Still getting scaling on spillway

[mknauss]

Is there any fix to this?

Not really. The amount of effloresence should decrease over time as the minerals in the shell become less mobile.

On another note - just checked my CH - its 750 - do I need to drain and refill?

You can maintain a pool with that level CH but you need to manage your CSI to keep from wide spread scale occurring. It appears you are using the Poolmath app but not saving your test results. To see your CSI, you need to go into Settings and activate Track CSI. Then keep your CSI at zero or slightly negative.

 

[Romoth]

Sorry for the slow reply! I'm still learning all this myself, but I would consider a partial drain at least. We're going to do ours in stages and we're at 450. My PB recommended the lower range of recommended for Texas, so we're going to aim for 300 or 325 over a few drains/refills. I'm going to take this slow and see if I can trend it downward before I get into the Texas summer. I will say that we've been watching our CSI since I started this problem and keeping that on the negative side and it's help hugely. For reference in my pool calculator:
PH: 7.5
TA: 80
CH: 750
Temp: 68

Still leads to a positive CSI of .13. Theoretically anything below .3 is ok, but we've been getting better results keeping it slightly negative. In the above example, if the PH climbs to 7.7 you're at .32, so you need to watch your PH really closely.

I'm still learning myself, so maybe someone who knows more than me will chime in!

 

[Romoth]

So after updating my test results and realizing my CH was higher than expected (450 rather than 350) I've been watching my chemistry like a hawk with daily (or twice daily once) updates to the PH low enough to make sure my CSI is slightly negative. I also updated the automation on the spillway and had it running a decent amount of water (2400 RPM) over for 30 minutes twice a day rather than a trickle all day.

This morning I noticed quite a bit of new scale at the water edge. I let as much of the spillway dry as I could, and noticed that there were several places that weren't actually drying out. After tapping on them, I've found about 3-4 places on the top of the spillway that sound like they're hollow. I'm waiting on a callback from the pool builder to see if we can come up with a way to fix it. I'm 99% sure that the spa wasn't waterproofed (but he's pretty certain it was), but either way that's where we are now. He's a pretty great guy, so I'm hopeful he'll be helpful in fixing this. He does a TON of work in our neighborhood and surrounding area so works hard to keep people happy.

I'm not sure what the actual solution is, but this pool is only about six months old, so I'm not dealing with this for the life of the pool. Just wanted to thank everyone for the help so far instead of necroing an old thread.

 

[Newdude]

Just wanted to thank everyone for the help

They’re great, right ?

instead of necroing an old thread

Please necro away on your own thread with relevant updates. It helps future users for continuity to see how it shook out. They’ll never find multiple threads nor will they seek to piece the puzzle together.

 

[Romoth]

Please necro away on your own thread with relevant updates.

Will do!

 

[Romoth]

So after updating my test results and realizing my CH was higher than expected (450 rather than 350) I've been watching my chemistry like a hawk with daily (or twice daily once) updates to the PH low enough to make sure my CSI is slightly negative. I also updated the automation on the spillway and had it running a decent amount of water (2400 RPM) over for 30 minutes twice a day rather than a trickle all day.

This morning I noticed quite a bit of new scale at the water edge. I let as much of the spillway dry as I could, and noticed that there were several places that weren't actually drying out. After tapping on them, I've found about 3-4 places on the top of the spillway that sound like they're hollow. I'm waiting on a callback from the pool builder to see if we can come up with a way to fix it. I'm 99% sure that the spa wasn't waterproofed (but he's pretty certain it was), but either way that's where we are now. He's a pretty great guy, so I'm hopeful he'll be helpful in fixing this. He does a TON of work in our neighborhood and surrounding area so works hard to keep people happy.

I'm not sure what the actual solution is, but this pool is only about six months old, so I'm not dealing with this for the life of the pool. Just wanted to thank everyone for the help so far instead of necroing an old thread.

 

[Romoth]

Ok, so PB came out with their tile guys and re-tiled and waterproofed the top of the spillway. I still have CH of 475, and have been managing my PH to keep the CSI negative. I'm going to do a partial drain to lower my CH because temperatures are about to sky rocket and my pool seems to climb between 7.5 and 7.8 really fast. For reference, my TA is 70, but I have a lot of aeration through bubblers, etc.

I'm primarily doing the drain because I still noticed wet spots when the spillway should have been entirely dry, and I think the entire spillway is poorly waterproofed and I'm going to have issues with this. I want to lower the CH so I can't get any argument from the PB that it's a structural issue rather than a chemistry issue. PB said 18" drain is fine, but i'm probably not going much more than 9". While that's drained, I'm going to use a 4:1 water:MA dilution to clean up the scale that is currently all over my waterline, video it, lower the CH through a partial drain and hope like heck this fixes the problem.

I'd welcome any thoughts there might be about the above, and thanks for the help so far!

 

[mknauss]

Do you have to run the bubblers and spa spillover all the time? With the EasyTouch, you can schedule those and only run them as needed to maintain chlorine levels in the spa.

Your CH is not high enough to make any difference from a scaling standpoint.

 

[Romoth]

I have the waterfalls set to run every other day for about 20 minutes, the bubblers I could theoretically turn off but my wife loves the sound (and so do I). I have them set pretty low. With your help, I've updated the spillway to run only twice per day, but it still seems to be high regardless.

I agree my CH isn't ridiculous, but at a PH of 7.8, TA of 70, CH 475, CY 36, I'm at a .17 on scale. I'm trying very hard to keep it negative so the pool builder doesn't have a leg to stand on. This continuous scaling (like noticeable scale in 3-4 days after cleaning) is absolutely sucking the joy out of my pool. I'm hopeful that fixing the top of the tile fixed it, but want to have solid arguments it's efflorescence if this doesn't fix it, because they're going to have to do a LOT more work.

Does that logic all hold together or am I missing something/overthinking it?

 

[mknauss]

Does that logic all hold together or am I missing something/overthinking it?

That's fine. To keep a lower CH in your area, you will need to be diligent in using rain water to exchange some of your pool water when possible as your normal fill water is higher in CH.

 

[Romoth]

My tests show normal fill water at about 100CH, but I bought a pump to actually do exactly what you're saying. I'll drop it a few inches before every rain and that should really help keep everything in the green. Thank you for all the help/advice!

 

[Romoth]

After a partial drain and figuring out some testing errors (i was assuming the Taylor Speed stir test was calibrated with the bean it came with rather than adding 10ml of sample water and THEN the bean), I'm at 400CH. I'm still getting nodules/scale on my spillway. It's below the water line.

Updated Pictures: Scale Pics

Does anyone have thoughts on what could be causing this? I think I set it up so logs are in my signature. I know my CSI got to .58 this morning, but that was only for a couple of hours. I'd welcome any assistance!