So many issues! Test results, questions and more.

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Plazaglass

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Sep 24, 2015
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Atlantic Beach, FL
Wow, do I need your help! We have a brand-new pool and a lot of things going on. I’ll try to explain all of them since I’ve already learned enough here to know that one thing affects another then another.


OVERALL: The pool was filled 9/30/16. The builder said his crew would be responsible for taking care of the water for the first month. That didn’t involve much more than the delivery of a few pucks once a week, and a sequestrant put in right after the fill. The finish looks great (we’ve diligently brushed) and the water has been crystal clear. The builder turned on the SWG and heater yesterday, and we had pool school this morning, so everything’s now up to us.


TESTING #1: Even though the builder was still in the midst of taking care of things, I wanted to have a baseline set of numbers. On 10/16/16, while the water was still under the builder’s oversight, the numbers were:
FC: 6
CC: 0
PH: Didn’t even register on the lowest number
TA: 0
CYA: between 30 and 40


(Didn’t record the CH number at the time because it seemed impossibly high, which I’ll get back to below.)


The pebble manufacturer’s start-up procedure did say that the alkalinity and ph should be kept very low for the first month. Chlorine levels stayed between 5 and 7 throughout the month.


TESTING #2:
I did this test today, some of them twice just to be sure. Here’s what I have:
FC: 7
CC: 2
pH: Still under lowest number on test kit
TA: Still doesn’t register (sample turns pink immediately upon adding R-0008).
CH: 1600. Yes, 1600, even after repeating the test using the “fading endpoint” method. I also tested our fill water source (the outside spigot) and got 350.
SWG: 3600
Temp: 86


WHAT’S BEEN DONE, CHEMISTRY-WISE:
After some advice here from October, I removed the pucks the builder’s crew had been putting in the skimmer and put them in a floater.


Earlier today, I added about four pounds of Clorox pH Protect (pricey baking soda?) in an attempt to begin raising the TA. Later, after plugging numbers into Pool Math, I see that four pounds wouldn’t even make a dent, and of course it didn’t. What the addition of the powder DID do, however, was immediately and heavily cloud the pool. It’s been about six hours now, and it’s finally beginning to clear up. I added such a tiny bit because our pool is so small and I was afraid to do too much at once :)


What also happened after having added the baking soda: Giant white flakes shooting out of a couple of the returns and settling all over the bottom! We vacuumed them up and quite a few made it to the filter basket at the pump. This went on for a few hours. The filter has also been hosed down this afternoon, with lots of milky water coming out.


QUESTIONS:
1. I know we have to get that TA up asap. Will we just have to put up with the extreme cloudiness while we do that? Is the baking soda even what really caused the cloudiness and flakes?


2. How in the world did our CH get so off-the-charts high? Could it have been calcium coming out of the plaster as it’s been curing? I wonder if the combination of the baking soda and high CH may have gotten together to cause today's flakes.


3. I should focus on getting the alkalinity right before worrying about the pH, correct?


I apologize for the epic saga here, but we’re concerned about damage possibly being done to our equipment (particularly the SWG and the heater) and just want to make sure you experts have the information you need.


Thanks in advance! Halp! :)


Mary
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Yes, having the pH that low for a month would definitely leach calcium out of your plaster. When TA is 0 the pH is somewhere around 4.5. Add enough baking soda to raise your TA to 50. Did the other product you added raise the TA? Once you get TA to test at 50 ppm then check ph and raise it to 7.5.
 
Yes, sorry I missed that you posted a CH test result, I thought we were waiting for one. Yes, I would drain about 2/3s to 3/4s of the pool. All the precipitate floating around is most likely calcium scale. It is impossible to control for calcium scale with CH that high. Most folks in areas with high CH can do a pretty good job preventing scale with CH up to 1000 or 1200 at the most and then they have to do a partial drain to lower it.

More about scale here, Pool School - Calcium Scaling
 
I suggest you get your problems solved one at a time.....starting with the most important......ph and TA. (follow pooldv's advice)

Once you bring that into normal ranges, then it will be easier to concentrate on the CH. Stay right in this thread. Do not create a new one.
 
Thank you, Dave.

