Pool newbie here having trouble with balancing

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songtosing

0
Jul 4, 2018
56
Manchester, MA
Hello! We have a 12ftx30in Intex metal frame pool. Started filling it Saturday, finished filling it on Sunday. Had the cheapo filter pump that came with it running until Monday when I set up the sand pump and saltwater system. Had water tested on Tuesday at pool store.
Ph 7.4
Chlorine stabilizer 0
Calcium hardness 6
Free & Total 0
Total Alkalinity 38
We left the store with this -
Raise the calcium hardness (calcium chloride),
Stabilizer (cyanuric acid),
Raise Alkalinity (sodium hydrogen carbonate),
And power shock.
Put these in last night. Now when I test with the 4 way strip, some 18 hours later, it says my calcium hardness hasn't changed much, alkalinity went WAY up (too high), pH which was fine before went way up, chlorine looks ok, and these strips don't test for stabilizer.
Do I really need to go get muriatic acid? That will lower the pH & alkalinity, correct? What caused the alkalinity & pH to go way up? Did I just add too much alkalinity increaser (even though I put in the amount pool store said)? Thank you so much for any advice & please excuse my confusion!
Have a great day!
 
I too started with test strips about a month ago and that turned into a mess. Pool store readings are not much better. Soooo...if you don't know where you actually are, you can't realistically balance anything. Read pool school and peruse the forum.
You will find that everyone who embraces tfp get their own test kit and use pool math along with guidance here to make changes. Search tfttestkits. Good luck!
 
Welcome! :wave:

First thing: ditch the strips. They're wrong as much as they're right and you don't know what mood it's in.
Second thing: Don't have the pool store test your water. They're wrong a lot, too. And even if the testing is perfect, their advice to you was wrong. Case in point: Calcium. Why do you need Calcium? Mainly to keep from etching plaster and making it crumble and flake. But you don't have plaster. It doesn't matter if your Calcium is low. So why did they sell you Calcium?

What you need is pretty simple.
1) Do a little reading in Pool School. ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry will de-confuse some acronyms and so on. Pool School - Guide for Seasonal/Temporary Pools explains what kind of test kit you really need. Hopefully, you remember how much stabilizer you added. We can work backwards from that to estimate where your CYA level is.
2) Buy that test kit and get readings. The little two-ways are not expensive.
3) Post up the results along with what you remember about the CYA and we'll get you sorted out.
 
Richard320 said:
Welcome! :wave:

First thing: ditch the strips. They're wrong as much as they're right and you don't know what mood it's in.
Second thing: Don't have the pool store test your water. They're wrong a lot, too. And even if the testing is perfect, their advice to you was wrong. Case in point: Calcium. Why do you need Calcium? Mainly to keep from etching plaster and making it crumble and flake. But you don't have plaster. It doesn't matter if your Calcium is low. So why did they sell you Calcium?

What you need is pretty simple.
1) Do a little reading in Pool School. ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry will de-confuse some acronyms and so on. Pool School - Guide for Seasonal/Temporary Pools explains what kind of test kit you really need. Hopefully, you remember how much stabilizer you added. We can work backwards from that to estimate where your CYA level is.
2) Buy that test kit and get readings. The little two-ways are not expensive.
3) Post up the results along with what you remember about the CYA and we'll get you sorted out.
Click to expand...

Ok thank you! I did read that pool school for temporary/seasonal pools. So you're saying a 2way test is sufficient, so it's just chlorine & pH and I don't even need to worry about alkalinity? So the chemical they sold me to raise Alkalinity wasn't even necessary? I wish I discovered this site before going to the pool store! I hope I didn't mess up the water too much with what they gave me. We were hoping the kids could get in the water today, but I think the chlorine and pH are too high now that I treated it with what they gave me on Tuesday. I will get the test today and report back with results! :)
 
songtosing said:
Ok thank you! I did read that pool school for temporary/seasonal pools. So you're saying a 2way test is sufficient, so it's just chlorine & pH and I don't even need to worry about alkalinity? So the chemical they sold me to raise Alkalinity wasn't even necessary? I wish I discovered this site before going to the pool store! I hope I didn't mess up the water too much with what they gave me. We were hoping the kids could get in the water today, but I think the chlorine and pH are too high now that I treated it with what they gave me on Tuesday. I will get the test today and report back with results! :)
Click to expand...
The Calcium Increaser wasn't necessary at all, and the Alkalinity Increaser is just repackaged overpriced baking soda. Chemically identical to the stuff you buy at the grocery store.

