Sorry for the delay, it's been a busy winter, lots of family travel during the holidays. I took 2 weeks off during Christmas so I could work on the pool, and I am glad I did, my father in law helped a lot building the equipment shed.
Well, about a month ago I had it plastered and it was time to fill up. The 40k gal of water came from our well, but first it went through HERO (high efficiency reverse osmosis). Since RO water is highly aggressive towards fresh(or old) plaster, I had already been thinking about the best way to load it with calcium before it eats my new plaster for dinner. So I found online a brilliant way to start up a pool. No plaster dust, no clogged filters, minimum brushing (although I still brushed for a week, but i'm not sure if it was necessary). Basically a bit of math tells you exactly how much calcium you will need to add to the entire pool to reach LSI of just a bit over zero. I pre-diluted calcium in a 30 gal bucket, and let it drip into the pool as the pool was filling up with RO water. Four days later, the pool was full... all equipment started without issues (i'm honestly shocked how well it went). Over the following week I was closely monitoring calcium/alkalinity/ph.
For the lights I tried a few different multicolor LED bulbs with remotes but didn't like any of them, eventually I realized I don't want any colors, just nice cool white bright lights. So I went with two 65W white LEDs, wired through 12V isolating transformer - piece of mind there is no line voltage wires submerged in the pool.
Did I mention there is no chlorine and no cya in it? That's by design, 4-stage 200W UV sterilizer is doing a good job keeping the water safe. I might shock/slam after a pool party if any of my bacteria tests come back positive... will see, I will keep you posted.
Spent couple of days writing software to help me manage the pool, hooked up a bunch of sensors and controls.... coming along nicely. I am still waiting for a few things from China... and hmmmm... should I open them right away or wait a few weeks for the possible virus inside to die?!?! lol
Next up is solar pergola.... stay tuned. The plan is 18ft wide, 60ft long cedar timber pergola covered with solar panels. Depending on which panels I get, should be around 20kw, thats enough to heat the pool year round...