Green Pool And End Of Rope

[abhester3]

I've had this 18,500 gallon above ground pool for 12 years, changed the liner once, done all the repairs/maintenance and seldom had problems but now I'm stumped with a green pool! Here are the numbers from the local pool place:

TDS: 700

CYA: 300

Tot Chlorine: 10

Free Chlor: 10

pH: 8.5

Tot Alk: 142

Adj Alk: 52

Tot Hard: 140

The local pool place suggested shocking it (chlorine 10 now!?) and adding $75 of 'balance pac 100', that just didn't make sense... The filter system is a Sta-rite 27002-100S, a large cartridge type. I have two that I rotate out and thoroughly wash them before they dry. We've had a lot of rain but we've had rain before too, usually a shock and pH adjust is all it needs. I just don't understand why it's so green...

Thanks for any input!

[LegsOnEarth]

Your CYA is ridiculously high. This will drastically reduce the effectiveness of your chlorine. You'll have to drain a portion of the water and replace in order to effectly treat it. Given that you have a Liner pool, you obviously can't do a complete replacement of the water as a total drain will ruin the liner and potentially collapse the pool, so you may have to drain it down half way, refill and repeat that process just to get a working CYA level.

I would also seriously consider not using granular (dichlor) shock or tablets as your primary source of chlorine. My assumption is that you use either of those as your primary sanitizer, which has led to this elevated CYA level. You would be better served by switching to Liquid chlorine.

Good Luck!

EDIT: A "working" CYA level meaning a reading of 40 - 70ppm.

[waterbear]

Your pool is overstabilized. That is why it is green. With a CYA of over 100 ppm you would need to maintain a free chlorine level ABOVE 15 ppm just for normal chlorination and would need to shock to ABOVE 35 ppm to 100 PP to kill algae! CYA (cyanuric acid) makes chlorine less effective by holding it in reserve as a chlroinated isocyanurate so you need to have much higher chlorine levels to achieve the same ACTIVE chlorine level in the wate. LegsOnEarth is right on the money. You need to drain and refill. Using trichlor tablets and/or dichlor with a cartridge filter is a sure recipe for an ovestabilzied pool in just a few months, btw.

I would also stop relying on your Bioguard dealer (their testing with strips and a strip reaser is desinged to sell as many chemicals as they can to you!) and get yourself a Taylor K-2006 test kit and start testing your water yourself. It will save you a lot of money in the long run.

Balance Pac 100 is BAKING SODA!!!!!!! very expensive baking soda (they list the ingredient as sodium hydrogen carbonate which is another name for sodium bicarbonate which is baking soda and the stuff you buy in the baking aisle of the grocery store is not only cheaper, it is purer too!)

[abhester3]

This all makes sense now, these are new tablets I've been using as well as the granular stuff only this summer has been so wet compared to last summer I haven't had to add so much water as is usually lost to evaporation, kids swimsuits and thick-coated 100lb dogs hauling it out (LOL!) I test my own water but only chlorine and pH and those little kits have worked for years so couldn't grasp what was going on, I guess I need a new approach there. The pool place was totally unconcerned with the CYA level saying 30-200 is fine, 300 a 'tad high' and suggested around $150 worth of products that I declined to buy. I keep 50lb bags of baking soda around for blast media so that's what I use with to bring pH up, at those prices a bag would be $150!! And I need to find a local source of liquid chlorine, that was the problem that got me just using the granular to begin with...

Thanks so much for pointing out what's going on, it's a shame the chain stores can't do more than print out a sheet and ask "cash, credit or debit?" It sounds like they really don't have a clue there...

[LegsOnEarth]

Thanks so much for pointing out what's going on, it's a shame the chain stores can't do more than print out a sheet and ask "cash, credit or debit?" It sounds like they really don't have a clue there...

It's really unfortunate that I can say little to refute this line of thinking. Retail is where I started in this industry (like many others on this board, I would assume) and the basic employee is really bombarded with bad information from people further up the chain. It's really not their fault that the sales culture is more concerned with hooking you on products to get repeat business out of you than providing a permenant solution. It's that attitude that shapes the education of new pool guys/gals and gets all this misinformation to stick around in the industry as a whole. Most of the people above the new hires aren't much better educated, so the whole system just sort of starts to collapse in on itself.

end rant.

