brand new pool startup--help!! (how much, Home Depot, buying)
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We have a brand new pool this week, and are unsure of where to start and hubby and I have never owned a pool before. Our pool was built by Shasta, inground, 16800 gallons, quartz select interior, pop up cleaning system, cartridge filter with ozone also.
They were just out yesterday and did our "pool school" with us, and showed us how to work the equipment. We are so lost when it is coming down to chemistry though!! We really want to get the hang of this and do ourselves.
We took a sample of our water to Leslies yesterday, here are the results:
Free Available Chlorine-0
Total Available Chlorine-0
Cyanuric Acid-99
Total Alkalinity-120
pH-7.8
Phosphates-300
So, the guy at Leslies was telling us that we needed to get some chemicals in the pool, because the weather has been warmer lately and we were going to have trouble if we didn't. He told us to start by adding two bags of SHOCK and then put a chlorine tablet in the dek-clor tube we have. We did this yesterday. He also told us that our phosphates were too high at 300, and got hubby to buy two bottles of Phos-free ($99)....which we did and added this also to the water yesterday.
The problem is that I have spent all day on this site, and am seeing that we didn't really need to do anything about the phosphates....and that we should not use chlorine tablets.......and that our CYA is already too high even before we added any chemicals!!! What should we do? We really want to get this figured out ourselves...
Thanks so much for any help you can give!
Lissyloo
What kind of sanitizing do you have, salt water chlorine generator or manually add chlorine?
You need to get some chlorine in the pool ASAP, either add some manually (can use Clorox bleach or chlorine from the pool store). If it is a salt water pool you need to turn the filter on and leave it running for 24 hours to get some chlorine generated. Either way I'd still manually add some chlorine until the SWG gets it where you need it.
For a new pool fill your Cyanuric Acid is too high. Your pH needs to be lower to keep from getting a calcium ring around your tile at the waterline.
Check out the Pool School below, it is a great resource:
You really should not be this lost after your pool start-up, I'd call Shasta back and have them come out and run you through things again. You paid for it after all.
I'd get a good test kit and do the test yourself...every time you go to Leslie's for a water check they are going to try and sell you something (that's why they offer free water tests). It is very easy to do it all yourself once you get the hang of it which should only take a couple weeks at the most.
No to salt water. Manually add chlorine and we have an ozonator. We did put a chlorine tab in there today....but with the CYA already so high, I'm not sure if we should keep doing that or not?
You don't have a choice, you need to add chlorine. Get some liquid chlorine which doesn't have any CYA added or use some Clorox Bleach. Get some chlorine in there now.
Why is the CYA so high already? I'd complain to Shasta and have them rectify that as you don't want to be fighting high CYA right after you installed the pool. They will need to drain water to get it down and add fresh water. CYA only gets in the water by being added manually so Shasta must have added some during the start-up and they added too much.
Anyway, get some chlorine in there now.
The only thing you should need to add is chlorine and muriatic acid. CYA is added with the pucks so you shouldn't add that manually. I add nothing else to my pool. You need to make sure the chlorine and pH stay in the right range so you don't have an algae bloom but you shouldn't ever have to add anything else if you stay on top of it. The only time I ever shock my pool (only with chlorine) is right after we have a bunch of guests over and I want to sanitize it since I have no idea what they did in the pool.
yeah, I was thinking the same thing. CYA(ie "stabilizer") helps your chlorine last and if you don't have enough, your chlorine won't stick around. But I recall reading too high of a value(and yours is certainly high), it can also make your chlorine ineffective and the solution is too drain out some of your pool water to lower it and refill a portion of it with fresh water.
As for your phosphates, I would suggest NOT buying that chemical to lower your phosphates until you get your chlorine up. The reason is you have zero chlorine and you're growing some "things" in your water which will make that number go high. Get your chlorine up and I bet you'll get your phosphorus down to zero rather quickly. The reason I know this is it happened to me once when I was delinquent in checking my CYA which basically went to zero and phosphorus went high like yours because no chlorine would last in our pool with CYA so low. I got the CYA up, shocked it, and Phosphorus went down to zero overnight.
As LBTRS suggested, I'd get a hold of your pool maker and have them get these numbers where they should be. You payed a good amount of money for your pool I'm sure and I would expect/demand the pool company to get the basic numbers in your pool where they should be at startup. No excuse for that in my book.
edit....I see you already bought/used the phosphate chem.....ugh/darn.
We have a brand new pool this week, and are unsure of where to start and hubby and I have never owned a pool before. Our pool was built by Shasta, inground, 16800 gallons, quartz select interior, pop up cleaning system, cartridge filter with ozone also.
They were just out yesterday and did our "pool school" with us, and showed us how to work the equipment. We are so lost when it is coming down to chemistry though!! We really want to get the hang of this and do ourselves.
We took a sample of our water to Leslies yesterday, here are the results:
Free Available Chlorine-0
Total Available Chlorine-0
Cyanuric Acid-99
Total Alkalinity-120
pH-7.8
Phosphates-300
So, the guy at Leslies was telling us that we needed to get some chemicals in the pool, because the weather has been warmer lately and we were going to have trouble if we didn't. He told us to start by adding two bags of SHOCK and then put a chlorine tablet in the dek-clor tube we have. We did this yesterday. He also told us that our phosphates were too high at 300, and got hubby to buy two bottles of Phos-free ($99)....which we did and added this also to the water yesterday.
The problem is that I have spent all day on this site, and am seeing that we didn't really need to do anything about the phosphates....and that we should not use chlorine tablets.......and that our CYA is already too high even before we added any chemicals!!! What should we do? We really want to get this figured out ourselves...
