Fixing alkalinity with the BBB method in Texas

[RossM]

Hi Ben,

My name is Ross Moore and I happened upon your web site and decided to give your pool chemistry a go.

I am a amateur with the pool so I Need a lot of help. My pool is fiberglass 10,000-11,000 gallons w/ spa jets. Location is in South Texas 50 Miles south of San Antonio rural location. Bought this place last year and just kind of winged it. This year I want to do it your way.

2 weeks ago i started using a HTH - 6 way test

Chlorine was 1.0
PH - Way off the scale High
Alkalinity- 480
Hardness- 440
CYA- 130

I started with your Alkaline theory - muriatic acid and jetting for the last two weeks - took 2 gallons of M/acid just to get the PH below 8.2 on my scale. Since then I keep seeing the Alkalinity & Hardness coming down but I keep adding 2-4 cups of MA a day to keep the PH down at around 7.2. It just keeps climbing and I'm up to 4 gallons of MA to date.


Current Test 4/4/11
CH - 3
PH-7.2-7.5
Hardness - 120
Alkalinity- 180

It's getting there but the amount of MA is scaring me!! Is this a normal amount to use for this application?

Fill water is AL-440 Hardness-420 PH- 8.2 or higher. Because of my High Alkalinity I'm shooting for 100, since during the summer its not unusual to add water 2-3 times a week.

Would also like to purchase one of your Testing Kits but a little leery being the last posted date on Poolsolutions was 2006.

No problem with paying $$ for your services.

P.S. The pool water looks 200 % better since I started; now it's bright sparkling and starting to getting a darker blue each day.


Ross Moore

[PoolDoc]

Hi Ross;

Your results are typical and normal. My PS234 kit is defunct, but the HTH kit is fine for what you are doing, right now.

Those are some difficult fill water conditions. Keeping your alkalinity at or below 100 is probably a good idea, with a fiberglass pool.

Muriatic acid is going to be a part of your life, so make sure you are handling and storing it safely. MA fumes DESTROY wiring and steel. Make sure -- really, really sure -- that if you are storing MA indoors, there is ZERO release of fumes indoors.

If you'd like to pay (and get a little better access), please subscribe . . . though that may be a little difficult till I get the server upgrade complete.

Ben / PoolDoc

[Watermom]

Hi Ross! Glad to have you here. Hope you'll find the site so helpful that you'll decide to become a subscriber. Let us know if we can help any further with your pool.

[RossM]

Hi PoolDoc,

The Battle is getting better,

4-6-11
TA - 120
Hardness - 120
Chlorine - .5-5.0
CYA - 120-130

Last night I add 4-cups of clorine and this morning was @ 5.0 or better @ 2:00 pm it's at .5-1.0, is this due to my High CYA, per HTH instructions they recommend 20-50 ppm and say the only way to lower is to partial drain. Your recommendations as since I'm just now getting my TA, PH in line, I really don't want to drain and put more of my bad fill water in again.

P.S. I rechecked my fill water again just to be sure and the numbers where the same. thanks

[PoolDoc]

You don't need to drain; you just need to adjust your chlorine levels to compensate. Use this chart as a guide:

Ben's Best Guess Chlorine Chart (http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/best-guess-swimming-pool-chlorine-chart.html)

But, you will need a DPD-FAS chlorine test kit (drops based DPD test) in order to stay on top of things. As far as I know, you can either order a Taylor K-2006 (what my kit was based on) or the TFP approximate copy of my PS234 (defunct) kit.

Ben / PoolDoc

[RossM]

Ordered a K-2006 yesterday, via your link.

On 4-6, I added 2 lbs of Borax, later that evening the ph was 7.5 so I added 2 cups of MA and 3 cups of clorine. Since then everything has stablized. no more chemicals, YEA!!!

PH - 7.2
TA - 100
CH - 100
Chlorine - 5.0 + Won't get my new kit until mid April, so will try to maintain between 3.0-5.0.

P.S. I'm a industrial mechanic by trade and another good use for Borax is as a hand cleaner. Take a dap of any reagular dishwashing detergent and barely a few sprinkles of boarx (very very little) and it will work better than GO-JOE. I carry a water bottle of it in truck and my wife keeps a bottle of it in the shower for me on those really nasty days.

It also works great in the laundry (it's intended purpose) on my nasty clothes, though me wife does wash them a second time with just water to get all the soap out.

[aylad]

If you maintain chlorine at 3-5 ppm with a CYA of 120-130, you're going to end up with a pool full of algae. For a CYA that high, you need to target 8-15 ppm, and never go lower than 8!! In fact, the closer you can keep it to the 15 end of the range, the better.

Janet

[Watermom]

Since you'll need to run higher chlorine levels than your test kit can test to compensate for your high cya, the method described at the following link will be helpful to you. It is not recommended as a permanent testing method, but only a temporary way until you can get the better kit.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?10072-Testing-high-chlorine-levels-%28without-a-good-testkit%29&p=65545#post65545

[madwil]

Borax is also used as a flux in soldering and brazing- while we're sharing multi uses for items!
cleans copper up, then allows the soder to "flow" properly...

[RossM]

Thanks watermom, I'll give it a shot.

