Want to top off my pool with water conditioned through a water softener

[Drd]

Hello, a bit about my mission. I have learned a lot about the chemistry of pools mainly plaster types. I had my Pool water cleaned via a Pool water Filtration service in May so my pool was never empty. The water was crystal clear and all my chemicals were right on. THEN before I became more educated about this stuff, I hired a new pool service who shocked my pool to death and threw in about four pucks at a time to sanitize, so in one month times, my CYA doubled- now at the upper limit at 90 ppm and calcium almost doubled too at 375 ppm. At that point, the damage was done before I realized how I should best treat my pool going forward. I fired them and now take care of my pool myself but not happy I have to keep about 2-3 times as much chlorine in my pool now (7-12ppm).

So my goal now is to keep those things out of my pool that are harmful and or will cause me to need to clean my water again. Logic tells me now, that water does not get old to where you have to get rid of it, it's the stuff you stick into the water that builds up and creates the problem causing you to need to "clean" the water (the better way) or "throughout and refill" (which causes more balancing issues) as long as you do proper maintenance.

I realized I want to keep certain chemicals/minerals to their required minimum, such as; CYA, Calcium, salt. CYA has been stopped, but I have such hard water 190ppm or 11 grain per gallon that the Calcium will become my bigger problem eventually. So my plan is to install a whole house water conditioner which was on my wishlist anyway only using Potassium Chloride. This will remove the Calcium/mag scale problem all around not just the pool and not add any more salt than what I get from my liquid chlorine, which by the way, seems to be falling out of solution into the bottom of my Liquidator feeder, so that's good news too that I can just dump out.

I already understand the use of Potassium pellets with be more costly, but I will avoid some of the pitfalls of using Sodium too and Potassium doesn't give your skin that slimy feeling I understand along with I can use it in my fish tank and plants love it. Although I hear you don't get much sodium, you do exchange calcium (negative ions) in the water for Sodium (positive ions) on the beads, so that will be 190 PPM of calcium gone I hope and salt in exchange I don't need.

Has anyone done this with their pool? Does Potassium cause any problems in a pool? I have to manually fill my pool so I would just make sure it comes out the exterior backyard faucet. I just learned something more, the sodium Chloride used in water softening once exchanged with the calcium turns in to Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) WOW.....So if I were to used a Sodium based water conditioner, I will have more PH problems it sounds like but Potassium is known for a lower PH, that just might be the kicker.

 

[Swampwoman]

I don't know about potassium because I use salt, but I do top up from a water softener and wanted to comment on that part of the plan

There are two things you need to be certain of for such a plan to work. The first is that your outdoor pool faucet is plumbed to the softener. That is not usually the case so you need to be specific with whoever does the work.

The second thing to remember is to size the tank(s) so that you don't tap out during a pool top up. In my case, this was happening, and allowing iron to still get into my water until I switched to a dual system wherein one tank could always be regenerating.

I don't have any ph problems with salt, btw. Remember too that you will ultimately need to add calcium

Sorry I don't know more about your actual question re potassium, but I thought it was worth mentioning the overall conditioning caveats.

 

[Drd]

Thanks for your input! Glad to know there are others that decided this was a good idea too and I'm not alone.

I appreciate the warning about the faucet hookup; I thought the outdoor faucets were on the house plumbing system since they have backflow values on them, But I will definitely address for the installation. I also read something about a "diverter" too because I don't want all outside plumbing using softened water.

I recently learned that the Sodium ions released into the water after the softening process are not Sodium chloride like what you put into the tank, but Sodium Barcarbonate (Baking Soda, an antacid) with that being said, it should effect TA and PH. Although, SWG's that require Sodium Chloride to generate chlorine are well known on how it affects the PH stability.

I don't understand what you meant by needing to add Calcium since I am testing at 375 ppm which is at the upper limits. I want to avoid adding more. Should I have to drain some of the water which I want to do to get my CYA and Calcium lower where they should be, I will test to ensure I have enough or add as you mentioned.

Size of Softener equipment is important like you said and that is tough to figure out, cause you don't want one too big either which I thought might be better, not true. Softeners are listed by Grains, not Gallons, so I checked out my water bill which lists my usage in Units.....great. So I broke it down as follows: billed 24 units, each unit = 748 gallons so that's a total of 17,952 gallons (divided by 30 = 598 daily). Now, to convert my water hardness which is 190 ppm to Grains by dividing by 17.1= 11.11. Then multiply 598 gals daily by 11.11 Grains hardness = 6,638 Grains per day. Finally, we want to know how many Grains will need to be softened before regeneration by multiplying 6,638 by 7 days (once a week) = 46,464 and since I have a lawn/plants, wash down the patio, fill the aquarium, I'm thinking a 40,000 Grain should be about right or play it safe with 48,000. I did the calculations not based on people and average gallons per person per day instead I used my actual water usage...I think I figured it outright.

