Help!! New Pool Owner And The Chemical Tests Are All Over The Place. What Should I Do?
by Chris Larkin
A test yesterday showed the following readings: pH - 6.2 Chlorine - 8 Total Alkalinity - 40 Stabilizer - 10 These all seem to be well outside the "safe" zone but I don't know what to do first. I've read through the details on here, some great information but my problem is knowing what to add now, and how much. I'd love to go swimming next week! The pool is in France if that makes any difference (it's 30 degrees at the moment). Any help would me much appreciated. Thanks for a great informative site. Thanks for stopping by Chris and for the compliment I've cleared up hundreds of green swamps that people have called pools and have vacuumed for thousands of hours, so I promise your pool and Summer can be saved. First, here are some pages that you might want to look at: My First Pool..How Do I Add Chemicals & Make Adjustments? Above Ground Pool..Need To Know About Chemicals & What To Do.. What Can I Do About A Chemical Mess During Pool Start Up? I always start by telling people to get a Taylor FAS-DPD K-2006 pool water test kit. All that information can be found in the links above. The chlorine is a bit high, but it will come down on its own, so don't worry about that. If the chlorine stays a bit high you lessen the risk of pool algae while you're making other adjustments. First, you should get the alkalinity in line, between 80 - 100ppm. You can go to 120ppm and still be in range. Go to these pages to learn about that: Pool Alkalinity Total Alkalinity For every 10,000 gallons and an increase of 10ppm, you'll need 1.5lbs. of sodium bicarb. Sorry, I don't know the metric equivalent. To raise your pool alkalinity up 60ppm to 100ppm, you'll need about 16lbs. of bicarb. Be sure you read the alkalinity page and adjust it with the pool pump off. DON'T dump in the bicarb. or any chemical, all at once. Do little adjustments at a time, perhaps 2 - 3lbs. or so. Allow for a full water turnover, maybe 8 - 10 hours, then retest. Using bicarb. might affect the pH as well, so you'll be increasing them at the same time, but more so with the alkalinity and the pump motor off. To increase the pH, you can go here: Swimming Pool pH Levels You can use either soda ash or 20 Mule Team Borax to raise the pH without much happening to the alkalinity. Your chlorine will be very active at 6.2ppm pH. Obviously you won't want to swim until the pH level gets 7.2ppm or above. Next is the stabilizer. You can chlorinate with Dichlor. This has the chlorine stabilizer in it, but be careful as the stabilizer can get out of hand quickly if you use too much of it. A chlorine chart including Dichlor can be found here: Swimming Pool Chlorine For every 10 ppm chlorine added by Trichlor chlorine, it adds 6 ppm cyanuric acid (CYA) or stabilizer. Dichlor is a fast-dissolving powder, but for every 10 ppm chlorine that it adds, it also adds 9 ppm to CYA. You're getting both the chlorination and the stabilizer at the same time. Once the CYA/stabilizer is between 30 - 50ppm, use either liquid or chlorine granules for maintenance. If you have hard fill water, use liquid chlorine. Technically, you can swim at an 8.0ppm chlorine level, but only if you really need to. The most important things are these: *Test with the right test kit. Record the readings in a ledger. *Make an adjustment *Allow for a full turnover of the water *Re-test and make another adjustment if needed. Too many people are impatient and want it "right now". It won't be right now, but a week, no problem. Make small adjustments, test and re-test, and by next week you'll be swimming. Hope this helps and have a fun and safe swimming season. Robert |