[RossM]

During a bright sunny day water looks great but not that deep crystal, sparkling blue. At night with the pool light you can really see how cloudy the water is. Any suggestions??

TA-120
PH-7.4
CH-10 +

Still waiting on the new test kit.

[PoolDoc]

If your water is blue and clear, that's usually as far as you can go with chemistry.

Really sparkling water is a filter function (at least, it is once the chemistry is right). DE is best for that, hands down. However a good sand filter that is (a) not over driven and (b) not under filled with sand can come fairly close.

Unfortunately, many pool owners are sold big pumps and small filters, when what they need is a smaller pump and a bigger filter. When you over-drive a sand filter (too much pressure differential across the sand bed) small particles penetrate the filter.

The best results on sand filter come at 10 - 12 GPM per sft of sand bed surface area. When you get up to AG filter rates of 25 GPM per sft, water quality sucks. Plus, you tend to blow sand out every time you backwash.

Ben

[CarlD]

What kind of filter are you using? Are you running 24/7 (until the algae bloom is cleared) If you are using a sand filter you may need:
1) to back wash
2) to check your sand level
3) to check if your pump is too strong for the filter


Those of us with sand filters will add a little DE powder through the skimmer, anywhere from a 1/4 to 1 cup, as much as it takes to raise pressure 1 lb.

A cheap, but effective tool is called a "Skimmer Sock" (actually that's a brand name, but they are all the same). This goes in your skimmer and greatly enhances the filtering at that point, picking up much that's suspended.

[RossM]

Hayward Super 2 pump with 1 1/2 HP, Pentair D50 Sandfilter 225 lbs sand. Sand filter was installed last year and I never really messed with it other than back flush every once in awhile for about a minute till it cleared up. Just Read the backflush instructions and this time flushed for 5 minutes and gave it a complete flush. Will see how that does. DAAA Follow the instructions!!!! Won't tell my wife about this one!!!

THANKS

[RossM]

What is DE ???

[aylad]

DE is diatomaceous earth--it's actually ground up skeletal pieces of an algae-like organism. It's ground up into almost a powder, and it's the filter media used in DE filters, which filter smaller particles than sand does. However, you can use a handful of DE in a sand filter to help get the filtering quality of a DE filter but with the ease of a sand filter. It's sold by the bag at pool stores, and possibly at your local hardware store.

Janet

[Watermom]

Take a look at this link. It describes what Janet mentioned above about adding DE to a sand filter.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=3742

[RossM]

Just spoke with a lady at a nursey, that handles DE and she said that hers was the food grade type and there is a different grade for swimming pool use.

Any Input???

[PoolDoc]

There are different grades, mostly having to do with how fine or coarse the DE is. Whether her product would work in filters or not, I don't know. I can't find any DE manufacturer sites with info -- looks like Johns-Manville is no longer in that business.


PoolDoc

[RossM]

Just purchased a bag from the nursery, and is as fine as flour. I'll get to town with pool store next week and purchase DE from them.

I also read the thread from Dirtboy6 (Cloudy pool) If he has a D-60 1 1/2 hp system and is overdriven then I'm way up there with the D-50 1 1/2hp. Going to check my sand level later this PM.

I read threw the manual for sand filter but it didn't give a sand level just lbs of sand. Per an illustration it looks like and inch or two above the pipes.

Ross

P.S. Thanks for the info the other evening Pool Doc. Two other freinds also contacted me with same info. Wife been busy correcting everything. Thanks again.

[Yeggim]

I'm in the same boat with an over-sized pump. Last year with a complete refill of pool water, it took a month for the pressure gauge to register any increase. At first I thought "hey, it's fresh water--there's nothing in it. Then I found this forum late July last year when I started looking for info because of algae problems. I began to think that the stem coming from the laterals into the 5 way valve wasn't a tight enough fit and that the path of least resistance was there rather than through the sand.

Long story short, I learned about CYA (mine was in the 90's) and solved the algae problems. Tried the DE trick and even though I noticed some DE on the surface of the pool, pressure would increase at a faster rate as time went on. In other words, the filter was now acting like a filter. Without the DE, I think I could have gone that whole season with only about an 8 lb increase.

That little trick and the "Best Guess CYA chart" have solved 98% of my problems. The other 2% are self-inflicted. My water has never looked so good. Maybe it did one time back in the late 80's but it only lasted for 5 minutes. I can now live with this oversized pump till it dies or I get a VFD for it.

[Watermom]

Yeggim,
Glad you are finding the information on the Pool Forum helpful. That is what we like to hear!

[Yeggim]

Yeggim,
Glad you are finding the information on the Pool Forum helpful. That is what we like to hear!
Helpful? That's truly an understatement. To have a working procedure and a basic understanding of said procedure is both helpful and liberating. You guys are very gracious and extremely patient. For years I floundered around and came to the conclusion that pool care was a black art like voodoo and I didn't know the proper incantations.

Without getting overly effusive, I feel like a caveman that's been taught to make fire. Might sound corny but I'm totally serious.

Appreciate it
Bill

[Watermom]

You are very welcome. If you stick around with us, (and I hope you will), we'll share the secret handshake with you, too! ;)