The chlorine will drop once the sun gets beating down on the pool. No worries there. pH adjustments don't take long. If you buy a slightly better test kit that has TA tests, you can dial the pH in a lot faster.
 
Richard320 said:
The Calcium Increaser wasn't necessary at all, and the Alkalinity Increaser is just repackaged overpriced baking soda. Chemically identical to the stuff you buy at the grocery store.

The chlorine will drop once the sun gets beating down on the pool. No worries there. pH adjustments don't take long. If you buy a slightly better test kit that has TA tests, you can dial the pH in a lot faster.
Click to expand...

Gotcha! So I did the test. It's hard to tell exactly which color it matches with, but it looks like the pH is between 7.8 and 8.2. Chlorine was as dark as it goes, at 5. CYA was around 40 and I had put in roughly half of a 1.75lb container of stabilizer on Tuesday. As far as I understand, the pH and chlorine are still too high for us to swim, correct? We did a 1/4 gallon of shock Tuesday night and I have not been running the salt water chlorinator since the levels have been high. I thought it would have decreased by now! We are going away for the weekend tomorrow - should we avoid swimming in it until after the trip? Just leave the sand pump running all weekend but leave SWG off and hope the chlorine goes down? Do I need to add muriatic acid to lower that pH or would that go down over weekend? Thank you very very much for your help!!
 
songtosing said:
Gotcha! So I did the test. It's hard to tell exactly which color it matches with, but it looks like the pH is between 7.8 and 8.2. Chlorine was as dark as it goes, at 5. CYA was around 40 and I had put in roughly half of a 1.75lb container of stabilizer on Tuesday. As far as I understand, the pH and chlorine are still too high for us to swim, correct? We did a 1/4 gallon of shock Tuesday night and I have not been running the salt water chlorinator since the levels have been high. I thought it would have decreased by now! We are going away for the weekend tomorrow - should we avoid swimming in it until after the trip? Just leave the sand pump running all weekend but leave SWG off and hope the chlorine goes down? Do I need to add muriatic acid to lower that pH or would that go down over weekend? Thank you very very much for your help!!
Click to expand...
Do you have some bottled water? You could dilute your sample 50-50 with that water and then use that to test the chlorine. It's not hard; you can use a big container and a measuring cup or measuring spoons to get the mixture, and then pour that into the tester. Double the result.

Half of 1.75 lbs is 14 ounces, and that should have gotten your CYA to 55ish. We call that 60. If your FC is less than 24, that part is safe to swim. Which only leaves pH. If the FC is above 10, then your pH reading is probably reading artificially high. Ignore it until FC comes down. If FC is already down below 10, then you'll need to add a little acid. We're talking 1/4 cup at a time until pH comes down, so not a lot.
 
Richard320 said:
Do you have some bottled water? You could dilute your sample 50-50 with that water and then use that to test the chlorine. It's not hard; you can use a big container and a measuring cup or measuring spoons to get the mixture, and then pour that into the tester. Double the result.

Half of 1.75 lbs is 14 ounces, and that should have gotten your CYA to 55ish. We call that 60. If your FC is less than 24, that part is safe to swim. Which only leaves pH. If the FC is above 10, then your pH reading is probably reading artificially high. Ignore it until FC comes down. If FC is already down below 10, then you'll need to add a little acid. We're talking 1/4 cup at a time until pH comes down, so not a lot.
Click to expand...
Ok now I'm extra confused! I did the 50/50 with bottled water and it looks like a 1 on the chlorine. So that would be a 2 if I double it. But when I tested with straight pool water earlier it looked like the darkest square which is a 5?
Thank you again!!
 
