TA Issues; First-Year Pool Owner

[PoolDoc]

Hi Snowymoon;

I would worry more about whether your pool is swimmable, and less about whether your alkalinity and calcium are "OK". The consequences of high ALK and CAL, on a small Intex pool aren't worth worrying about! You're going to drain this fall, and you can start over next year.

It probably is worthwhile to keep your pH at 7.0, but to protect your pool, don't go lower. Low pH can damage vinyl -- and if you go below 7.0, it will be hard to be sure you're not really at 6.0 or 5.5, which is damaging.


Meanwhile, you've got relatively high CYA *and* you have some chemicals to use up. I'm not sure what you can do with the algaecide. It's not really very good for much -- you could dilute it to about 1% and use it to clean and sanitize garbage cans and the like.

The Smart Sticks, you can use. Just go ahead, let the CYA rise, and keep the chlorine high to compensate. Check out my "Best Guess Chart". If you need to, you can get my PS100r 'stand-alone' chlorine test, so you can test higher levels of chlorine. Taylor also has some stand-alone FAS-DPD tests, but they are a lot more expensive.

I don't know about the vinyl shock -- I'm not sure what's in it. If it's dichlor*, I'd recommend saving it for next year. You can use it to chlorinate and add CYA. Dichlor is the easiest way to add CYA to the Intex type pools, since they have no skimmer you can dump CYA into.

Hope this helps.

Ben
"PoolDoc"

*Chemical names like "sodium dichloroisocyanurate" or "sodium dichloro-isocyanuric acid" => dichlor

[Snowymoon]

I was hoping to reading something of that sort. Actually, the high TA does not seem to do much as long as the pH is kept around 7.

My Intex does have a surface skimmer basket, but I won't pour CYA into that. I did once, and it worked, but I could not clean the screen or hose off the filter cartridge for days (in this filter, that must be done daily or pool gets gunked). This caused my pool to gunk up quick with debris. I would rather do the panty-hose thing. It was also suggested that I go full BBB for now and just use up the CYA-containing stuff next spring to help add CYA to the pool and then go back to BBB and stay there once that stuff is gone.

I did something pretty smart (I think) today. I removed the hose for the skimmer basket from the intake and capped it, so it will just pull water into the filter system through the cap thingie in the water. I then took the hose and attached it to the return, moved the ladder over there and tied the end of the hose to the ladder with one of hubby's longer tube socks. Wah-lah! Aerator foutain! It is working really well. ::dances around:::

TA is holding at 270. I guess mostly I am learning for next year. I have no idea what my starting TA was, but both the TA and pH were off the test strips and very high. I had added some pH Minus and 2 gallons of muriatic acid (MA) diluted in water, walked around the perimeter and dumped in the pool rather than dumping in spots, over a course of 3 days. This caused the pH to drop well enough and the TA came down a bit (down to about 6.8 or so), but the pH never raised up. I freaked out about it (afraid of liner damage) and added pH up. That led to TA going right back up and some water cloudiness. I think the water cloudiness was due to not enough chlorination due to increasing CYA levels, though.

Pool is clearing nicely now. Shocked up to 20 ppm with plain ultra bleach last night, and it is aearating as I type this.

ETA: If you would like me to post a picture of it, I will.

[Snowymoon]

Click the pictures for a closer view.







I think I may have to tie the hose up a bit higher over the top of the ladder for more support and a bigger water drop. I may do that later today, if I can; we are expecting lots of rain.

Water looks nice, dosn't it? That is thanks to this site. It was cloudy just yesterday. ::dances around::

[Rangeball]

Looks really nice.

And rain is a great aerator

[PoolDoc]

TA is holding at 270. I guess mostly I am learning for next year. I have no idea what my starting TA was, but both the TA and pH were off the test strips and very high. I had added some pH Minus and 2 gallons of muriatic acid (MA) diluted in water, walked around the perimeter and dumped in the pool rather than dumping in spots, over a course of 3 days. This caused the pH to drop well enough and the TA came down a bit (down to about 6.8 or so), but the pH never raised up. I freaked out about it (afraid of liner damage) and added pH up. That led to TA going right back up and some water cloudiness. I think the water cloudiness was due to not enough chlorination due to increasing CYA levels, though.

Everyone is learning for next year, their first year!

Still, it sounds like you are making good progress.

But, you may want to test your fill water. Some parts of the country have very hard water that's also high in alkalinity. If so, learning to manage that is going to need to be one of your pool care skills.

Good luck!

Ben

[mas985]

Snowymoon,

Another option is to get yourself a SWG which raises the PH so you will be adding acid to keep it down which will lower alk as well. I have fill water that is 250 ppm but my pool water is 120 ppm.

[Snowymoon]

Wal-Mart does have a SWG that works with the current filter I have. I think it was $124 or so. Might be worth the investment for next year. I will have to look into it more.

[Snowymoon]

It is working! It is working! After 2 days of aeration with my rigged fountain, the pH went up to 7.8. I added more dry acid tonight. I only have a bit left. I will see how low I can get it with this method, let the pH raise to about 7.5 again and just leave it. There are only about 5 weeks left anyway.

Now I need an extra hose so I can run the surface skimmer with the "aerator."

I am sooo prepared for next year!