Hi. It's been 7 months since I last tested my pool water. I use the TF-100 kit. I used to always have high alkalinity, otherwise everything seemed to be fine. The pool store would always give me dry acid pellets but I don't seem to need them now that I haven't used them (I was told to stop using them by this forum I think). The pool store was also always giving me a huge bucket of calcium stuff but I was told also by this forum that vinyl pools don't need calcium. So in 7 months I have not added anything to the pool except for 2 bags of salt back in the fall. I haven't added anything this winter. Anyway, I just want to balance my pool after the testing I did today. My vinyl salt water pool is only 1 year old. Can someone help me understand these readings? I don't know why I can't get a hang of what the readings are "supposed" to be. Anyway, I ALWAYS have a ton of springtails in my pool (mainly end up covered in the skimmer sock), and I read that they feed off of algae so I'm kinda wondering if maybe I have some algae that I can't see. My sod isn't brand new anymore. I don't have any kind of piles of wood or brush or anything old laying around the yard that needs cleaned up. Around my pool is a solid 7' wide of rock only before the grass even starts. My pool is a pretty blue color and I don't physically see anything off about it but these test results just have me confused:
FC = 4.5
CC = 0 (the water remained clear in the tube so there is no combined chlorine according to the test instructions. Is this normal??)
Calcium = 175 (turned a hint of really faded blue color at 7 drops but definitely turned a good light blue at 20 drops so I went with the 7 drops to get the 175??)
Alkalinity = 90
Salt = approx. 2700 ( I know I need to add about 3 bags)
CYA = Ok, I did this test twice in a row carefully to check for accuracy. I filled the tube all the way to the top and I could still see the black dot pretty well! What does this mean??
What do I need to get my water balanced? Especially the CYA?
FC = 4.5
CC = 0 (the water remained clear in the tube so there is no combined chlorine according to the test instructions. Is this normal??)
Calcium = 175 (turned a hint of really faded blue color at 7 drops but definitely turned a good light blue at 20 drops so I went with the 7 drops to get the 175??)
Alkalinity = 90
Salt = approx. 2700 ( I know I need to add about 3 bags)
CYA = Ok, I did this test twice in a row carefully to check for accuracy. I filled the tube all the way to the top and I could still see the black dot pretty well! What does this mean??
What do I need to get my water balanced? Especially the CYA?
