Getting ready to start pool

[skamp]

Well my pool is now complete and they just started to fill my pool and I took some baseline measurements of the water going in. They were taken using a Taylor 2006 kit.

TC - 0 - I have a whole house filter so no chlorine
PH - 7.6-7.8
TA - 400 - Not sure what the deal is with this.
CH - 80-90

I was very suprised by how high the TA from the water supply is. I tested it twice using the 25ml and 10ml sample size and it came out to 400 both times. It is city water. I guess I will have to use Ben's method to reduce this to a reasonable number (100-120). I am not sure what to do about the CH. My pool has a Pebble Tec interior and I am not sure if it will raise CH like plaster does. If not I will need to raise it up some. I have a waterfall, bubblers and spa spillover so I know I will be dealing with tweaking my TA and PH to deal with the swings. My pool also will be using a SWCG. I have been reading everything I can on keeping the water right and think I understand most of it. Any comments or suggestions? Thanks!

Steve

[dawndenise]

Hi Skamp,

Congrats on the pool. Hope your weather is nice enough that you won't have to wait too long to jump right on in.

My own fill water was in the 70-90 range for calcium too. Some nice folks right on this site recommended using calcium hypochlorite to chlorinate my pool in the early days, taking care of chlorine and calcium at the same time. Worked out great so that by the time the SWCG was ready to come online, I had around 200 CH, right where I wanted it to be.

Sandy

[jmcst25]

You can also use Calcium Chloride Flakes (77-80%) - as sold for melting ice --$10 for 50lbs which is much cheaper then pool stores. I get mine at Agway.

This post http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...ighlight=flake
explains it more.

Best of luck.

[skamp]

Hi Skamp,

Congrats on the pool. Hope your weather is nice enough that you won't have to wait too long to jump right on in.

My own fill water was in the 70-90 range for calcium too. Some nice folks right on this site recommended using calcium hypochlorite to chlorinate my pool in the early days, taking care of chlorine and calcium at the same time. Worked out great so that by the time the SWCG was ready to come online, I had around 200 CH, right where I wanted it to be.

Sandy

I need to talk with my PB today to see what their plan is to start the pool. I will see if they plan on using calcium hypochlorite to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Thanks!

Steve

[skamp]

You can also use Calcium Chloride Flakes (77-80%) - as sold for melting ice --$10 for 50lbs which is much cheaper then pool stores. I get mine at Agway.

This post http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...ighlight=flake
explains it more.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the tip. If they don't use calcium hypochlorite to start the pool I will get some flakes to raise the CH. Thanks!

Steve