Hi! My pool will be a year old in September. We have a guy who comes weekly for maintenance, but in the past few months, I've been trying to learn how to do some of this myself. I'm a swim instructor, and it's very important that I keep everything in balance for the safety of my students. Since I've started testing things, I've noticed that we are having issues maintaining the proper level of free chlorine and we've had high Ph and Alkalinity issues that have produced tons of white calcium flakes in the pool. I also think we may have some calcium crystals that have built up on the sides of the pool on the plaster. I just received my Taylor K2006c test kit and ran my first test this way (I've been using strips in the past). Filter was cleaned within the last month and the salt cell was also cleaned 3 weeks ago. I have been running the chlorinator at 70%, and the pump run time is 8 hour/day (9am-5pm). I know I need to add acid to bring down the Ph. I wanted to know if it is okay to use dry acid in a salt pool? I read somewhere that it wasn't, but can't remember where. I've used MA before, but I'm very uncomfortable using it myself. Any input on how to confirm calcium crystals and how to remove them? I can try to take a pic and put it on here. I've been monitoring the salt level for the past 2 months, but the chlorinator cannot seem to keep the level up. My pool guy has added chlorine tablets to bring up the chlorine a few times, and I shocked it last week when it was low and the pool was cloudy. I'm not sure if the chlorinator isn't working, or if it is something else that is throwing it off. Do I need to test for nitrates? We don't have any trees that directly overhang the pool, but we do get leaves and pollen in it. There hasn't been pollen dropping for at least a month.
Test results:
free chlorine = 1.2 ppm
combined chlorine = .4 ppm
ph = 8.0
Cyanuric Acid = 33 ppm
Total alkalinity = 120
Calcium hardness = 350
Salinity = 2990 ppm
11,650 gallons
In ground
Pebble
Filter is Jandy 580 Cartridge filter
Jandy Variable Speed Pump
Jandy Truclear Salt Water Chlorinator
Taylor k2006c
Test results:
free chlorine = 1.2 ppm
combined chlorine = .4 ppm
ph = 8.0
Cyanuric Acid = 33 ppm
Total alkalinity = 120
Calcium hardness = 350
Salinity = 2990 ppm
11,650 gallons
In ground
Pebble
Filter is Jandy 580 Cartridge filter
Jandy Variable Speed Pump
Jandy Truclear Salt Water Chlorinator
Taylor k2006c