New Routines Following Study of TFP

[Lonnybass]

Greetings,

Several months ago we moved into a new house in San Diego. The pool had been "maintained" by a pool guy who, for all intents and purposes, simply showed up once a week and dumped in a gallon of liquid chlorine.

My first order of business was to break down and inspect the DE filter, which supposedly had just received a top-to-bottom cleaning by the pool guy. What I found was a disgusting, epic mess. Both of my pool-owning neighbors were mortified.

Following that situation, I fired the pool guy last month, and began taking care of things myself.

To this point, I have been using Clorox 3" chlorine tabs in a floater, along with Arm & Hammer Stabilizer, PhosFree and a few clarifiers. This seems to have worked just fine for the past month or so, based upon test strips and water analyses at my local Leslie's.

But...

As I have read more and more about water chemistry on this site, I have come to learn that:

-The chlorine (dichlor?) tabs also contain CYA, and using liquid chlorine is far preferable;
-The Arm & Hammer stabilizer also contains clarifiers, which can clog my DE filter;
-Phosfree is unecessary in a well-balanced pool, and can also clog my DE filter;
-Clarifiers can clog my DE filter, and are just generally unnecessary with DE filters.

As such, I've decided to get serious about all of this, and order a Taylor K-2006 FAS test kit - and rethink my chemical product set and weekly maintenance routines by eliminating all of these complex and often unneeded additives by keeping things as simple, reliable and pure as possible. Just the chlorine without the CYA, just stabilizer without the clarifier, etc.

To this end, I am hoping to get some recommendations on how to transition over to this more informed way of managing the pool on a dependable, cyclic basis without a whole lot of trial and error.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

I suggest you review the following:

Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals
Pool School - Recommended Levels
Pool School - Basic Pool Care Schedule

I hope you ordered the K-2006C. See Pool School - Test Kits Compared
Also folks find the Speedstir Magnetic Stirrer very helpful in testing.

Get your test kit and post your test results and we will get you going. It does take a bit of trial and error to learn the way your pool needs chemicals. Use PoolMath to determine the doses. Follow the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]

 

[Lonnybass]

I actually ordered the "Non C" 2006 kit because I was able to get it delivered much faster, recognizing that it has a lower quantity of CYA tests. I'll upgrade it with the 2006C version in the next few weeks once I get through this interim period.

Test results forthcoming - I am hoping the test kit arrives today.

 

[mknauss]

To get more reagents for your K2006 -- try Complete Refill Set Taylor K-2006

 

[Lonnybass]

Great advice, thank you sir!

 

[triptyx]

To answer the final question you had - you just simply start using liquid chlorine, adding daily. Add enough to reach the top end of your target free chlorine for your level of CYA. There is no special technique or interim steps to take, just stop using the tablets and start testing and dosing daily with liquid chlorine.

Now that you're not using tablets (which are very acidic), you'll definitely want to keep an eye on your pH and add muriatic acid when necessary to lower it.

 

[Lonnybass]

Test kit arrived last night! Results coming this afternoon.

 

[Lonnybass]

Test results are in:

Free Chlorine = 7 ppm

Combined Chlorine = .8 ppm

PH = 7.2 ppm

Total Alkilinity = 120 ppm

CYA = 100 ppm

 

[mknauss]

Great!

Do the diluted CYA test -- see step 8 in Pool School - CYA

Did you do your CH test?

How do you chlorinate?

Can you drain any water and add fresh?

 

[DeanP66]

Use the 10 mL sample for your chlorine reading because you will burn through your chlorine drops otherwise. Each drop will count as .5 instead of .2. .5 is accurate enough for our purposes.

 

[Lonnybass]

Thank you for the quick reply!

Per your suggestion, I just followed the Diluted CYA test and the new result is 65.

In answer to your other questions...

1) I did not do the calcium hardness test yet, as I already know we have hard water (San Diego) and I am planning to do an osmosis filtering at some point in the off season.

2. I stopped using the Chlorox pucks in the floating chlorinator yesterday in an effort to get rid of the acid they contain. Last night I picked up some liquid chlorine at Home Depot and added approximately 18 oz. per the dosing amount relative to my pool size.

Looking forward to your input on all of this!

 

[mknauss]

If your result was 65 from the dilute test, that puts your CYA at 130-140. Very high.

Check on the reverse osmosis thing. It is not that great when doing pool water. You end up using up to at least 50% new water anyway.

Read this post Tackling a high CH.

 

[Lonnybass]

Question that occurs to me given the high CYA - should I stop using stabilizer for the moment, given the elevated CYA level?

 

[JasonJoel]

Um.... ? What stabilizer are you using? That isn't a normal thing to add continually/regularly.

 

[Lonnybass]

Before I fired him, I was told by the pool guy that he had been using Arm & Hammer Stabilizer pucks, which he said were necessary to extend the life of the chlorine here in sunny San Diego.

 

[mknauss]

You need to use liquid chlorine / bleach. Trichlor (pucks) adds 6 ppm CYA for every 10 ppm of FC.

You need to maintain your FC above 10 ppm. Target 13 ppm each day with a CYA of 140 ppm.

The sooner you can drain and refill this pool, the better.

 

[JasonJoel]

The pool guy is right that you need CYA. But it degrades very slowly, so once you get it to the target level you only very infrequently need to adjust it.

And to others' point, solid pucks typically add CYA (way more than you need) anyway.

So I'll just say what others have said. Get CYA down (drain/refill or do continuous water dump/fill), then use liquid chlorine or get a salt water chlorine generator.

 

[Lonnybass]

Understood. I am going to get on this as soon as possible.

 

[Lonnybass]

Thank you everyone for the input today. I am setting up a a purification treatment for our pool water next week.

In the meantime, I will plan on maintaining my FC level in the 10 to 13 ppm range.

Please let me know if you have any other advice as we prepare to start with a clean slate on this thing. I would also be interested in guidance on addressing some bluish staining and some spotted areas around the pool.



- - - Updated - - -

And here are glamour shots. If I can do water chemistry as well as I did with the landscape lighting, I'll be in good shape.

 

[Hank2000]

Nice. You can do it. I used pool store way of doing things for years. Then I found this site this year after threatening to take my pool down because I always had problems. I started doing it the TPF way and have not looked back. I spend about 10 minuets A day with the pool that’s only because I hand dowse the chlorine for now. I going to put in a Stenner pump after I get my robot probably the robot around Christmas and the pump around May or so.