We'll be doing the water replacement as soon as we can (maybe today), and will closely monitor the refreshed water for TA and pH. Looks like we're already realizing one of the advantages of having such a small pool!

I'll stay in this thread :)
 

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Next question, please:

Pool Math tells me to drain 72% of the water based on the CH numbers, which of course matches what pooldv recommended. I don't want to go quite that far, however, due to our water table -- we had six well points running 24/7 for two weeks between the dig and the shotcrete stages, so I have a pretty good idea of where the water level is and I want to be sure to stay well above that. Good news is that we haven't had any serious rain since the hurricane, and even then it was less than three inches here, so the ground should not be oversaturated right now.

Finally, my question ... If I drain, say, about half of the water, then start refilling, should I immediately work on adjusting the alkalinity and pH of that new fill water even though we'll probably have to turn right around and drain half of that water again? Will whatever factor caused the CH to shoot up from 350 to 1600 still be at work and possibly mess up the new water?

I'm not worried about wasting baking soda and such; just want to do what's right! If we have to do three or four partial drains, so be it.
 
Good job paying attention to your water table and playing it safe. Draining about half and/or leaving about a foot of water in the shallow end is a good idea. Having CH under 1000 is a good start.

Yes to PH, keeping pH between 7.2 and 7.8 at all times is important.

The reason the plaster leached CH into the water is because the water was too aggressive. Which is caused by a combo of low pH and low TA allowing pH to stay low. It is easier to maintain pH when your TA is between 60 and 80.

More about that here, Pool School - Calcium Scaling
 
Thanks, pooldv!

Once I get the pool refilled on this first go-round, I'll immediately address the pH.

Now, how best to do that? I have a bucket of Clorox Pool & Spa pH Protect, which is 100% sodium hydrogen carbonate. (Baking soda, right?) Should I use that to start working on the pH?
 
A brief update -- Got the pool filled back up after draining about 40 to 50 percent of the water.

After getting the pump going again and letting it run for about 90 minutes, I did a partial test with these results:

pH 6.8
TA 70
CH 950

So this is the first time pH has even registered on the lowest mark on the test kit thing and the first time the TA test didn't immediately reveal that there was zero TA.

CH has fallen from 1600, so we're heading in the right direction.

The water is still super-cloudy, though, so I suppose the still-high CH combined with the four pounds of baking soda before the partial drain remains a problem. We've turned the pump back off and will let whatever settles to the bottom settle, then work on vacuuming up what we can. After that, it looks like another partial drain is in order to continue to get that CH down.

One possibly relevant note: We also added about 20 ounces of Jack's Magic (Magenta) yesterday before we started the drain last night. We did that because we were reviewing the finish manufacturer's instructions and found that the pool builder's team had not done any of the recommended first-month maintenance doses; they had only done an initial application when the pool was first filled. (Maybe that also factors in to the cloudiness/CH combo somehow??)

Does it sound like we're doing okay so far?
 
Yes, so far so good. Add some borax to raise PH to 7.5 or so. Another partial drain will get you in good enough shape. CH at 600 or 700 is easy enough to work with. And I expect your CH will continue to drop with rainfall through winter and spring.

That PB did not do you any favors!
 
If it was mine, I'd use vacuuming as the drain water source to suck out dust.

At the risk of being branded a heretic ;), I would floc the dust overnight before vacuuming (at a snail's pace) to waste. If I couldn't stay, I'd flip the vacuum upside down and leave it on the bottom to keep sucking dust (or main drain if I had one)

That said, your filter will get it done. I'm just a bit impatient :)

Great job figuring it all out and using the resources here. I bet the people that wrote the articles love to see people start with pool school and searching.
 
So this morning we have whatever the white stuff is well settled on the bottom and the water above it is looking pretty good! We're going to slowly vacuum the bottom and route it out of circulation, which will remove water at the same time, of course. Then we'll top the water off again and see where we are.

Regarding floc, are there negative side effects to that? If there's one thing I've learned in all my reading here, throwing more products in is not usually a good thing :)

We had a good experience with our PB in all other respects -- great subcontractors and such -- but the casual approach to the water's chemistry in that first critical month is somewhat puzzling. Oh well, we'll get it right ourselves (with everyone's help here).

Thanks.
 

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