- Jul 21, 2008
- 3
Hello my name is James and I live near New Orleans. To give you some background before I ask my question, I purchased a home in March and it happened to have a pool (old pool, gunite surface is pretty bad off and looks to be getting worse, will probably replaster this winter if I really have to). I have spent the last 6 months remodeling the house and have been paying a pool guy to keep my pool up mostly because I didn't really have the time to spend researching how to do it. I suspected that something was wrong with the water chemistry because I have these little black spots all over the bottom of the pool at the deep end and around the edges of the steps. After looking closer it has a slimy surface so I suspect it is black algae. I didn't know what to do until I found this site, which gave me the courage to fire my expensive pool guy who I think wasn't doing much of anything but emptying the skimmers and making sure the salt level was around 3000. Anyway I purchased the TF100 test kit and tested my pool for the first time a few days ago. Results below:
15k gallon, gunite pool with SWG and cartridge filter (don’t know that much about the filter yet but will shortly)
FC 3
CC .5
pH 8
T/A ~160
CH ~160
CYA less than 20 (filled the tube and could still faintly see the black dot, did it twice to make sure I didn't mess up)
Salt ~3000
So today I bought some CYA and using the pool calculator put in about 33 oz to start. Will retest later in the week so I can accurately move it again. So now that you have some knowledge of my pool I have 2 questions:
1) The levels above are all over the place, and instead of putting in a lot of different chemicals all at once my plan was to get one item in the correct range then adjust the next until all of them are in the correct range. I started with the CYA level so my chlorine has a fighting chance to kill the algae. Is one item at a time a smart way of doing it and if so is the CYA good to start with or in which order should I plan my attack?
2) In the TF100 test kit to measure CH it has a note that if you pool contains copper to add two drops of R-0012 prior to adding the R-0011L, but the test kit doesn't have anything to test copper with so how do I know if my pool contains copper? (I am assuming that means trace copper levels in the water)
Thanks in advance for any advice you may give me and also thanks to all the admins on the site that help keep it going. Without this site I would have a very hard time and spend a lot more money learning and keeping my pool together.
15k gallon, gunite pool with SWG and cartridge filter (don’t know that much about the filter yet but will shortly)
FC 3
CC .5
pH 8
T/A ~160
CH ~160
CYA less than 20 (filled the tube and could still faintly see the black dot, did it twice to make sure I didn't mess up)
Salt ~3000
So today I bought some CYA and using the pool calculator put in about 33 oz to start. Will retest later in the week so I can accurately move it again. So now that you have some knowledge of my pool I have 2 questions:
1) The levels above are all over the place, and instead of putting in a lot of different chemicals all at once my plan was to get one item in the correct range then adjust the next until all of them are in the correct range. I started with the CYA level so my chlorine has a fighting chance to kill the algae. Is one item at a time a smart way of doing it and if so is the CYA good to start with or in which order should I plan my attack?
2) In the TF100 test kit to measure CH it has a note that if you pool contains copper to add two drops of R-0012 prior to adding the R-0011L, but the test kit doesn't have anything to test copper with so how do I know if my pool contains copper? (I am assuming that means trace copper levels in the water)
Thanks in advance for any advice you may give me and also thanks to all the admins on the site that help keep it going. Without this site I would have a very hard time and spend a lot more money learning and keeping my pool together.