Pebble Tec surface - Pebbles at bottom/Sucked up by Polaris 360 Vac

[TAZ427]

Recently I've found a small amount of pebbles from my pebble tec pool in my Polaris 360 Vac's bag when emptying it out.

A bit of background. The previous owners put the pool in. I believe 2-3yrs ago. I've had the house for the past 10mo. I was using liquid chlorine from Oct - May, trying to get the CYA down as it was about 180 when we bought it. I got it down to around 100 before switching back to tablets. I also started to use Ph Up to keep the Ph at around 7.4. I'm using a Soda Ash based (Pool Mate) Ph Up powder product and since I've owned the pool the Ph level has never been outside of 7.2-7.8 range and mostly maintained at about 7.4. All levels with the exception of the CYA being a big high are maintained within general pool guidelines.

I'm wondering if this is fairly normal or a potential indication of an issue with the pebble tec.

[Denniswiseman]

I don't think that your pool levels that you give are a problem but what is your calcium hardness, that could be an issue
You can't reduce CYA other than a partial drain and refill, your stabilised chlorine is putting CYA back in the water. You want to maintain between 30 and 60. So use liquid chlorine (bleach)unless you need to raise your CYA loss from rain and top up
Check out the Pool School and Pool Maths
http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/

[TAZ427]

Calcium Hardness was 465, a bit high but not extremely high according to our local pool guy. While using Liquid Chlorine I was getting Ph going up, so was using Muratic acid to bring it down. Didn't have much of an impact to lower the hardness however. From what I read draining and filling with fresh water is also the go to solution for this along with the CYA.

I did use some Bio-Active, it's relatively new on the market (2nd year I believe) and had some limited success in it reducing CYA. It is an alternative, and I wanted to give it a try, but not as good as advertised. I'll probably do a partial drain/fill at the end of the season.

[Denniswiseman]

Calcium hardness is only a problem if it is to low on a plastered cement pool as it will take calcium out of the plaster cement
Generally speaking it is only possible to drain and refill to lower CYA and CH
Did you check out the Pool School as there is a lot of information in there also get a test kit so that you can control your own levels

Good luck

[TAZ427]

Yeah, I've read up on the pool school and I had done a lot of research from day one of ownership on keeping my levels good. I use the poolmaster 22270 5 way test multiple times a week. Pretty much everything but CYA and CH, which are on the pool strips that my wife uses (don't bother asking - she just wants to do it and won't use the liquid test kit.) And my wife takes a sample into the local store every couple weeks for a 'more thorough' test.

[Denniswiseman]

Don't rely on the pool store testing and the strips aren't that accurate
You really need to test for CYA as to high a level will use more chlorine especially if you are using the pucks which have stabilisor in them
To low CH will take calcium out of the pool surface
People like the strips because they are easy