New Member, yucky pool

[Old Bat]

Retested for what I could this AM. Expected to find that I had perhaps done the test wrong the first time.

No such luck. Alkalinity titrate 550!
Hardness is 630! Unbelievable.

Ph is 7.2, Chlorine via the OTO is 1.

But on the bright side the water is nice and clear. For now.

We used to run a water softener. Our leach field then plugged up. After some research found that the high magnesium content in our soil reacted with the sodium in the softener cycling and turned to thick sludge. Quit using the softener. Needless to say, we go through a lot of lime away and stuff around around here.

[Old Bat]

I bought 2 boxes of Arm & Hammer washing soda. Didn't know how much I was supposed to get.

[PoolDoc]

Hi OB;

I think the A&H is something for later. You've got clear water; you need stabilizer; you need to get your basic pool routine down; you need to learn to use muriatic acid (link in my signature); you need to be comfortable operating your pool . . . and THEN we can look at doing lime softening, which is tricky.

Among other things, you'll have to be ready to vacuum out all the calcium, which will mostly end up on the bottom of your pool.

For now, if you just keep your pH at the low end of things (with muriatic acid), and do NOT use cal hypo as a sanitizer, you should be able to operate just fine.

Later, once I'm a little caught up here on the forum, and once you are comfortable operating the pool, and controlling the basics, THEN we can make it really complicated for about a week.

[Old Bat]

Thanks for the reply, I've read the muriatic acid how tos and will review them again. That is scary stuff to me. But we've used it before for other stuff.

But I need to know about how much muriatic acid to use in my pool. I'm unclear on that.

Also, where should I try to get my stabilizer level at? Because you say you can get too much. Don't want to make things harder. And I only have one test left for CYA.

PH seems to be creeping slowly higher. Like .2 per day. Why is that? This morning's PH was 7.4 and chlorine was between 3 and 4 with the OTO test.

Do you have any ideas on why the alk and hardness both tested even higher the 2nd time I did those?

And if I'm vacuuming calcium dust that should probably go to waste right?

So, please help me get my pool routine down, I'm so clueless with this. As I said we've screwed it up many years in a row! Should I continue with adding 1/4 bottle bleach each evening? And please tell me how much acid. Thanks so much for helping.

[PoolDoc]

1. You're alkalinity causes the pH to rise over time. This page explains what's going on:
http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/lowe...p-by-step.html

2. I'd recommend starting with a 1/8 - 1/4 gallon dose -- don't measure, guess. That may be too much, but with your TA as high as it is, it will just climb back up. (The good thing about muriatic is that it's really, really unpleasant long before it's really dangerous -- but still, if you don't try to pour and measure, you won't get a snoot-ful)

3. Do continue with 1/4 bottle of bleach each evening. If your pool's FC gets too high, skip the next dose.

[Old Bat]

Hello again. I must say that so far this has been the easiest pool year for us, ever. Thanks for all your help.

I see there is now a sticky thread on the lime softening. That is what I came in here for. Our ph keeps creeping up and we are getting calcium scaling starting all over the walls. I will print out the directions. Looks rather complicated, so I will need to get more test chems before I do this.

But other than the hardness problem, we have not had algae, even though we've had an intense heat wave and pounding sun for weeks on end. Thanks so much pool doc! We also have not had to keep changing the DE in the filter. Still using the original and not bumping all the time! It's wonderful!

[aylad]

Glad you're able to enjoy your pool this summer and not spend all your time working on it!!

Janet

[Old Bat]

I just checked the acid I bought. It's the 31%. So should I try to guesstimate about 1/8 gallon for our pool?

[Watermom]

Yes, about 1/8 of a gallon which is about 2 cups. Don't measure it out, though. Just estimate. And, be upwind of the fumes. Nasty stuff.