spring startup

[PoolDoc]

You don't need to 'balance' anything; your pH and CYA are on the high end, but not anything you have to change right now.

1. Get a cheap OTO / phenol red kit, in addition to the K2006. You can get the Taylor K1000 (click-pic for Amazon)

or buy something locally. (You'll use this to keep from using up your K2006 unnecessarily.)


2. Check your chlorine in the PM; if the chlorine level is not dark yellow (> 5 ppm) add 1/2 gallon of bleach.


3. Read the Best Guess page (in my signature) and the Muriatic Acid sticky.


4. After you have done so, decide whether you want to use muriatic acid (bought locally) or sodium bisulfate (bought from Amazon or locally):
. . . OR . . . (click-pic for Amazon)


5. Think about whether you want to run a high CYA / high chlorine pool (1x per week chlorination -- but really weird looks at the pool store) or a conventional pool.


5. Don't use any more trichlor -- or that feeder -- till you decide.

[jarsch]

I have muriatic acid how much should I use also what is a high CYA / high chlorine pool (answer 5 ) Thanks jerry

[PoolDoc]

Basically, a pool operating in the last row of the Best Guess chart.

Operating with CYA that high, you also have to run high chlorine. But the high CYA allows you to 'bank' lots of chlorine in the pool water, with the result that you can add chlorine just 1x or 2x per week. This makes going on a week long vacation a snap.

However, if you let things slide, and get algae, the algae killing doses of chlorine are very high, and take weeks to drop. The work-around it to use small, carefully calibrated doses of sodium bromide, which creates an unstabilized bromine residual to kill your algae.

If you keep want to use up your trichlor, you'll have to either run high chlorine/high CYA or drain, and draining can be hazardous to your pool if the ground is wet, or if you have a liner pool.

[jarsch]

what is a CYA/high chlorine pool ? Thanks jerry

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I like the triclor so i guess i drain water a foot or so at a time untill i get CYN down .Is their any way to us a auto dispencer with out using triclor?

[PoolDoc]

HiC2 pool, roughly speaking is a pool with CYA levels around 150ppm, that is operated (per the Best Guess chart) with chlorine normals between 8 & 15 ppm, and shock doses to 25 ppm.

The benefits are:
1. your overall chlorine loss drops.
2. you have a large chlorine 'reservoir' in the pool, so an 'event', like a party of peeing people, doesn't mess up the pool.
3. if you dose manually, you maintain your pool with only 1 or 2 doses of chlorine per week, cutting down on maintenance time.

The problems are:
1. You must use FAS-DPD testing for chlorine-- you can NOT use DPD tablet testing. (You can use OTO to get a rough measurement of chlorine)
2. You must use Taylor's phenol red for pH testing AND use a special dilution (1/2 pool water + 1/2 distilled water -- available at Walmart) when you test.
3. If you let algae get started, you must either (a) raise your chlorine to VERY high levels, possibly as high as 50 ppm, (b) use an algaecide, (c) use sodium bromide -- but let me give you instructions! If you use very high chlorine, it will take weeks to drop. Algaecides either stain OR don't play well with chlorine. So . . . I recommend bromide (CAREFULLY!) + borates.
4. If you tell anyone what you are doing, they will think you are crazy.

The history behind this is what chlorine 'shooters' -- they service pools by injecting chlorine gas directly into the pool weekly -- have been doing for 40+ years. I've known about this for years. In fact, knowing about it was one of the key triggers for the thinking and work that led to the Best Guess chart. But, there were some pieces to the puzzle of how individual pool owners could do this, that I only worked out in the last year.

Richard (Chem_Geek) has reservations about this, because of the high chlorine levels to kill algae. But, the answer is two-fold:

1. Use of borates at 50 - 70 ppm will reduce the pool's 'friendliness' to algae.
2. Keeping the borates high, and the alkalinity (TA) low will do the same, because the CA (carbonate alkalinity - carbon dioxide for plant growth) will also be low.
3. If you keep your chlorine levels up, and maintain your pool, algae is unlikely.
4. Careful application of sodium bromide -- IF algae occurs -- will introduce an unstabilized halogen residual, that will tend to be effective against algae at levels of 0.5ppm bromine or LESS.
5. In OUTDOOR pools, where the chlorine levels is several multiples of the bromide / bromine levels, the bromide will be converted to inactive (in a pool sense) bromate in a fairly short period, avoiding the problems described in my Once a Bromine Pool page.

The bottom line is, a HiC2 pool is easier and cheaper, but you have to prepare, and learn how to do it BEFORE you start. This means:

1. Having a K2006 (or equiv) and a K1000 (OTO / Taylor phenol red on hand
2. Maintaining 50+ ppm borate levels in your pool
3. Having sodium bromide on hand, AND having pre-calculated doses for your pool.
4. Having polyquat on hand (as a final backup!)

Phosphate removers could be a final backup, except that they are likely to rapidly go off the market. They use lanthanum, which is one of the 'rare' earths for which China has gained a state mining and production monopoly. I've been told re-packager pricing for lanthanum chloride has gone from $1.20/lb in 2010 to $20+/lb in 2011, to unavailable in 2012!

[jarsch]

Sounds a little complicated to me can I use bleach as sanitizer in place of triclor to keep CYN down and use triclor when I need CYN also have some shock left from last season can it be used with the bleach Thanks Jerry

[aylad]

You can use bleach as a sanitizer to keep the CYA levels down--that's exactly what most folks on this forum do!! You can use the "shock" left from last season even if you're using bleach, but read the ingredient label first--if it's sodium dichloro.........(long, unpronounceable word), then that also contains CYA, actually more pound-per-pound than trichlor does, if I'm not mistaken. It still can be used, but keep and eye on the CYA. If the ingredient is calcium hypochlorite, then it also can be used, is not stabilized, but will raise your calcium levels.

[Watermom]

if it's sodium dichloro.........(long, unpronounceable word), then that also contains CYA, actually more pound-per-pound than trichlor does, if I'm not mistaken.

Jan is right about that. Dichlor adds 9ppm of CYA for every 10ppm of chlorine it adds. Trichlor adds 6ppm of CYA per 10ppm of chlorine.

[PoolDoc]

Jarsh,

The bottom line is that every approach to pool chemistry is "a little complicated" till you get used to it.

I can still remember first encountering pool chemistry, when I was hired by a pool store to work for them as a plumber (which I was) and service manager (which I did rather badly). I've always had a knack for chemistry (A+ in high school chemistry, and in the honors lab class), but I didn't know pool chemistry.

There's no alternative but to work through it. Once you pick an approach, and work through it, it will become easy and familiar. But, it can't be that easy at first. We can work you through that process . . . but YOU are still the one who has to master it.

Unfortunately, shortcuts in learning pool chemistry put you at the mercy of a predatory pool retail trade. The simple fact is, pool stores staff can be honest and ignorant, and profitable. Or they can be knowledgeable and dishonest, and profitable. But there is simply no way for them to be honest AND knowledgeable . . . AND profitable! So pool stores come in three types: knowledgeable, OR honest, OR going-out-of-business.

The most knowledgeable, but dishonest, ones are too bad: they know enough to not 'pool-store' you badly enough to drive you away. That way, they can keep ripping you off for years!