Hi all,

I've just decided to take the plunge and do my own pool maintenance. A friend pointed me to this website and suggested that I get the Taylor K-2006 Complete FAS-DPD kit. I did my first testing today and have a lot of questions.

Background: I live in Tucson -- we've had continuous sunny days here. My pool is 15000 gallons, pebble tec with a cartridge filter. The water here is very hard. I've also had problems with lots of bees clustering around my pool's overflow outlet. I eventually killed them off over the course of a couple weeks with a diluted dish soap solution -- I only mention this because a good portion of what I sprayed entered my pool, so perhaps it had some effect on the pool chemistry?

I took a sample of my water to Patio Pools to have them analyze it with their Alex system as a double check on my results. Here's the comparison:


My results: FC: 0 TC: 0 pH: 8.0 TAlk: 175 PPM CH: *** CYA: > 100 PPM

Alex: FC: 0 TC: 0 pH: 8.5 TAlk: 129 PPM TH: 400 PPM CYA: 150 PPM

Other from Alex: TDS: 2600 Adj Alk: 84


Testing comments: My calcuim harness (CH) test was a complete disaster. The color never changed from red to blue. I gave up after 30 drops which were supposed to be 25 PPM each. I have no idea why this went wrong. Alex reports total hardness at 400 PPM.

I was way off on the pH. There are only 5 color comparison samples (for range 7.0 to 8.0) so I don't know how I'm supposed to get a good reading for pH > 8.0.

Similarly with the CYA test: The mark spacings look logarithmic and only go from 30 to 100 PPM. The fluid level was below the 100 line so I knew I was well above 100 but it's hard to say how much.

I knew my total alkalinity would be high so I was using a titration with 1 drip equaling 25 PPM.

Is it a good idea to use the CYA alkalinity adjustment? The Taylor book recommends it but says that it is controversial. The Alex system uses it. Based on the readings I took (using, say, a CYA of 120) I would have come up with adjusted Alk of 132 -- pretty high. Alex says I should be adding baking soda because the adjusted alk is so low!

Anyway, here are the recommendations Patio Pools gave me:

1. Add 10 lbs of Balance Pak 100 (baking soda)
2. Add 4 pts muriatic acid
3. Shock with 2 bags of "Burnout 35"

How does this advice sound to you? Can I shock with Clorox laundry bleach instead? If so, how much?

Also, I've it's been suggested to me that I at least partially drain the pool. My pool service (which I discontinued) suggested I drain because of the high CYA levels. Conversely, Patio Pools says the CYA is on the high side of "in range" but says I might want to drain because of the high TDS levels. I'm also wondering if I might have a chlorine demand problem because I shocked the pool with Burnout just a couple of weeks ago. Might draining help with this? Finally, somebody else told me that it's a bad time to drain the pool because of the high daytime temps -- the pool itself could be damaged from the heat with the water level low. So I don't know what to do about this.

Thank you very much to everyone who can help me out with my questions!!

Mike