Newbie! Looking for direction

Hello everyone,

We bought a house with an in-ground gunnite pool here in Houston, Texas. The company taking care of the pool just stocked the skimmer with tabs and did nothing else: therefore they no longer work here. After reading the forum, I have the confidence I can get this pool in shape.

After reading the forums I purchased a Taylor K-2006 and here are the readings:

Pool Sample
-FC 3.6 ppm
-CC .6 ppm
-ph 7.9
-Alk 100 ppm
-Hardness 90 ppm
-Cya 100 ppm

Fill Water:
-FC 2.2 ppm
-CC .2 ppm
-ph 7.9
-Alk 240 ppm
-Hardness 40 ppm

Equipment:
-FNS Plus DE filter, 60 sqft, using cellulose fiber
-Chlorinator, Pentair Rainbow Model #320 using 3" trichlor tabs
-30,000 gallons

Questions:
RE: CyA Concentration
Do I need to displace and get CyA down to 60-80 ppm before I try to take care of the CC? How quick does the CyA increase?

RE: Lowering pH
Since my fill water has a pH of 7.9, should I get used to lowering pH with muriatic acid regularly?

RE: Hardness
My hardness is low, and how concerned should I be about this? Should I raise is to 150 ppm?

RE: Scaling
Scaling does exist at the water line, but the low hardness confuses my as to the cause. What would cause the scaling?

Thanks!

Matthew Drew

Hi, Matthew, and welcome to the Pool Forum!

RE: CYA ----- if you get a read of 100 with your K2006, that means it could be 100 or any number higher than 100. Dilute a sample with half pool water and half distilled water and then run the CYA test with that mixture and then multiply the results by 2 and see what you get.

How many trichlor tabs do you have left? Your CYA is already too high and using the tabs will continue to add more and more CYA.

RE: pH --- You will want to lower it some but it will go hand in hand with lowering your alk. Please read the following two threads:
http://pool9.net/alk-step
http://pool9.net/muriatic/

RE: Hardness --- For a gunnite pool, you want the hardness to be 200-400. You might want to use some cal-hypo for awhile to bring this up.

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RE: Scaling ---- is usually a result of high ph + high TA + high CH.