Taking care of my pool

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Mac, thanks I will read about the pool Perfect. I have been playing with the pool math, and I am starting to understand it more each day.

I just tested my water, and here are results

FC 10
CC 0
TC 10
PH 8.2 - I added 18oz of MA now it is a 7.5
CH 625

I am just wondering can the CH go down on its own, I have been pulling water out to water what little plants I have as you suggested. My one questions is now that I am showing a lower CH do I need to bring the TC down as well? I can smell the chlorine when I was running the pool on hight, trying to get out all the dust it accumulated yesterday with our 77mph winds.

Thank you for all of your helP!
 
CH generally won't affect your chlorine consumption as far as I know - it's mainly a factor in scaling. However, if you're exchanging water, it's possible you're lowering your CYA, which would be a factor in having more chlorine in the pool than necessary. If you're concerned about that, you need to run your CYA test to see where it is now.

I'm assuming your fill water has less CH in it than the pool (fresh water from the tap can be assumed to have 0 CYA) - if you're intentionally draining and adding fresh water to the pool, it's possible, depending on how much water you've been removing, that the CH of the pool will decrease as that fresh water is added. You can test your tap water if you like to see what the numbers on it are - it's a good thing to know as you're exchanging water so you can anticipate changes to TA, pH, and CH. :)
 
CH should only go down if you drain and fill. It's still high but I'd give a few more days and keep replacing water when you can.

Look at the CYA/CL chart. You need to maintain your CL between 8 - 10 PPM, so no you do not want to bring your CL down (how exactly were you going to bring it down). You shouldn't be smelling Chloramines, especially if you're not entering the pool. The smell is not from the CL by the way. Do you have people swimming in the pool? Are they sweaty and peeing in the pool? Maybe the dust has some bad stuff in it? Other than that you shouldn't have a high smell with your numbers. See the article below for more info.

Chloramines: Understanding “Pool Smell”


Keep close watch on your CL. Don't let it get below 8 ppm, which means keep adding bleach when necessary. Keep testing PH as well. How does the water look? and like Tryptyx said, make sure you keep good readings on CYA. You don't have to test it often but make sure you have an accurate test so you know what amount of CL you need to maintain.
 
I am not sure what I was smelling last night, maybe it was my neighbor behind me, they have a above ground spa. The water looks great, I tested it this morning

I think I tested correctly, I still new at this. The numbers are below

PH - 7.8 added 10oz MA
FC 9
TC .5
TC 9.5 added .7oz Chlorine
CYA 80
CH 650
TA 90

I tested the water around 1pm. I am trying to figure out how take off my sewer lid off, it is the front oh my house. I see 3 lids, I am note even to sure which one is the sewer..:confused: I have inquired at Home Depot to rent a pump, to remove the water. I am dumping water out with a bucket and I am just tossing it in to the plants, hope this doesnt hurt he little bit of plants I have. This CH is driving me :crazy:....
 
I've heard different opinions on watering plants with high CL. Some say it disrupts the soil so you should maybe add additional topsoil to tender plants but others say the CL will dissipate fairly quickly. I've used it on plants for years and I've never had a problem but usually my CL was pretty low, like 3 -5 ppm. You should be okay.

I did a quick test with my water softener yesterday. I took a garden hose and put it in the inlet of my softener and the outlet was CH 0. So it does work.
 
Don't worry about TDS. That's just a test that Leslie's Pools uses to scare you into buying something new or draining and buying replacement chemicals.

In your area of the world you *will* have higher TDS than in my soft water area of the country. TDS include salts, etc. No need to worry about them.

Yip :flower:
 

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A Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) meter measures the conductivity of the solution and estimates the TDS from that reading. It's measuring dissolved ionized solids such as salts and minerals (principally calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, bicarbonates, chlorides, and sulfates) in the water. It includes salt and CH. So like my water test ~250 (I think) with a meter. A separate test can tell how much of that is CH. I can use my water softener to get rid of CH but it replaces the CH ions with NA ions so my TDS does not change. You can reduce your TDS with a reverse Osmosis system, distillation system, cation and anion resin columns among others. TDS tester really has no use in what results we need for the pool.
 
Thank you Yippee, I called a pool service regarding the cost to drain my pool. They said I don't need to drain, what I need to do is a TDS test. He also wanted to charge me 375.00 to drain the pool, I asked him if the cost included the water for the pool. ;) I will not be purchasing a TDS reader.

I am going to look in to the water softener for the house. I am going to assume if I have a water softener it will also be attached the pool filler line some how?
 
Dang, $375 just to drain the pool? You can do the same thing for free with a pump?? Or does that include clean fill water?

I'd look for one of those cheap or free water softeners on CL. It is not complicated at all. Just hook up the softener to your water supply with a garden hose. Look at this youtube of a softener for an RV. Same concept. Either drain and fill your pool with softened water from your house or just pump the pool water through the softener and you won't have to drain. Just circulate your pool water through the softener and let it filter out your CH. The size of your softener and the amount of resin will dictate how many gallons you can filter before having to regenerate it (which is not hard to do).

RV Water Softener Ver 2 480 - YouTube


Here's a picture of a simple garden hose softener where you can regenerate with salt on your own without a control unit or brine tank.

gh500_instructions_2_306.jpg


Garden Hose Softener - Installation and Service Instructions Pure Water Products, LLC
 
I haven't done the calculation but I'd estimate that you'd have to regenerate the resin of a 64,000 grain unit 4 times to filter about 5,000 gallons of your high CH, thus lowering your CH in half. Regeneration would take about an hour each time. A simple sump pump like this one would do the trick. Just drop it in the pool with a hose attached to the softener inlet and another hose from the outlet back to the pool and you're good to go.

floor-sucker-pump-lg.jpg
 
That's my sump pump, Mac. Works great in my stand alone hot tub or as a aeration device in my pool if I put it on the steps and shoot the water back into the pool.

One doesn't even need a pump if they have a low spot in the ground that they can use a hose and make a siphon out of it. Works great and free!

Yippee :flower:
 
I am excited that ff702 will be helping me drain my pool in next couple of days. I can't wait to keep my FC at 5 . I have been keeping it a 11 until this drain gets done. No more Pucks for me or other stuff the pool store said I needed. I have not been in a pool store since I ordered my testers and I have been picking up the MA/bleach from Home Depot or Lowes.... Happy days are ahead [emoji4]


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Let the drain begin, this is fantastic, ff702 and her husband came over to lend a helping hand with this drain...:kim:I don't know what I would have done with out all of her help learning how to understand all of this pool chemistry and of course TFP !!!.. I still have a lot to learn and I am excited about it. My pool is not very big, the drain should be done around 10pm and I will fill it with new fresh water. I will take care of the water the TFP way!!!! I can't wait.
 
The drain was complete this last Saturday and new testing results was
PH 7.8
FC 4
CC 0
TC 4
CH 400
TA 110
CYA 30 I had to do this test a few times, this test can drive me nuts .

I have been balancing PH and keeping the FC at 5-6 . I will retest this weekend. I very glad the CYA and CH lower now. Thank you again to ff702!!!![emoji4]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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