We built a gunite pool earlier this year, I've never owned a pool before, so it has been a steep learning curve for sure. This is my first time posting in the TFP forum, and I have a variety of questions I'm interested to get input on as a newbie, so I hope this is the right place to post them. And I apologize in advance for how long this post is!
1) CYA: I use both the strips to test the water (AquaChek) and the drops (Pentair Rainbow Test Kit). I like the drops because they seem more precise (sometimes I have trouble deciding where on the color gradient scale the strip readings fall), but the strips test some additional items that the drops don't (Calcium Hardness, Combined Chlorine, and CYA), which is why I use both. In the summer we kept the Free Chlorine around 2-3ppm, and the CYA went up pretty quickly (100 according to strip color), I think because we were going through the Tri-Chlor pucks very quickly and weren't ever adding oxidizer to the pool. Once our pool guy told me I needed to add non-chlorine shock (oxidizer) near the end of the summer (and that I should have been doing it weekly or biweekly), the chlorine went up to around 4-5ppm for several days. Then I would be in this cycle where the chlorinator wouldn't feed for a week or so because the chlorine level and ORP reading was already high, so the chlorinator which already had several pucks in it became extremely concentrated, and when it did finally feed it was so strong that the chlorine reading would spike up again. Now that we aren't swimming as much and the weather is cooler, I'm not adding the oxidizer anymore, and we are keeping the chlorine at around 1-2ppm. Is it a problem to have the CYA stay at around 100? I'm hoping with rains and having to add more water to the pool throughout the fall/winter/early spring, that the CYA level will go down, but if it doesn't do you think I will have to drain the pool partially in the spring and refill with fresh water to get the CYA level back down? It seems like it'll be a never-ending battle with the Tri-Chlor pucks continuously adding CYA to the water, but if I can do the oxidizer in warm swimming months like I should have been we shouldn't go through the pucks as quickly (I hope).
2) pH/Alkalinity: We have the Rola-Chem automation for feeding chlorine and acid into the pool, so our pH is set to stay around 7.6. It seems like since the water temp has gotten a lot cooler lately, the Alkalinity tends to go down to the 80-90 range, so I add Sodium Bicarbonate (my understanding is that with Tri-Chlor pucks the ideal alkalinity is 120), but then when the Alkalinity is reading 110-120 the next day, I notice that a lot of acid has been fed into the pool, and a few days later the alkalinity was back down to 90-100. I'm just wondering if there is something I'm missing that is causing this cycle to be more pronounced than it was in the summer? I still had to add Sodium BiCarb throughout the summer, and of course acid was fed into the pool, but it didn't seem to happen as quickly as it is now. Also those of you who use the Muriatic Acid - where do you buy it from? I'm wondering if there is a better option than getting it from my pool guy who is located kind far away.
3) Cleaners: I would love to hear opinions on your favorite robot cleaner. So far we've just been brushing the plaster and vacuuming manually, but lately it has been hard to find time to do it as often as we should, and I started noticing some yellow rust-looking spots (or maybe it is yellow algae, not sure).
4) Plumbing: I've been told that our pool equipment was plumbed in a less-than-ideal way, and may have the opportunity to have them re-plumb it this winter. One issue that bothers me is that because we have two pumps (one for filtration, and the other just circulates water from the pool to the spa for the spillover), our filter is not catching all of the debris because half of the water goes through the filter and half of it goes back into the spa. So we end up with debris in the spa. Is this a normal setup?
As a side note, I realize by reading other posts that most people in this forum do not like the UV units for sanitation. I do wish I had researched it more before agreeing to have that installed, because it has mostly just caused problems (first the unit was leaking, then bulb didn't work, then there was a crack in the tube that holds the bulb so the replacement bulb stopped working), and it just complicated the way the equipment was plumbed. All that to say I do have a bit of buyer's remorse when it comes to the UV because it seems that the problems have outweighed the benefit.
Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any input you may have!
1) CYA: I use both the strips to test the water (AquaChek) and the drops (Pentair Rainbow Test Kit). I like the drops because they seem more precise (sometimes I have trouble deciding where on the color gradient scale the strip readings fall), but the strips test some additional items that the drops don't (Calcium Hardness, Combined Chlorine, and CYA), which is why I use both. In the summer we kept the Free Chlorine around 2-3ppm, and the CYA went up pretty quickly (100 according to strip color), I think because we were going through the Tri-Chlor pucks very quickly and weren't ever adding oxidizer to the pool. Once our pool guy told me I needed to add non-chlorine shock (oxidizer) near the end of the summer (and that I should have been doing it weekly or biweekly), the chlorine went up to around 4-5ppm for several days. Then I would be in this cycle where the chlorinator wouldn't feed for a week or so because the chlorine level and ORP reading was already high, so the chlorinator which already had several pucks in it became extremely concentrated, and when it did finally feed it was so strong that the chlorine reading would spike up again. Now that we aren't swimming as much and the weather is cooler, I'm not adding the oxidizer anymore, and we are keeping the chlorine at around 1-2ppm. Is it a problem to have the CYA stay at around 100? I'm hoping with rains and having to add more water to the pool throughout the fall/winter/early spring, that the CYA level will go down, but if it doesn't do you think I will have to drain the pool partially in the spring and refill with fresh water to get the CYA level back down? It seems like it'll be a never-ending battle with the Tri-Chlor pucks continuously adding CYA to the water, but if I can do the oxidizer in warm swimming months like I should have been we shouldn't go through the pucks as quickly (I hope).
2) pH/Alkalinity: We have the Rola-Chem automation for feeding chlorine and acid into the pool, so our pH is set to stay around 7.6. It seems like since the water temp has gotten a lot cooler lately, the Alkalinity tends to go down to the 80-90 range, so I add Sodium Bicarbonate (my understanding is that with Tri-Chlor pucks the ideal alkalinity is 120), but then when the Alkalinity is reading 110-120 the next day, I notice that a lot of acid has been fed into the pool, and a few days later the alkalinity was back down to 90-100. I'm just wondering if there is something I'm missing that is causing this cycle to be more pronounced than it was in the summer? I still had to add Sodium BiCarb throughout the summer, and of course acid was fed into the pool, but it didn't seem to happen as quickly as it is now. Also those of you who use the Muriatic Acid - where do you buy it from? I'm wondering if there is a better option than getting it from my pool guy who is located kind far away.
3) Cleaners: I would love to hear opinions on your favorite robot cleaner. So far we've just been brushing the plaster and vacuuming manually, but lately it has been hard to find time to do it as often as we should, and I started noticing some yellow rust-looking spots (or maybe it is yellow algae, not sure).
4) Plumbing: I've been told that our pool equipment was plumbed in a less-than-ideal way, and may have the opportunity to have them re-plumb it this winter. One issue that bothers me is that because we have two pumps (one for filtration, and the other just circulates water from the pool to the spa for the spillover), our filter is not catching all of the debris because half of the water goes through the filter and half of it goes back into the spa. So we end up with debris in the spa. Is this a normal setup?
As a side note, I realize by reading other posts that most people in this forum do not like the UV units for sanitation. I do wish I had researched it more before agreeing to have that installed, because it has mostly just caused problems (first the unit was leaking, then bulb didn't work, then there was a crack in the tube that holds the bulb so the replacement bulb stopped working), and it just complicated the way the equipment was plumbed. All that to say I do have a bit of buyer's remorse when it comes to the UV because it seems that the problems have outweighed the benefit.
Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any input you may have!
:sunny:
