slimy, gelatinous strings of goo ruin a good dip.........

[Watermom]

Heyred ---- You are taking way too long to raise your pH! You've been reporting pH at 6.8 (which as several people have noted for you) means it could be much lower. Low pH can damage your pool. This should not take a week to bring up. Please start adding doses of Borax more often. Add, wait an hour or two, retest, redose, repeat. Janet has said it, Dave has said it, I've said it. I'm not sure you understand that this is critical.

[waterbear]

Order a K-2006, it has several improvements over the HTH test kit such as a higher precision pH test, the FAS-DPD chlorine test, a test for calcium hardness instead of total hardness (total hardness is a useless test for pools)
GET YOUR pH UP by adding borax. Low pH will damage your liner and equipment!!!!!!

While you are at it get a tube of LaMotte borate test strips so you can test your borate level. I suspect that you will be in the 30 to 50 ppm range once you get your pH up and that would be good to know. Having 30-50 ppm borate in your water has a lot of advantages, as PoolDoc said before. You will probably have to order the strips online also, since your pool store does not want you to do testing yourself because they know that if you start taking control of your water and have accurate test results they will lose money. I have worked in pool stores and know this to be fact. We were told NOT to sell test kits but to have them come in for testing every week since we could sell them something every time they came in!
The other possiblility is that your pH reagent is bad and giving you a false reading, another reason to get a K-2006 fast. However, I would not bank on that and would keep adding the borax. One easy way to tell is to add a tiny pinch of borax to yor pool water sample in the pH comparator and see if the color changes to a high pH color.

[heyred52]

I DO understand. I have put at least 15 boxes in since last week. I just got another 5 at the store today. I have NEVER in all the 12 years I have had this pool put in anything but chlorine and, until last summer, had no problems. I now have a light brown stain all over the liner. I am doing what you have told me to do. I will continue.


i'll try the borax test waterbear. I can't understand why the water has tested 6.8 all through the 12 boxes of borax.....???


the TA was red because I put in 10# of chlorine to shock it before I found your website...


(Edit by Watermom: 3 posts in the queue were combined into this one.)

[heyred52]

Borax test showed that testing kit is working.
Put in 3 more boxes of Borax.

Taylor K2006 on way

Chlorine 5
Ph is 7.2 (finally) BUT----------I have light brown staining everywhere (liner, ladder, etc.) this is new since adding borax for the last week

[Watermom]

Glad the pH is finally up there! I'm not sure about the brown stains being cause after Borax being added. I've asked Ben to jump into this thread.

(Good decision to order the K-2006, btw!)

[waterbear]

I have NEVER in all the 12 years I have had this pool put in anything but chlorine and, until last summer, had no problems.
By chlorine I will assume you mean trichlor tabs, which are extremely acidic. If what you say is true you were not putting in any baking soda to raise the TA nor anything to ever bring up the pH nor were you testing the water. Is that correct?

I now have a light brown stain all over the liner. I am doing what you have told me to do. I will continue.
We will deal with them once the water is balanced and you have a full set of good test results.

i'll try the borax test waterbear. I can't understand why the water has tested 6.8 all through the 12 boxes of borax.....???
Because your actual pH was way below 6.8 so it will register as 6.8 on the test because the test cannot register any lower. Once the actual pH rose above 6.8 did your test register the change in pH.

the TA was red because I put in 10# of chlorine to shock it before I found your website...
NO, the TA was red because the pH was extremely low, under 4.0 most likely and when that occurs TA will test at 0 ppm because all the bicarbonate in the water (which is what TA really is) has converted into carbonic acid due to the low pH.

(Edit by Watermom: 3 posts in the queue were combined into this one.)

Once you get the new kit post a full set of results.

[PoolDoc]

Ph is 7.2 (finally) BUT----------I have light brown staining everywhere (liner, ladder, etc.) this is new since adding borax for the last week

Unfortunately, this is probably purely an effect of the pH. Low pH dissolves metal, and keeps it dissolved. Higher pH causes it come back out of the water, as stains or precipitate. The fact that you had to add so much borax indicates that your actual pH was MUCH lower than 6.8.

One question you need to try to answer is, "How did that iron get into the pool?". There are two likely ways: it was in something you put into the pool, OR something has rusted or eroded badly. Is there any place in your pool or piping where the water contacts steel? You reported using utility water, and usually, utility water is NOT high in iron.

Anyhow, you may want to lower your pH back to 7.0, add a liquid stain/scale product, polyquat, keep your chlorine low, AND run your filter 24/7. I'm listing products from Amazon. You can buy from Amazon, or you can use the links to ID what you need locally. If you buy from Amazon, I'd recommend getting the stain/scale product next day, so you have it Friday.

The ascorbic acid stain removal page explains how to do it.

Products for metal control and clean-up:

HEDP is a liquid phosphonate that is pretty chlorine stable, and very good at keeping dissolved metals IN the water, instead of ON your pool surfaces. It can lift recent stains, OR it can be used along side of ascorbic acid, to keep the metals in the water, after the ascorbic acid is consumed by chlorine.

Jacks Magic The Pink Stuff 1qt (60% HEDP) @ Amazon
20% KemTek HEDP @ Amazon

Using polyquat during metal clean up accomplishes two things: it helps kill or prevent algae, letting you run lower chlorine levels, and it is a very good clarifier, that helps you filter out any small metal particles that may form.(Probably available from pool stores, and possibly some big box stores -- but you MUST learn to ID it correctly. See the polyquat page for more info.)

Kem-Tek 60% polyquat @ Amazon
Nava 60% polyquat @ Amazon

Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) can be used to remove copper and iron stains from pool surfaces, and put the metal BACK into your pool water. (Not likely to be available locally, except as Vitamin pills.)

Ascorbic Acid Powder @ Amazon
Ascorbic Acid Vitamin C Powder USP Pharma Grade 11 Lbs @ Amazon

The CuLator product is a special patented plastic material, contained in a bag that goes into the skimmer, that can slowly take metals OUT of your pool water. We think it works, and have some evidence that it does, but not proof yet. (Not likely to be available locally.)

1 ppm Culator @ Amazon
1.5 ppm Culator sold by Amazon, shipped from Periodic
4 ppm Culator sold by Amazon, shipped from Periodic
Poolmaster 16242 Poolmaster Skimmer Basket Liner @ Amazon (to protect CuLator from being damaged by scum)

[heyred52]

Started getting a little algae on the bottom so I put a gallon of bleach in tonight.

Shortly after doing that, I got my taylor K-2006.

I have tested knowing the chlorine will probably be high. Here are my results (I watched youtube videos but still feel shaky on results). I will test again tomorrow morning.

.8 ppm free chlorine
.4 ppm combined chlorine
CYA 1.8 ppm
Calcium 90 ppm
Ph 7.2
Alkalinity 130 ppm

Thanks.

[aylad]

If you're getting algae on the bottom, then you need to shock the pool up to 12-15 ppm with bleach and hold it there until the algae dies. (you can test with the 10 mL sample instead of the 25 mL sample, and your reagents will last longer--for each drop you add, you'll multiply by 0.5 instead of 0.2, but that's close enough. I don't trust your CYA reading--did you use the disappearing black dot test? If so, you're not really going to be able to register CYA levels less than 30 ppm. Your other numbers don't look bad, though.

[BigDave]

I agree that you may be mis-reading the results - I can't imagine how you'd get 1.8 ppm CYA. If your Free Chlorine and Combined Chlorine are really .8 and .4 then you must be using the 25ml sample size and multiplying drop count by 0.2. You'll save yourself testing reagent by using the 10ml sample and multiplying by 0.5.