Plaster not looking good? Time to drain and refill pool water?

[pc132]

This season the plaster on my pool has really started looking, for lack of a better word, old. This is the fourth season we've been using the pool, so I'm not sure if this is normal or not. Pictures are attached. In one of the pics, you can see that the plaster is all mottled. On another one, there is a slight browning just beneath the surface. In fact, I feel like I'm slowly seeing more and more browning. Is this normal? I know I have very hard water, so I'm wondering if it is time to drain and replace the water? Any thoughts? It's a salt water pool if it makes any difference.

FC: 6
pH: 7
TA: 20
CH: 1000
CYA: 20
Salt: 5000

 

[jmikeb]

i’m not a plaster guru, but your CSI is so negative that it’s killing your plaster.
get TA up to 60
get your ph to 7.5
and
then you can increase cya to 70 to help your swag.
that fixes lots of stuff with your pool

 

[Catanzaro]

As mentioned by jmikeb, you must maintain your CSI properly to reduce and prevent these type of conditions. Please use pool math and plug in all your figures, etc.

PoolMath

 

[pc132]

Thanks for the info! Admittedly, I've been lax on making sure the TA levels were OK. I just bought 2 boxes of baking soda and will put it in tonight. I'm going to closely monitor the CSI from here on out. Some follow up questions, if you don't mind.

1. Is the effect on the plaster at all reversible or is that mottling permanent?
2. Is there any point where I should drain and refill the water?

Thanks!

 

[Richard320]

If your CH is really and truly 1000, now is the time to replace some water. If you got that reading using a speedstir, it's probably right. If you got it by swirling, or from a pool store, it's probably wrong.