Thanks so much for any help you can give!
Lissyloo
Call the guy at Shasta back and make him come back and show you. You just paid $20K+ for a pool and he didn't even help you get it started? I think there is no question you will need to add chemicals, but depending on your equipment and features the amount will be different.
Once you get the hang of it it will be easy, but you need to have somebody get you started.
We have a brand new pool this week, and are unsure of where to start and hubby and I have never owned a pool before. Our pool was built by Shasta, inground, 16800 gallons, quartz select interior, pop up cleaning system, cartridge filter with ozone also.
They were just out yesterday and did our "pool school" with us, and showed us how to work the equipment. We are so lost when it is coming down to chemistry though!! We really want to get the hang of this and do ourselves.
We took a sample of our water to Leslies yesterday, here are the results:
Free Available Chlorine-0
Total Available Chlorine-0
Cyanuric Acid-99
Total Alkalinity-120
pH-7.8
Phosphates-300
So, the guy at Leslies was telling us that we needed to get some chemicals in the pool, because the weather has been warmer lately and we were going to have trouble if we didn't. He told us to start by adding two bags of SHOCK and then put a chlorine tablet in the dek-clor tube we have. We did this yesterday. He also told us that our phosphates were too high at 300, and got hubby to buy two bottles of Phos-free ($99)....which we did and added this also to the water yesterday.
The problem is that I have spent all day on this site, and am seeing that we didn't really need to do anything about the phosphates....and that we should not use chlorine tablets.......and that our CYA is already too high even before we added any chemicals!!! What should we do? We really want to get this figured out ourselves...
Thanks so much for any help you can give!
Lissyloo
Since you never owned a pool before, I will start by explaining what cyanuric acid is. Cyanuric acid ("CYA") is a stabilizer which, in effect, protects chlorine from the sun. Without adequeate CYA, the sun will eat up all of your chlorine, so to speak, in no time flat.
Consider chlorine to be the pool's purifier. It keeps your pool sanitary.
There is a direct relationship between chlorine and CYA. The higher your CYA level, the more chlorine you need. You want some CYA in there to protect the chlorine you do put in, but you don't want so much CYA that you are dumping tons of chlorine (and money) into the pool. You want your pool to have a CYA level between 30 and 50.
Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of excess CYA is to dump out water and replace it, which is why it's very important not to ever let your CYA level get too high. Your level is already 99. Since you have a brand new pool and the weather is perfect right now for dumping (not too hot nor too cold), I recommend dumping 50-60% of the water that is in there and immediately replacing it with fresh water (from your garden hose). You can work with a CYA level of 99, but it's only going to climb higher and you're going to be spending a fortune in chlorine. Sooner rather than later you're going to have to dump and replace that water anyway and it's better to do it now before it gets too hot or ruins the pool season for you.
That was the bad news.
The good news is you never have to go into a pool store and buy those expensive chemials again.
Go into your local Ace Hardware-type store or Home Depot/Lowes. They sell liquid chlorine, which is usually 10% or 12.5% chlorine. (Either is fine.) It comes in a gallon jug and is boxed two gallon jugs per package. Buy 2 packages. (You don't want to stock up on liquid chlorine because it has a very short shelf life and starts to lose it's potency fairly quickly. (Don't store it in the heat/sun.) It's better to buy fresh again when you need more.) While you're there, buy muriatic acid. That also comes in gallon jugs, two to a package.
Before you put any more chemicals in the pool, replace the water and then test it. (You really do need to have your own test kit. I highly recommend either the TF-100 or K-2006 test kits, especially for beginners.) If you don't have a good test kit by the time the water is replaced, you'll have to bring it back to a place like Leslie's - but don't buy anything they try to sell you.
Once you have those new numbers, it is easy to figure out what to add to the pool. Feel free to DM me, if you have specific questions.
Thank you guys so much for your responses. I did go online and bought a tft test kit that was recommended to me on the Trouble Free Pool website.
I was just confused as to how the CYA got to be so high already, this essentially tap water at the point of the test, was before we added any chlorine or anything to the water. My issue is even if we need to drain and add more tap water at this point......wouldn't we be exactly where we are at now?
I guess at this point I just wait and hope that my test kit gets here this week, so that I can do a test on my own water and hope that the pool store was wrong about the CYA.
We do have some chlorine in there now, we shocked it with two bags and then added one chlorine puck to dek-clor thingy.....I should just let it go now until I can test again? Thoughts??
If we do go to Lowes and get liquid bleach to add, how do we know when and how much to add?
First, if you or Shasta didn't add any CYA then the reading was wrong. There is no CYA in the tap water so it had to be added. I would definitely test that again before you do anything about it. The test kit you purchased will test the CYA level.
You can't add too much chlorine since you're not swimming in it so keep adding some chlorine until you get to test the water. The sun burns up the chlorine quickly, especially if the reading was wrong and you actually don't have any CYA in your pool. Keep the tabs in there or pour in some liquid chlorine daily until you get your test kit.
The pool school website I gave you yesterday has a chemical calculator that will tell you how much you need to add for your size pool. You need a higher level than I do since I have a salt water pool and my chlorine level stays level and doesn't fluctuate like your pool will.
I wouldn't add anything more to the pool right now, since you already added shock and a puck. (If the puck hasn't dissolved yet, I'd pull that out of there meanwhile.)
While you're waiting for your test kit, you can bring another water sample to Leslie's. If your CYA is still showing a very high reading, you'll know the pool guy put something in there, because there is no CYA in regular water.
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