IMG_20180705_165019.jpg

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IMG_20180705_165011.jpg

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So after testing at home, my mom took a sample up to the pool store. The above picture is the results they gave my mom (this guy told my mom exactly what you said about me not needing the calcium hardness chemical that they had previously sold me!). So they sold my mom the pH minus & "oxidizing shock & swim" and said to put those in & the kids could swim in a couple hours. I don't even think I saw that ozidizer chemical mentioned in the pool school so now I'm extra confused! Should I really sprinkle in some of these two? Thank you!!
 

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That pH down is just dry acid. Poolmath can give the doses to use that instead if Muriatic Acid.

Your pool is 12' diameter by 30" deep, which is 2.5 ft. But you won't be filling it to the rim, so I used 12' X 2.2 feet in poolmath which tells me 1900 gallons. If the pool store test is right,. you only need about 6 fluid ounces --3/4 cup -- of the dry acid. Weight-wise, that's about 9 ounces. They're pushing a full 16 ounces... I think we know why things are going so far out of whack.

Don't use the shock-n-swim. It's MPS, which can mess with the chlorine tests. And why is this store so hep to "shock" everything? It's a fresh fill. How dirty can it have gotten yet? Use bleach to keep things sanitary. That MPS will oxidize algae and bather waste, but it won't kill bacteria like bleach will.
 
Earlier today, I got a 5 for chlorine when testing it work straight pool water, and a 1 (doubled would be a 2) when testing with 50/50 pool water/bottled water. The pH was around 7.8-8.2 it was in between those two colors on my dropper kit.

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Richard320 said:
That pH down is just dry acid. Poolmath can give the doses to use that instead if Muriatic Acid.

Your pool is 12' diameter by 30" deep, which is 2.5 ft. But you won't be filling it to the rim, so I used 12' X 2.2 feet in poolmath which tells me 1900 gallons. If the pool store test is right,. you only need about 6 fluid ounces --3/4 cup -- of the dry acid. Weight-wise, that's about 9 ounces. They're pushing a full 16 ounces... I think we know why things are going so far out of whack.

Don't use the shock-n-swim. It's MPS, which can mess with the chlorine tests. And why is this store so hep to "shock" everything? It's a fresh fill. How dirty can it have gotten yet? Use bleach to keep things sanitary. That MPS will oxidize algae and bather waste, but it won't kill bacteria like bleach will.
Click to expand...

Ok thank you! So just return the sodium MPS oxidizer, and sprinkle in that small amount of phMinus? Was the pool store correct in saying that we could swim shortly after putting that in? A couple hours?
 
songtosing said:
Earlier today, I got a 5 for chlorine when testing it work straight pool water, and a 1 (doubled would be a 2) when testing with 50/50 pool water/bottled water. The pH was around 7.8-8.2 it was in between those two colors on my dropper kit.

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Ok thank you! So just return the sodium MPS oxidizer, and sprinkle in that small amount of phMinus? Was the pool store correct in saying that we could swim shortly after putting that in? A couple hours?
Click to expand...
I'd go in in fifteen minutes, myself. Dry acid is best added by pre-dissolving it in a bucket of water and then pouring that slowly in front of a return.
 
Richard320 said:
Probably. Have you added salt?

And it's time you filled out your signature so we know these things. Instructions are in Pool School - Read This BEFORE You Post
Click to expand...

Hi,
Oddly enough, after being gone all weekend, my chlorine is even higher. My mom did run the SWG for me a few hours each day while I was gone. Just tested the chlorine and it was darker than the top box (5). Diluted and it was STILL darker than the 5! Any idea of how on Earth my chlorine is so high? Could it be related to me having too much salt in the pool?
My dad threw in 1/4c of phMinus while I was away and when I tested, the pH is still too high, so he's throwing in another 1/4c for me now.
If the pH goes down after running the acid through the pool for an hour, what can I do to lower the chlorine? Put some hose water in? It's been a week and my kids are very eager to get in this pool but I just can't seem to get the levels right. Thanks so much!
 
If anyone added that shock-n-swim, it's going to mess with the chlorine test for a while.

Compare your current readings with [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA] and if you're above minimum but below shock level, it's okay to swim. And if someone added that shock n swim, who knows? You could have a bunch of chlorine, it could all be MPS. People swim in rivers and lakes all the time and live to tell about it.
 

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