Spoke with Fluidra rep, he said there is no way to do what I want. Although I did have to explain to him the basics on how the solar function works in Aqualink...

After redoing the plumbing and adding the FlowVis, I'll report back on the minimum rpm needed to purge air and meet panel flow requirements.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Good idea. I use a 1 1/2" pool vacuum hose attached to my Little Giant pump. I may have had to put another fitting into the stock fitting to have it be big enough. The vacuum hose just pushes onto the pump fitting and stays without any problem. Since the hose is so large in diameter, there is very little pressure to try and force it off. Another reason I like it is because it wraps up so easily around the pump when I'm putting it away. Its amazing how quickly it empties the cover (or pool since I also drop it in to lower the water level in winter or as needed). I upsized like you did then went up one more. Very happy with it as well.

@sande005 - thanks for that, it didn't occur to me that temperature could impact the readings - I'm in Michigan and the water is definitely cold

I'll try to get some new ratings after letting it raise to room temp.

Thank you, looks great

phonedave said:

St Lucia is beautiful, but holy planes, trains, and automobiles (or in our case, car, plane, helicopter, and then car) to get to where you need to go (and do the same in reverse).

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St. Lucia is where we ended up going, but you are right... its not the easiest place to get to. People from England seemed to have much more direct flight options which was odd to me.

Regardless, it was a good trip once we got there. We celebrated our 23rd anniversary there and will save up for the Maldives or some place a bit more exotic for our 25th.

Here are some pics for anyone considering going (1st is just right outside of our hotel room, 2nd is one of the two Piton mountains on the island):

I don't use salt but I did add 50 pounds of calcium chloride when TA was about 125 and it is now 225 so that might tell me what I am after. I will have to go back to Pool Math and see what it predicts TA should be after the 50 pound addition. Thanks

pugant said:

oh wow, I didn't realize that. I open the air relief valve in those situations. Everytime I restart after cleaning the filter I bleed off any excess air.

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Doesn't hurt anything to do that if it makes you comfortable, but not necessary.

NickJ said:

For years I have wondered why there is no test for pool volume so I thought "maybe" there is and I just haven't found it so I am posing the question here for the experts.
I "think" my pool's volume is 29,000 gallons but more often than not the quantities of chemicals I add don't raise the levels as I would expect so I have begun to wonder again. Our pool is probably well over 75 years old. It had a one meter diving board which we removed and consequently is very deep - like 10 feet - at the peak of the upside down pyramid deep end, I think it is called a hopper style. I divided it into the pyramid and rectangular shapes but obviously had to estimate angles and some dimensions so I might be off. It seems to me adding a known quantity of some inert chemical that would not hurt anything if left in the water and then measuring the diluted concentration it achieved in the pool could tell you the pool's volume precisely. Of course it would only work one time unless the pool were completely drained but that is all anyone needs. Any suggestions?

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Trying to be precise in quantities is not reasonable with a swimming pool. Every Certified Pool Operator course I took, when discussing chemicals and dosing, started with the premise that we are accurate, but not precise. For example, I lost an inch of water to the North wind we had here for the last day and a half. Happens a couple of times a year. Thought it was a leak until I got used to it. How could I possibly know how much water is in my pool based on any measurement.
To be accurate, we have a +/- 10% margin of error and we are good.
For example, adding 1 gallon of liquid chlorine is considered adding 10ppm (shocking 10k gallons). But that is only a good estimate as you can never know the precise amount of actual chlorine is in the jug, though we consider it as 1# if relatively fresh. It very much depends depends on how fresh it is (and the percentage on the label when fresh). How has it been stored? Was there actually a gallon in the jug? What is the temperature of the chlorine? Was it poured close to the surface or from a standing position which will allow some to gas-off from the splash? Also, adding 1 pound of chlorine (which there is, more or less, in a gallon of 12.5% liquid) is considered adding 10ppm, but if you do the math its only 8.34ppm in pure water and even less in pool water which weighs more due to all the TDS.
If you are even close in your estimate of you pool's volume, consider it 30K gallons and dose for that.
You can buy chlorine in 1# packages labeled as "shock" (shocking a pool is a process not a product), but if it is cal-hypo it is at most .72# of chlorine and if di-chlor it is .56# of chlorine.
The same applies to any chemical we add; acid, CYA, etc. And, our testing method can skew the results based on how far into the body of water we reach to get the test sample.

Helicopters come generally from maple trees. Though ash and sycamore have them as well. Those appear to be maples.

oh wow, I didn't realize that. I open the air relief valve in those situations. Everytime I restart after cleaning the filter I bleed off any excess air.

Today I started on the pool-shed...what horrors lurk in there after 6 months of being sealed up.

Anyone want any bits of an old Dolphin Escape that I replaced with an Evo 604 ? Power supply, two baskets are fine...but pretty sure the robot itself is toast tho.

LaurenB said:

My neighbor has 4 trees that have started dropping helicopter seeds that blow directly into my new pool Any idea what species of tree this is? How long they drop seeds for?

