**sorry for the long post. It's been a journey.**
Please help! I was lucky enough to find this forum weeks before closing on my new home with my first ever pool. (Except my awesome 10' kiddie pool. But I'm in the big leagues now.) I've probably read half the posts by now, and I really thought I had it all figured out.
At first I was using the previous owner's test kit. (Dubious at best, since it was stored outdoors in a plastic shed/oven. My tf100 was enroute.) The pool had no chlorine and the ph was well below 7.2. Too low for an accurate reading. I knew I needed to act fast, so I made my best guess and added borax according to pool math, half the recommended dose at a time. I finally reached 1.5x the recommended dose and had barely made an improvement. I was still below 7.2. At this point my tf100 was arriving the next day, so I decided to wait, in case the test kit was bad.
I also read that CYA can make it difficult to raise the ph, and this guy was a dedicated puck user for 17 years...
In the meantime, I added two gallons of liquid chlorine (for his bi-weekly shock
) from the plastic shed/oven, which raised my chlorine by 0. I thought I was crazy. Turns out it did not survive the heat. Free lesson: My bleach is stored in a dark room in my cool basement.
Sure enough, after a REAL test, my ph was way low and my CYA was 200! I kept adding borax until my ph was acceptable, then added one jug of bleach. 20 minutes later, the stairs were greenish yellow below the water line.
More frantic research, and metal stains seemed most likely. Off to the pool store to get some ascorbic acid. And like magic fairy dust, my pool was sparkling white again! So the first thing I do is check the survey of my city water. No reason for concern there. I assumed the low ph caused corrosion in the pool plumbing. I had to drain off all that CYA anyway, so I would just kill two birds with one stone. 4 days, 3 50% drains (85% new water) and some quick chemical adjustments later, and I have the following results.
3.5 fc
0.5 cc
7.2 ph (I brought it back down, expecting I was going to slam)
100 ch
70 ta
30 cya
What I also have is a slight greenish tint. Which it turns out is... Metal! Yay! (Confirmed by VitC test)
How can I still have metal? My ph never dropped after I got it up the first time. According to my water district, copper is just 0.04ppm in my fill water. I'm assuming copper because the tint is greenish. It's definitely more subtle than the first round. Just enough that my pool looks a little dirty The water is amazing though! Where do I go from here???
To add insult to injury, the previous owners best friend lives next door, and they are having a good chuckle at my hippy pool ways. (Even though the neighbor on the other side says maybe it wasn't all smooth sailing for the previous owner either...) Help me properly rep the bbb method in my 'hood!
Please help! I was lucky enough to find this forum weeks before closing on my new home with my first ever pool. (Except my awesome 10' kiddie pool. But I'm in the big leagues now.) I've probably read half the posts by now, and I really thought I had it all figured out.
At first I was using the previous owner's test kit. (Dubious at best, since it was stored outdoors in a plastic shed/oven. My tf100 was enroute.) The pool had no chlorine and the ph was well below 7.2. Too low for an accurate reading. I knew I needed to act fast, so I made my best guess and added borax according to pool math, half the recommended dose at a time. I finally reached 1.5x the recommended dose and had barely made an improvement. I was still below 7.2. At this point my tf100 was arriving the next day, so I decided to wait, in case the test kit was bad.
I also read that CYA can make it difficult to raise the ph, and this guy was a dedicated puck user for 17 years...
In the meantime, I added two gallons of liquid chlorine (for his bi-weekly shock
) from the plastic shed/oven, which raised my chlorine by 0. I thought I was crazy. Turns out it did not survive the heat. Free lesson: My bleach is stored in a dark room in my cool basement. Sure enough, after a REAL test, my ph was way low and my CYA was 200! I kept adding borax until my ph was acceptable, then added one jug of bleach. 20 minutes later, the stairs were greenish yellow below the water line.
More frantic research, and metal stains seemed most likely. Off to the pool store to get some ascorbic acid. And like magic fairy dust, my pool was sparkling white again! So the first thing I do is check the survey of my city water. No reason for concern there. I assumed the low ph caused corrosion in the pool plumbing. I had to drain off all that CYA anyway, so I would just kill two birds with one stone. 4 days, 3 50% drains (85% new water) and some quick chemical adjustments later, and I have the following results.
3.5 fc
0.5 cc
7.2 ph (I brought it back down, expecting I was going to slam)
100 ch
70 ta
30 cya
What I also have is a slight greenish tint. Which it turns out is... Metal! Yay! (Confirmed by VitC test)
How can I still have metal? My ph never dropped after I got it up the first time. According to my water district, copper is just 0.04ppm in my fill water. I'm assuming copper because the tint is greenish. It's definitely more subtle than the first round. Just enough that my pool looks a little dirty The water is amazing though! Where do I go from here???
To add insult to injury, the previous owners best friend lives next door, and they are having a good chuckle at my hippy pool ways. (Even though the neighbor on the other side says maybe it wasn't all smooth sailing for the previous owner either...) Help me properly rep the bbb method in my 'hood!
Welcome to TFP!!!
