Sorta, but not exactly. Neither hard water nor soft water is necessarily bad, nor is well water. The well water in parts of my area is EXTREMELY pool friendly -- metal free, and pretty much dead on in pH, alkalinity and calcium. Those wells are in limestone karst. Now, the wells in shale are something else altogether!

We can make taking care of your pool pretty easy. But, really *understanding* it? Not so much.

To completely understand pools (and I don't) you have to understand
  • hydrology
  • geology
  • electronics
  • motor circuits
  • hydraulics
  • mechanics
  • structure (metals, plastics & concrete)
  • organic chemistry
  • inorganic chemistry
  • pathogenicity of amoebic, bacterial, & viral organisms
  • human immune response, and hyper-response
  • . . . and more.
I know it sounds like I'm being facetious, but I'm not. I have books on every one of those topics within 10' of where I'm sitting, have read some of all of those books, and have, at one time or another, used something I learned from each of them, to understand a little more about pools. Believe it or not, the ones that have MOST affected how I think about pools are the ones on philosophy and theology