laughingboy
06-20-2010, 11:39 PM
Hi all,
I've just decided to take the plunge and do my own pool maintenance. A friend pointed me to this website and suggested that I get the Taylor K-2006 Complete FAS-DPD kit. I did my first testing today and have a lot of questions.
Background: I live in Tucson -- we've had continuous sunny days here. My pool is 15000 gallons, pebble tec with a cartridge filter. The water here is very hard. I've also had problems with lots of bees clustering around my pool's overflow outlet. I eventually killed them off over the course of a couple weeks with a diluted dish soap solution -- I only mention this because a good portion of what I sprayed entered my pool, so perhaps it had some effect on the pool chemistry?
I took a sample of my water to Patio Pools to have them analyze it with their Alex system as a double check on my results. Here's the comparison:
My results: FC: 0 TC: 0 pH: 8.0 TAlk: 175 PPM CH: *** CYA: > 100 PPM
Alex: FC: 0 TC: 0 pH: 8.5 TAlk: 129 PPM TH: 400 PPM CYA: 150 PPM
Other from Alex: TDS: 2600 Adj Alk: 84
Testing comments: My calcuim harness (CH) test was a complete disaster. The color never changed from red to blue. I gave up after 30 drops which were supposed to be 25 PPM each. I have no idea why this went wrong. Alex reports total hardness at 400 PPM.
I was way off on the pH. There are only 5 color comparison samples (for range 7.0 to 8.0) so I don't know how I'm supposed to get a good reading for pH > 8.0.
Similarly with the CYA test: The mark spacings look logarithmic and only go from 30 to 100 PPM. The fluid level was below the 100 line so I knew I was well above 100 but it's hard to say how much.
I knew my total alkalinity would be high so I was using a titration with 1 drip equaling 25 PPM.
Is it a good idea to use the CYA alkalinity adjustment? The Taylor book recommends it but says that it is controversial. The Alex system uses it. Based on the readings I took (using, say, a CYA of 120) I would have come up with adjusted Alk of 132 -- pretty high. Alex says I should be adding baking soda because the adjusted alk is so low!
Anyway, here are the recommendations Patio Pools gave me:
1. Add 10 lbs of Balance Pak 100 (baking soda)
2. Add 4 pts muriatic acid
3. Shock with 2 bags of "Burnout 35"
How does this advice sound to you? Can I shock with Clorox laundry bleach instead? If so, how much?
Also, I've it's been suggested to me that I at least partially drain the pool. My pool service (which I discontinued) suggested I drain because of the high CYA levels. Conversely, Patio Pools says the CYA is on the high side of "in range" but says I might want to drain because of the high TDS levels. I'm also wondering if I might have a chlorine demand problem because I shocked the pool with Burnout just a couple of weeks ago. Might draining help with this? Finally, somebody else told me that it's a bad time to drain the pool because of the high daytime temps -- the pool itself could be damaged from the heat with the water level low. So I don't know what to do about this.
Thank you very much to everyone who can help me out with my questions!!
Mike
I've just decided to take the plunge and do my own pool maintenance. A friend pointed me to this website and suggested that I get the Taylor K-2006 Complete FAS-DPD kit. I did my first testing today and have a lot of questions.
Background: I live in Tucson -- we've had continuous sunny days here. My pool is 15000 gallons, pebble tec with a cartridge filter. The water here is very hard. I've also had problems with lots of bees clustering around my pool's overflow outlet. I eventually killed them off over the course of a couple weeks with a diluted dish soap solution -- I only mention this because a good portion of what I sprayed entered my pool, so perhaps it had some effect on the pool chemistry?
I took a sample of my water to Patio Pools to have them analyze it with their Alex system as a double check on my results. Here's the comparison:
My results: FC: 0 TC: 0 pH: 8.0 TAlk: 175 PPM CH: *** CYA: > 100 PPM
Alex: FC: 0 TC: 0 pH: 8.5 TAlk: 129 PPM TH: 400 PPM CYA: 150 PPM
Other from Alex: TDS: 2600 Adj Alk: 84
Testing comments: My calcuim harness (CH) test was a complete disaster. The color never changed from red to blue. I gave up after 30 drops which were supposed to be 25 PPM each. I have no idea why this went wrong. Alex reports total hardness at 400 PPM.
I was way off on the pH. There are only 5 color comparison samples (for range 7.0 to 8.0) so I don't know how I'm supposed to get a good reading for pH > 8.0.
Similarly with the CYA test: The mark spacings look logarithmic and only go from 30 to 100 PPM. The fluid level was below the 100 line so I knew I was well above 100 but it's hard to say how much.
I knew my total alkalinity would be high so I was using a titration with 1 drip equaling 25 PPM.
Is it a good idea to use the CYA alkalinity adjustment? The Taylor book recommends it but says that it is controversial. The Alex system uses it. Based on the readings I took (using, say, a CYA of 120) I would have come up with adjusted Alk of 132 -- pretty high. Alex says I should be adding baking soda because the adjusted alk is so low!
Anyway, here are the recommendations Patio Pools gave me:
1. Add 10 lbs of Balance Pak 100 (baking soda)
2. Add 4 pts muriatic acid
3. Shock with 2 bags of "Burnout 35"
How does this advice sound to you? Can I shock with Clorox laundry bleach instead? If so, how much?
Also, I've it's been suggested to me that I at least partially drain the pool. My pool service (which I discontinued) suggested I drain because of the high CYA levels. Conversely, Patio Pools says the CYA is on the high side of "in range" but says I might want to drain because of the high TDS levels. I'm also wondering if I might have a chlorine demand problem because I shocked the pool with Burnout just a couple of weeks ago. Might draining help with this? Finally, somebody else told me that it's a bad time to drain the pool because of the high daytime temps -- the pool itself could be damaged from the heat with the water level low. So I don't know what to do about this.
Thank you very much to everyone who can help me out with my questions!!
Mike