I found a Pentair Fleck 5600 SXT. I feel more confident with the Pentair Brand and reviews on the Fleck I found seem pretty good. But so far all I can find on Potassium is it's health benefits and stay away from drinking in excess stuff like that. I know it's considered a salt (chloride) but does it change chemical composition like sodium chloride does to sodium bicarbonate? How will it affect my pool chemistry and is it a TDS?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I recently learned that the Sodium ions released into the water after the softening process are not Sodium chloride like what you put into the tank, but Sodium Barcarbonate (Baking Soda, an antacid) with that being said, it should effect TA and PH. Although, SWG's that require Sodium Chloride to generate chlorine are well known on how it affects the PH stability.

This is not true. When an ion exchange resin comes into contact with water, ONLY the cations are exchanged - Ca²⁺ is attracted to the resin and two Na⁺ ions are released. There is no change at all in the counter-ion species (the negatively charged ions, anions, can be chlorine, bicarbonate, sulfate, etc, etc.). So there is no change in the alkalinity of the water and no change in pH. In practice, the exchange resin can hold a little residual salt in the tank from the regeneration process and so the first few gallons of water after regeneration would likely have higher sodium chloride content then the remaining amount of water before the next regeneration. This amount of salt should have a negligible effect.

Potassium and sodium act very similar in solution and their salts have extraordinarily high solubility products so there is no chance of any scale formation.

 

[Drd]

You have no idea how confusing all this stuff is. I just want to remove the hard water from my water for every reason there is including my pool top off water. I have more than enough calcium in my pool already at 375 ppm and I don't want to add more. I have very hard water 190 ppm according to my Taylor test or 11.11 gpg. I also have CYA at 90 ppm causing me to keep high concentrations of chlorine in my pool to compensate. I want to do a partial drain but want to install a water softener first to remove the hard water from the replacement water or it only solves one problem and may even make my calcium problem worse.

I just want to make sure that if I do this, I don't find out some hidden "cons" too late. One minute I read Sodium or Potassium has no PH (true by themselves) so considered neutral but then it almost seems like a buffer. But the more I read the more confusing it gets.

Here's one website I found on potassium Chloride and water softeners that was very technical too only I don't think you both agree on everything. I did make up my mind not to use sodium especially with how hard my water is even though Potassium costs more and uses about 25% more than Sodium. I have fish, animals, plants and swelling problems. I know some of my experiences don't agree with some, but consistently every time I add a big dose of liquid chlorine, my PH spikes and the only thing I can think of causing it is the salt in the Chlorine just as I have heard happens with SWG.



http://www.ipni.net/publication/bettercrops.nsf/0/C7FFF54D559D051F85257D320055643B/$FILE/BC-1993-3%20p24.pdf

 

[Drd]

Here's another site with some good info on water softeners, their scope is more about the process of softening but this part I thought might be of interest towards understanding all this.

Through the softening process, sodium is added to water at a rate of about 8 mg/L for each grain per gallon (gpg) of hardness. After treatment, water that was 10 gpg of hardness will have about 80 mg/L of sodium. This means that for every liter (0.26 gallon) of water intake, there would be 80 mg of sodium intake.

If your interested this is the site: http://extensionpublications.unl.edu/assets/pdf/g1491.pdf

 

[Teald024]

With any reasonable volume of chlorine bleach you add, it won't be enough to see any difference in your pH. Bleach out of a bottle is pH neutral. The salt won't spike pH either.

The main reason to use Potassium over Sodium salts is for people with high risk health issues that can't handle the additional Sodium in their diet.

The vacuum breakers on your outdoor faucets are there to prevent water siphoning back into your house/ city water supply. Those faucets are definitely part of your water system. The key is to make sure this specific outdoor faucet is plumbed after the softener. That is not typical of an outdoor faucet. Usually they are plumbed into the pre-softener side of your system. Most ppl don't want to waste softened water on their lawn/garden.

 

[Swampwoman]

Drd - 11 grains isn't actually very hard water (at least compared to mine, which is double ) but if you want soft water then install a softener

Here are the key things I'd like you to take away from my direct experience doing what you want to do:

1. If you don't install a dual tank, you will run the risk of tapping out the softener and letting raw water get into the pool as it will stop and regenerate after a set number of gallons have been processed. Alternately, just be sure when you top up your water tat you're observing the tank and that you stop if the countdown gets low.

2. Over time, as you add water, have rain water, etc., especially if you backwash, you will eventually change out almost all your existing water for soft water. This could take 5 seasons, but when it occurs, you WILL then have to ADD CALCIUM to your pool water.

3. The ph of my softened water is 6.9-7.0. I do not know why you believe that softening increases the ph. It does not do this in my case, and I use salt. So I'm just not sold on your source of that info being accurate. In addition, my pool ph is very stable, particularly considering that I'm swg. If you can't control your ph, then lower your TA. The soft water will not likely make much of a difference.

4. Just for the record, adding water with 190 ppm of hardness to water that has 375 ppm hardness is ACTUALLY DILUTING the hardness. So if you don't have metals in your well water, there's NO reason not to change out your high CYA water now, before you install a softener, should you so desire.

5. Potassium chloride is 5-6 times as expensive as salt. If you want to use it, theres no reason, save expense, to not. But the water from EITHER type of softening should imho not be used in a marine aquarium. (You mentioned fish.) Any water used in a marine/saltwater aquarium that comes from a well should actually go through RO filter after the softener.

