New Member

[Lerronious]

I bumped into you forum looking for reasons for and appropriate dosing levels for borax in pools. I use trichlor so have noticed a creep to more acidic conditions over the summer. Anyway, I don't have any questions; just wanted to fulfill the post requirement for new members. A few details, which I guess I can add to my profile: I have a concrete pool that was built in the mid-seventies. It's 16 x 60 ft with a 9 ft deep end, so about 55K gallons. It's equipped with 600 pound Sta-Rite sand filter, a 20 puck inline flow-through chlorine dispenser, and a 5 ton heat pump. Luckily, I have a rather productive well I use to fill the thing each spring, though water, really, is a minor cost. Lee

[aylad]

Wow, that's a big pool!!

We're glad to have you here--it would be great if you could please take a few seconds and fill out this short form with your pool's info--Pooldoc will add it to your sig once it's processed.
Pool Chart Entry Form



Welcome to the forum!

[Lerronious]

Checking to see if the "Pool Chart Entry Form" took.

[PoolDoc]

Your chart data is now in your siganture.

Using trichlor alone tends to produce very high CYA levels. You need to read the Best Guess page (link in my blue signature bar), and then get a good test kit, preferably a K2006.

Ben

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+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE, but is an ESSENTIAL tool for pools with problems. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

One caution for the 2012 season: Amazon does not stock the kits directly. So when buying at Amazon, Amato is our current preferred seller. However, they often don't list enough stock to last the whole day, so try order mid-morning. You should expect a delivered cost under $60 for the K2006A and under $95 for the K2006C. If you can't find that, wait a day.

+ Here are links to the kits we recommend (you can check local availability on the HTH kit, using the Walmart link):

HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon