Where is Everyone? No one here during the winter?

[iggy]

I just had to send this message as it seems not many folks have questions during the winter.
I just had my new pool filled with water and my wife had to be the first to try it out. LOL
Oh I forgot to tell you the water was 60 degrees and she fell in accidentally while walking over the deck and sheer waterfall. LOL

Anyway, the pool is full and all we did was put 5 lbs of claifier and 1 gal of liquid clorine and I have been running the pump at night for about 4 hrs.
Next week we will install the clorine generator and fill the pool with salt.
Presently I have the following readings.
FC 5
TC 5
Alk 170
PH 7.6
Hardness 250
CYA 100

I figure Alk will come down a little over the next week with a few oz of Muratic Acid and the TC and FC will slowly reduce to around 3. I plan to add a little water to help things along.

For starters I only plan to add enough salt for 3000 ppm until spring. This way with rain and lowering I won't waste much salt water and will only run my generater at about 30% until swimming season starts,

Any ideas, suggestion or confirmation of my thoughts?


Iggy in Arizona where the swimming season starts in April and ends in November.

[chem geek]

Sounds like a good plan. The only suggestions are that the CYA is a little on the high side. Most SWG systems want around 60-80 ppm, but some more winter rains will probably dilute the water so you may get down to the 80 ppm anyway. You'll want to keep the FC at a minimum of 4.5% of the CYA level, so at 80 ppm that would be 3.6 ppm FC.

Hopefully, some dilution will get the TA lower as well. Otherwise you may find the tendency for the pH to rise once you fire up the SWG. If you do find that to be the case, then you can lower it following the procedure in this post. Simply adding acid will lower both TA and pH so isn't as efficient as aerating and adding acid at a lower pH. The pH rises due to outgassing of carbon dioxide and the SWG produces hydrogen gas bubbles that aerate the water. Anyway, you can deal with that later during the spring unless you find the pH rising from the SWG when you turn it on.

Richard

[Not logged in]

Hi there Iggy

Just a demo that you can post without logging in. Sounds like you're doing all the right things to keep your pool clean till April.

Larry

[iggy]

Thanks Richard (Chem Geek)
I didn't know about the CYA and FC percentage like you mentioned.
FC should be 4.5% of CYA. Simple enough. LOL
Yes I do hope TA drop to a good range of 80 to 100 before I add any salt.
I have been slowly adding muratic acid every few days and we have rain in the forcast this week.

Thanks
Iggy


PS My better half says we can go swimming by the end of March.