Which water to fill with - softened or reg

[SoCalBoo]

I am **considering** draining and refilling. My calcium level is slowly creeping up. It is now at 450 and rising little by little. I am having some scaling around the spa spillover and a few other spots. Getting concerned about SWG cell life.

My fill water is about 190 cal. The water coming off my water softener is about 20 cal. I would like to use the water off the softener as it will require less draining and refilling than using fill water.

Any problems using softened water to fill a pool? I know that our builder didn't want to use it to fill the pool or for the fill line. Perhaps that was a low calcium concern - exactly why I want to use it.

If needed for some reason, yesterdays test results:

FC 4.0
CC 0
TC 4.0
Ph 7.4
TA 100
Cal 450 and slowly rising
CYA 45

22500 inground gunite/plaster, poolpilot SWG, pentair pumps, pentair minimax NT heater, 7 foot spa

[duraleigh]

SoCal,

That's a pretty easy one....use the soft water..no doubt. Do you have any idea as to the source of the Calcium. Normally, it should be stable and I see you're not using Cal Hypo....I can't imagine how it's getting in there. Anyway, use that CH=20 water...as much of it as you want but probably not less than 60% of your total pool water. That'll get you down around 250ppm which many folks think is ideal.

The rest of your tests look dead on the money (nice work!) and, yes, it's always helpful to see test results even if they're not pertinent.

[JohnInSoCal]

the only problem would be is can your water softener keep up while filling the pool ? Usually they regenerate after a certain # of gallons have passed.

[cwstnsko]

normally Calcium rises slowly due to the fact that calcium does not evaporate and the make-up water contains calcium. Soft water for make-up water is a good idea to minimize the creep, but can drive your salt level up.

I tested a neighbor's pool for salt the other day and he was at 800ppm merely by using soft water for make-up. He seems to get about 800 gallons per re-charge on his softener

[PatL34]

I don't understand the logic in that the salt level should go up when adding softened water. There should be litle to no salt coming from the water softener. If you do, then you have a problem with the softener that needs to be addressed. I have never had that experience in the 8 years of running a SWCG.

My two cents.

Pat