Most importantly any tips for eradicating them from the pool skimmers? They float, so when I lift the basket (I use skimmer socks) they seem to dodge the basket and get under it.

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Ive found a small goldfish net lets me preclean the skimmer of floating stuff before emptying the basket. Might be helpful and keeps you from handling any “surprises” that make their way into the skimmer under a bunch of debris.

My wife and her favorite child swimming.

As long as the water is above +65F, I have seen IC-40 produce between 2800 and 3800. My unit says 3600 is ideal. At low temps I have seen my IC-40 NOT produce FC at levels around 2800.

JoyfulNoise said:

Flying nowadays sucks no matter how you slice it.

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True that. We just got back from vacation and left the resort at 9am yesterday morning and did not land back in Dallas until 1am. If I had a dollar for every socially unacceptable thing I saw on my trip, I would have paid for my trip and then some. Just use common sense like: Dont take off your shoes on the plane, don't flip your long hair over the seat so it touches the person's leg behind you for the next 3 hours, don't face time in the seating area using speaker phone so all can hear (especially if you are talking about how you cheated on your boyfriend on the trip), don't watch your inflight movie without headphones, sit in your assigned seat and don't try to use puppy dog eyes when the person who actually booked that seat doesnt want to sit in your crummy middle seat, and my personal favorite don't get drunk on a catamaran tour and peel the weave off your head because its hot .

As for the $, I totally get it. There are lots of good freelancing sites where you can do temp jobs online to make some quick cash. Try someplace like Upwork.com and see if you can sign up for some of those jobs to pay for some of the trip.

It looks like it might be copper.

Drop a vitamin C tablet on a spot.

Feernot said:

Good morning, TFP!

I've been a using TFP for 3 years and evidently lost my mind when opening this week. To be honest, having a 3 year old and a 19 month old has made me dumber

We opened on 4/30 afternoon and I dumped 2 gallons of liquid chlorine (10%) in the pool, which is not what the suggested SLAM amount was. I then added another gallon later that night, the next morning, and again at noon. Again, I'm not sure what I was thinking. Last night the pool was very cloudy and I finally put by brand new regents to the test and got the results below. I was not surprised to see my FC super high at 26.0. Even though I think the ph reading is inaccurate at these levels, I tested it and got 6.9 with a calibrated digital ph meter. I then put 3lbs of Borax (20 Mule) to increase the ph. This morning I got the results below. I've been running the filter 24/7 since opening on 4/30.

1. Can I rely on the PH readings at all with my digital meter with the FC this high?
2. Anything I need to do to reverse my dumb mistake of dumping too much chlorine in the pool?
3. With the FC drop overnight from 26.0 to 21.0 does that mean I should continue my SLAM levels once they reach what they should be?

I plan to just let the FC fall to normal SLAM levels and to go back to basics with using my TFP pool math app and TFTestKit regents. Just wanted to see if there's anything else I needed to consider after being a moron with the liquid cholorine.

5/1 at 11PM
FC = 26.0
CC = 1.0
CYA = 0
PH = 6.9 (Used a freshly calibrated digital ph meter from TFtestkits)

5/2 at 7am
FC = 21.0
CC = 1.0
CYA = 0
PH = 8.0
TA = 50
CH = 25

View attachment 569600

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If you really have 0 CYA youll need that to be 30ppm before starting the SLAM. Other than that the FC will fall on its own especially with no CYA.

NickJ said:

The filter may still be dissolving the CYA but it has been almost 2 days.

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If you added 33ppm, it's in there. If your gallons were off by 4k, it's only be 3 or 4 ppm different and you'd never know.

How did you add it ?

NickJ said:

My pump is set to move 29,000 gallons through the filter daily

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Why ?

Turnovers are a junk requirement. You and I are neighbors with trees between us and the wind blows your way. You need tons of filtering in the spring and fall and I need none. Neither of us needs much mid season.

The chemicals need 15 mins to mix. Twice a day is even better.

NickJ said:

My problem with all the other things you suggested is their interaction makes it impossible to draw any conclusion

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FC may be depleted if you were low and it needs to sanitize things, but not if you had adequate FC in the first place.

Salt, CH and CYA all add what they add regardless of anything else.

krischela said:

Hi - My Nautilus CC works really well. The problem is that every time I pull the vacuum out of the water, a bunch of the debris goes right back into the pool when the water drains out of the vacuum. I've tried turning it upside down when pulling it out and also made sure filters are clean. Neither worked. Anyone else have this problem and figured out a solution?

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I just pull it out fast and put it on the deck so it can drain out any junk onto my deck and drains. Doesnt catch everything but better than nothing.

cwswifty said:

I believe I did read that you could use a good quality digital pH meter but I don't have any experience with them.

More info: PH - Further Reading

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You can do that. The downside is the meters require special calibration and storage/cleaning that was a big hassle when I got mine. Its way easier to just use the drops.

ok I will try that thanks