6. You will need to plumb a line for your pool fill if you change to soft water.

7. You will want to leave other outdoor faucets on hard water as it is generally better for your plants

8. If you don't want to pay for potassium forever but you're worried about the sodium, eg if you're on a low sodium diet, have very high blood pressure, etc., another option is to put an R/O filter spigot on your kitchen sink for drinking water.

 

[Drd]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I do realize there may be others with even harder water than I, but 190 ppm calcium is listed as very hard (city water). I understand that 120 ppm puts in a pound (1 cup) of chemical per every 1000 gals water......so that's 1 1/2 cups per 1000 gals of calcium. I don't backwash, I have regular filters so I don't remove chemicals just add. At this rate, the calcium will build up in no time with refills (don't get much rain in AZ) and require the expense and waste of water or RO. I don't or have not needed to shock and would not use a calcium-based shock anyway so it's just coming from the water source.

I finally found the answer to what I was looking for and that's; Potassium is a salt and therefore will contribute to TDS too. In fact, it adds 133 ppm, whereas Sodium is much less at 78 ppm. So Sodium would seem the lesser of the evils as far as it imparts less TDS per 1000 gals and the salt limits are much higher than for Calcium which is a plus. Just not sure I want more sodium in the pool. I still want a softener for the house so at least I know the pros and cons.

I also confirmed that only the K or Na part of salt is absorbed by the beads in the softening unit during regeneration and not the Chloride which drains off. When the city water comes through it exchanges the K or Na with Ca/Mg and the K or the Na plus the Carbonate are left in the water that goes into your plumbing.

Just An additional note, salt is very harmful to plants in concentrations. Here in Arizona, we have hard soil and if the salt in your water does not leach properly through the soil, you can literally burn the roots killing the plant from the inside out. We have chemicals to aerate the soil to ensure proper drainage. Potassium is used in fertilizers and is very plant/soil friendly.

Thanks again for your time and support!

 

[Swampwoman]

Potassium is a salt and therefore will contribute to TDS too.

Sorry, Drd, didn't realize you were looking for this piece of info...I should have explained that's why you still need RO for marine aquarium use, where the goal is low TDS

 

[iflyjetzzz]

I know this is an older thread that I'm reviving, but I wanted to clarify some items.

I'm on the third house/pool where I've used soft water to top off my pool. All 3 houses are in hard water areas - Tucson and Las Vegas.

1. If you don't install a dual tank, you will run the risk of tapping out the softener and letting raw water get into the pool as it will stop and regenerate after a set number of gallons have been processed. Alternately, just be sure when you top up your water tat you're observing the tank and that you stop if the countdown gets low.

This isn't really an issue. If your water softener happens to be regenerating while your autofill kicks in, you will put a bit of hard water in the pool. It's rare enough of an event that I wouldn't spend extra money on a dual tank system. My water softeners have always regenerated at ~2 AM so the autofill isn't likely to pumping much/any water in the pool.
My 2 previous houses, I didn't have the softener hooked up to the water softener so I shut it off and would run a hose from a soft water source (washer hookup in one case and water softener had a hookup in the second house). It was a pain so in our current (new build house), I had a plumber tap into soft water for the hose bib where my pool autofills.
Our new house has plastic plumbing (PEX?) that's in our attic. The plumber determined which line went to the hose bib that the autofill's on and tapped into lines that have soft water. All's good.

2. Over time, as you add water, have rain water, etc., especially if you backwash, you will eventually change out almost all your existing water for soft water. This could take 5 seasons, but when it occurs, you WILL then have to ADD CALCIUM to your pool water.

4. Just for the record, adding water with 190 ppm of hardness to water that has 375 ppm hardness is ACTUALLY DILUTING the hardness. So if you don't have metals in your well water, there's NO reason not to change out your high CYA water now, before you install a softener, should you so desire.

That's very unlikely in AZ/NV where the majority of water loss is evaporation. And that's where you really want to refill a pool with soft water because replacing evaporated water with 190 PPM Calcium Hardness (CH) water will cause your CH to rise because the calcium doesn't evaporate. Pools in the southwest will get their CH up to 900+ in the southwest after a couple of years because of the hard water. Calcium's just like CYA - once it's in a pool, the amount isn't going to decrease by any noticeable amount unless you drain the pool

5. Potassium chloride is 5-6 times as expensive as salt. If you want to use it, theres no reason, save expense, to not. But the water from EITHER type of softening should imho not be used in a marine aquarium. (You mentioned fish.) Any water used in a marine/saltwater aquarium that comes from a well should actually go through RO filter after the softener.

I have a salt water pool this time around and my (Pentair IC-40) salt chlorine generator's manual has the following note:
Do not use calcium chloride or potassium chloride as a source of salt. (Use sodium chloride only).

I don't know why it says that, but I only use sodium chloride in my water softener.


I did my initial pool fill with regular tap water. My CH was 270 when I was done filling. I got the autofill hooked up to soft water five weeks later. In that time, my CH rose to 340. Right now, it's stable at 340.

I know the original poster is long done with this thread, but I'm sure others will reference it on occasion which is why I'm posting further details here.