New pebble pool - Aboslutely knows nothing about water chemistry

[Tax2023]

Good evening everyone!

So, PB added salt yesterday. Salinity was around 4 after they added and I didn’t turn on the salt sell yet.

However, the chemical readings have changed after they added salt with salt cell running at 0%. Not really sure what’s going on.

FC - 6
TC - 6
PH - 7
TA - 40
CH - 140
CYA - 50

I added liquid chlorine last Monday and initially the FC readings were low around 2 for 1-2 days and they jumped after salt is added. I will leave salt cell at 5% for the next couple of days and monitor chlorine levels. I am planning to focus on TA, CH and CYA.

CYA of 70-80 was recommended earlier for SWG
Any certain recommendations on TA and CH for SWG?

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[ajw22]

How did your pH go from 7.8 to 7 and your TA is now 40?

Stop adding chemicals and let your pool settle down for a few days.

Just test and maintain your FC and nothing else.

 

[Tax2023]

Ok. I think it happened because of pool returns are half closed. Not sure how it happened but I see that the pool returns are half to 3/4 closed. Someone messed up with it. I added liquid chlorine and muriatic acid based on effects of adding calculation in pool math app. After a day, I didn’t see ph going down and chlorine was too low. Probably the chemicals were not mixed well because of return closed partially. Without knowing that, I added little bit more and after 4 days these are the readings. I think I added more chemicals than needed because of the pool returns.

I will try to leave everything as is for few days as you suggested.

 

[ajw22]

Please log ALL of your tests and chemical additions in PoolMath. It helps us when you present problems like this.

 

[Tax2023]

Thanks! I added to poolmath. Should I still wait to normalize CH and TA?

 

[ajw22]

Should I still wait to normalize CH and TA?

Yes, why do you think my advice would be different then what I said an hour ago in post #22.

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing.

 

[Tax2023]

Thanks! I will wait and report back with results after couple of days.

 

[Tax2023]

So, couple of incidents happened after my previous reporting.

On 04/20 salt was added and salt cell was turned on to 100%PB guys also added chlorine tabs inside the skimmer basket. That led chlorine to jump to 17. I kept my calm and stopped the salt cell and removed chlorine tabs. It took almost a week 04/26 to drop chlorine levels to 3. Ph was a bit high too and I added acid to mitigate it.

I turned on the salt cell on 04/26 at 50% and next day chlorine is back up to 8. I kept it as 20% and it stays within 6-7 range now. I am pretty happy that it stays in the range and learnt a thing or two from this fiasco.

Now that chlorine and Ph are stabilizing, cal I proceed to stabilize TA, CH and CYA?

What is the good range to target for CyA ? 15k Gallon pool with salt cell. TFP article says 60-80. Is 70 a good number to target?

Thanks as always for helping with this.

 

[ajw22]

CYA 70 is fine.

You are lowering your pH too low with a TA of 40. Your TA is fine. Don’t lower you pH below 7.6.

You need to raise your CH to around 300.

 

[Tax2023]

Thank you! I will target these numbers and add to pool math logs with testing results.

This has been a great learning experience and I really appreciate your feedback and guidance in general.