Planning an AG pool

[BigDave]

I've been accused of many forms of snobbery in my life, Music snob, Beer snob, Wine snob, Scotch snob, ..., Water snob. OK. But my view is that it's not snobbery but education and refinenment. I supppose that sounds pretty snobish.

[BethyM]

BigDave: I love your explanation!! I suppose 'snob' wasn't the nicest choice of words, appreciate your explanation getting to the essence of what I meant :-) Thanks! I definitely don't think it's a bad thing and am grateful for my new knowledge!

I was surprised by how much more observant I was of the water. It was packed and we were playing with the dive sticks and the kids had a hard time seeing them. :-(

[Watermom]

Years ago when I got married, we went to the beach for our honeymoon. This was way before I knew anything about pools. I had really long blonde hair. A couple of days into the trip, my husband and I were walking down the beach and he looked at me and said, "your ponytail is green." When I got back to the hotel and looked in the mirror, I couldn't believe it. Yep, it was green! Of course, at the time, I thought it was the fault of the chlorine in the pool. Now I know better. Apparently that hotel pool had been treated with some product that had copper in it. I spent the following afternoon in a beauty shop having some kind of red goop put on my hair to get rid of the green. Whatever she did worked though.

So, now that I know better, I typically don't put my head underwater when I swim at pools other than my own. (Of course, I wouldn't be afraid to swim in all of y'alls pools since y'all are all so smart and know the right things to add and not add to your water!)

[BethyM]

Pool store wasn't keen on credit for the 'package' chems. I also asked him what to add, and he said "call back when it's filled, I'll walk you through"... mm, thanks! Maybe at that point I can 'exchange' unopened items for more useful items.

Tested my fill water: This is city water, from the hose...

FC = .5ppm
TA = this is where direction following helps. I got to 32 drops (yikes) and it changed color when I dropped it in but the sample then went back to green. I read the 'detailed' directions and suspect I wasn't fully inverting the bottle to get a full sized drop so hoping that number is high, or doesn't matter on my vinyl lined ABG. So, my question that I didn't find answered is whether you've got your result when the drop added changes color or if the whole sample is suppose to change?

PH = 7.5
CH = 425 (and this is where I stopped with a 'purple' sample - never saw blue. I *know* the fill water is hard - does this indicate 'other' minerals? Should I put a sock on the hose when we fill it?)

I've been working on figuring out what to do after install, so see if I'm thinking on the right lines. Need to add chlorine and keep it ?at what level? while CYA has a chance to dissolve. CYA is added by either using the 'tablets' they give me to add both chlorine and CYA together or with bleach + CYA.

The other concern I have is the calcium, I believe the 'chlorine' I get with my kit is cal-hypo and I don't think I want to ADD Calcium to my pool! I've got bleach on hand and don't plan to open the cal-hypo. What problems can I expect from hard water? I'm reading the Lime Softening article now :-)

Thanks!!! T -39 hours and counting :-)

[aylad]

With the TA test, it is normal to get the sample to flash to the pink but then return to green when you get near the endpoint, but you're not at the endpoint until one more drop doesn't make any color change--and then you don't count that last drop. So Looks like your TA is more than 320, which isn't all that uncommon. If you don't have metals, and don't have plans for an SWCG, then I wouldn't worry much about the alk for now.There is a possibility that it will help precipitate the high calcium--let me look into that (or one of the other folks will chime in and offer an opinion), but if it won't, then trying to lower it is going to be a losing battle because you'll just raise it again everytime you have to top of the pool with your fill water.


The calcium, however, is a different story. Unless you use the cal-hypo to actually REMOVE the calcium (Pooldoc's the one to explain that one), I wouldn't add it to the pool just for chlorination. High calcium tends to produce milky water. While chemically it's not unsafe to swim in, it does create a danger if you can't see a swimmer underwater that may be having troubles.

Bleach, bleach, bleach...to keep chlorine levels at 1-3 ppm at all times until stabilizer is in the water. If you chlose to use the trichlor tabs, then that will lower your pH and add CYA. (I'd target 30-50 ppm of CYA but it'll take awhile to get there just using tabs).

[BethyM]

Drumroll--- we've had our first swim!!! AND I did my first 'pool' water test. The swim was a balmy 75.... but the kids had fun. No pictures because I was the in water supervisor -- brrrr.

FC=.5
CC=0
PH=7.2
Here's where it gets fun....
TA=425
CH=550

I did not test for CYA since all I have so far is the 1inch tabs. Going to get some CYA in a sock tonight and do another dose of chlorine... I added like 45oz of bleach this morning and put 5oz of trichlor in the floater to get some CYA in.

30' pool so 21200 gallons. pH was lower than I expected. We did fill part of the pool with the neighbors water... not sure if they soften it or something?

[Watermom]

That is some high alk and TA. Read the following about lowering alk and about using muriatic acid safely.

Lowering Alkalinity Step-by-Step

Using Muriatic Acid Safely

Also, trichlor is acidic and drives pH down. So, you'll need to be adding Borax to bring it up. But, then to drop the alk you'll need to add acid to drop the pH and alk and then aerate the pH up. It's gonna be a crazy cycle.

My opinion is that if it were my pool, I'd just add CYA outright and not use trichlor. Go ahead and let the pucks that you put in dissolve and then don't use more. That way, you can go ahead and start working to lower the alk.

Make sense?