pool owner

[greg w]

Hey guys-

My name is Greg and we just purchased a home this year that has a 4 year old in ground 16.5k gallon concrete pool. Decided to open it a little early so i could tweak the chemistry and learn what i could to hopefully get it right for daily swimming. Paid a pool service to open it for me , no problems, equipment in good shape etc. Purchased the taylor 2006 kit for testing myself . Also used leslie pool to test my water 1 time so far. They tried to sell me a bunch of chemicals already, thus my concerns lol. Anyway so far I've just been using the 3 inch trichlor tabs for chlorine. Water been holding pretty good until today after we had massive rains and everything is kinda out of whack today. Cya 0 and chlorine at .4 , combined chlorine at 4.5? Few questions......

I think i would like to switch to the BBB method since it seems easiest and least costly. Do i have to wait or can i just pull the pucks i have in and roll on with the BBB method or should i shock the pool with pool store shock first to get my levels back up? Thanks in advance and sorry if I'm posting these questions in the wrong place

Greg

 

[Jimrahbe]

Greg,

Welcome to TFP.. A Great resource for all pool owners who have tired of trips to the pool store.

How about posting a full set of test results from your Taylor kit.. as follows..

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA

I ask because the results you posted just don't sound right to me.. They may be, but just don't pass the smell test..

If you have been using 3" tabs/pucks and have been using pool store shock then I'm very surprised that your CYA is 0.

Is your pool crystal clear, cloudy or green???

There is no reason you can't jump right into using the TFP process, but it would be good to have a solid set of data to start.

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

 

[greg w]

Greg,

Welcome to TFP.. A Great resource for all pool owners who have tired of trips to the pool store.

How about posting a full set of test results from your Taylor kit.. as follows..

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA

I ask because the results you posted just don't sound right to me.. They may be, but just don't pass the smell test..

If you have been using 3" tabs/pucks and have been using pool store shock then I'm very surprised that your CYA is 0.

Is your pool crystal clear, cloudy or green???

There is no reason you can't jump right into using the TFP process, but it would be good to have a solid set of data to start.

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

Hey Jim-

not trusting my results too much since was my first try on the taylor so i took my water to leslies and here are their results........

FAC- 2
TAC-2
CH-100
CYA-0
TA-80
PH-7.6
copper-0
iron-0
TDS-300
Pho- 0

my readings were...

FC- .4?
CC- 4.5?
ph-7.6
ta-100
ch-100

pretty sure my chlorine readings are wrong because i might have messed up the calculations somehow

what do you think of these readings?

thanks

 

[Jimrahbe]

Greg,

You don't trust your tests, and we don't trust anyplace the tests your water for free and also sells chemicals... So it looks like we are at a standstill

Check out these videos and try your test kit again... https://www.youtube.com/user/tf100testkit?feature=results_main

Since the pool store says you have zero CYA, I would add some stabilizer (CYA) now. This assumes your water is clear.. and not cloudy. Add enough to bring the CYA up to 30 ppm.

Let me know how the videos worked for you..

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[greg w]

Thanks!

water looks great but i def had a cya rating over 0 too. will add stabilizer and see what happens . thanks again

- - - Updated - - -

Hey also i just read that cold water can affect the CYA reading. I opened my pool early for the north east . The water is prob in the upper 50's any chance it could be that?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Thanks!

water looks great but i def had a cya rating over 0 too. will add stabilizer and see what happens . thanks again

- - - Updated - - -

Hey also i just read that cold water can affect the CYA reading. I opened my pool early for the north east . The water is prob in the upper 50's any chance it could be that?

Greg,

We had one of our member run a test and found that it makes little difference if the water is cold. But, it can't hurt to let the water warm up inside before running the test. Just so that we are clear.. the test has to be run outside with your back to the sun. It needs to be sunny, as the test is not accurate if cloudy.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[greg w]

ok so i used my taylor kit and I'm pretty confident these are accurate...... Note I added 1 bottle Liquid conditioner yesterday to try to bring up my cya and i also shocked the pool with a bag of poly sunday.

FC- 1.4
CC- 2.6
Ph- 7.6
TA-100
CH- 70
Cya-30

whats the deal with my CC? any tips on why this is still elevated?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Greg,

CC's could be a testing error or you could have algae.

Your FC really needs to be higher to prevent algae. How high depends on your CYA. See this chart... https://www.troublefreepool.com/content/128-chlorine-cya-chart-slam-shock

Looking at the chart your FC should be 4 to 6 ppm, with the absolute minimum of 2, and you are below 2...

You need to run the CC test immediately after the FC test. Once the FC test goes clear, if you let it just sit it will turn pink on its own..

If your water is clear, then you can do the OCLT to make sure nothing is consuming the chlorine.. Basically, after sundown, you add liquid chlorine/plain bleach, wait 30 minutes and test the FC... Get your rear out of bed before sunrise (sorry) and test FC again.. If something is in the water, your FC will have dropped by more than 1 ppm..

Here are the specific instructions.. https://www.troublefreepool.com/content/136-perform-the-overnight-fc-chlorine-loss-test-oclt

Thanks,

Jim R.