need help tweeking

Thanks in advance for all the good advice this generates. You folks are the best.

22K gallon, salt cl generator, concrete with aggregate surface, 8yrs old or so, St. Augustine Fl, no screen, many large oaks staring in to pool daily leaving lovely gifts of leaves, pollen, and catkins. Fortunately that season is 96% over. I've turned the water from brown to clear over the last 3 weeks with enough Cl to wipe out a small village and need a bit of help for crystal clear. Water temp is 80. Water was going cloudy last night and there is some yellow green powder on the bottom when you brush it. (pollen/algae or both this time of year) I'm down to brushing twice a week and vacuuming twice a week along with cartridge cleanings at that time.

Pool Reading at Pool store today done with titrations. As an aside I initially took it to a place that used the tubes that are read in the spectrophotometer and the ca was 5ppm. I knew it was very wrong so I went to the place that titrates and measures ca with the cloudy water type test. They were also a couple of pts higher on my cl levels with the spectrophotometer readings. They used to be good, something must be up with their system now.

tc 7
fc 6
cc 1
ph 8
ta 145
ca 50
salt 3200

In lieu of the above I put another 2.5 gallons of cl in tonight and figured it would drive it up to about 19, hopefully that will do the trick if I can keep it there a day or so. I also put in about 3 pts of acid earlier to the cl. My question is on the ta and pH. My pH reading at home is closer to 7.4 (other pool store got 8.2) Will higher cl and ta give abnormal pH readings? Also with the ta of 145, they want me to dump in 2 gallons of acid over two days to decrease the alkalinity. Does this sound right?

Lastly, the ca of 50 is a bit low for a salt system from what I remember on this site. What do you think would be a good level to shoot for.

It that test kit you used to sell no longer available on this site an everyone now uses The Taylor kit?
Thanks again. Kevin

Hi, and welcome to the forum!!!

First off , I'm assuming that what you call ca is actally CYA( stabilizer) as opposed to CH ( calcium). Regarding the proper level, I think most SWCG companies specify 80 or so for optimal cell life, but check your owner's manual to be sure.

Regarding the pH, chlorine levels over 10 ppm can give falsely high pH results. I would always trust my own drop-based test result over the pool store's.

Do NOT dump 2 gallons of acid in your pool to lower TA. Instead, read the " how to lower alkalinity" sticky inthe alk and calcium forum for how to lower TA without damaging your pool.

The test kit we recommend is the Taylor 2006, which is very similar to the kit Ben used to sell here. You can use the link in my sig for ordering the Taylor kit, and Poolforum will get a donation from your order.

Sorry if this seems abrupt, but I'm at work on my cell phone and I can't edit like I want. Hoping to clean this up tomorrow when I'm on my home computer. Hope it helps!!

oops, ya, my ca was supposed to be cya. Guess I'll be ordering the kit. Thanks for the response. I'll keep ya posted of my progress. I think I just need to keep the chlorine level up longer but without the home drop testing, it's a crap shoot. Is that Alkalinity reading of 145 a real problem or can I deal with that after I get the chlorine/algae condition under control.

Thanks Again.

You can definitely leave the TA alone til Cl is taken care of...
TA of 145 might not be bad, all considering; liner pools really don't care what the TA is, so unless causing water to be milky definitely worry after the algae is gone.
Getting rid of TA is just a long term exercise- adding acid to delete it is just a waste, outside of the mentioned method!
madwil

You're going to eventually need to lower that TA, or you're really going to have a hard time keeping your pH stable, but that's not a priority for right now. You can always deal with that later, keep the chlorine up and get the pool cleaned up first.

Janet

I'm also assuming, I should get to increasing the cya to the 70 range once the algae is clear. It's looking pretty clear tonight, I dumped about 1/2 gallon of chlorine in again this morning and tonight. Still there is algae dust on the bottom (hopefully dying and dead) you can see when brushed only. I brushed it after adding the chorine. The water was slightly milky before all the chlorine, and is pretty clear now, so I'm assuming the shocking is doing it and it's not related to the alkalinity level being high.

Keep the comments coming, thanks as always.

Kevin

If you are not losing more than 1ppm of chlorine from sundown to sunup the next day, you can assume that you have no live algae in the pool.