[waterbear]

Plus the chemical companies don't really want them better educated. If they could accurately test your water and help you balance it they could not sell you chemicals to fix all the 'problems', many of which are created by the bad advice.

BTW, using baking soda to raise pH is NOT a good idea since ti also raises TA and if the TA is high the pH will continue to rise toward 8.3!

Also, your dealer is a Bbioguard dealer. Bioguard is one of the brands owned by Chemtura and they are one of the largeswt manufacturers of stabilized chlorine products. They do not want you to switch to unstabilized chlorine since they will lose money if you do. Instead they will sell you all kinds of products to kill the algae and clear the water that would not occur in the first place if the CYA was within proper range. Chemtura also makes PoolTime and Aquachem (at walmart, home depot, and lowes), Sun, Omni, Guardex, and others. Do you really believe there is any big difference between the budget Aquachem they sell at walmart and Lowes, the PoolTime at home depot, the Sun, Guardex, and Omni they sell at independent retailers, and their $ignature (read expen$ive) flagship line Bioguard only sold through their limited dealer channels? ALL of their alkalinity increaser is just plain baking soda at a high price.

[Town&CountryPools]

Hello All,

first let me explain that BioGuard dealers are not just trying to sell chemicals. The testing unit that we use, called "Alex" is designed to be more accurate than home testing devices and has definitely helped to clear up alot of my customer's water. BioGuard sells stabilized chemicals because they last longer in pool water than unstabilized chemicals, which we also do have, called Burn Out 35 and Burn Out 3. Even though these are unstabilized, we still recommend them for opening pools because they are very fast acting. The "Green" problem, most commonly algae, but sometimes could also be copper in the water (usually well water), is very easy to correct with a proper algicide. Algae all 60 is what we would recommend because it is 60% active (stronger than what you can get at supercenters.) Shocking a pool is common when algae is present, however it will take alot more. Some of my customers just use the smart shock because it contains algae killing crystals in it and works as an algicide. However, we would not recommend using an algicide when the PH is high, because it will only work partially. you want to make sure your pool is well balanced before adding shock or algicide because the chemicals will not work to their full potential if it is not. Secondly, the Balance pak 100 is a great product and while baking soda is a very common practice, the "Alex" system will recommend a certain amount to be added of Balance Pak 100, which is not very expensive at all. The balancing chemicals are actually very inexpensive.

Whether you want to buy BioGuard chemicals or not, i would still suggest to use a LITHIUM based chemical. Alot of what you see in the supercenters are CALCIUM based, which is very harmful for a pool if the levels exceed 225 ppm. Take the popular HTH brand for example: it is 54% calcium, which is why it is alot less expensive than bioguard, because calcium is a cheap filler. Calcium corrodes pools is the levels get too high and can cause major problems and sometimes the customer even has to do a partial, if not full, drain. I've seen many customers that had been using HTH for 10+ years and their pool would not get clear, keep in mind, their calcium level was 395. No chemical out there can bring down the calcium level so you must do a partial drain because all that calcium is suspended in the water with nowhere to go. LITHIUM based chemicals, like BioGuard are a little bit more expensive BUT they are MORE concentrated so you will in turn be using less.

I am a BioGuard dealer and I am not trying to just sell chemicals to my customers. I use the testing machine to correctly analyze a problem and fix it. My customers are so very thankful for our business and our customer service. I apoligize if someone may have had a bad experience in the past with a BioGuard dealer, but the BioGuard chemicals are worth the money. They correct problems very quickly and my customers are very satisfied.

[chem geek]

The testing unit that we use, called "Alex" is designed to be more accurate than home testing devices and has definitely helped to clear up alot of my customer's water.

I'll let waterbear give you the real scoop on the "Alex" system. The issue isn't it's accuracy, but its recommendations. Also, it is not more accurate than a Taylor K-2006 with FAS-DPD chlorine test that we recommend.

BioGuard sells stabilized chemicals because they last longer in pool water than unstabilized chemicals, which we also do have, called Burn Out 35 and Burn Out 3.

This is just plain wrong. Assuming one already has Cyanuric Acid (CYA) in the water, ALL chlorine products last just as long because they all produce IDENTICAL chlorine in the water. The only difference between the different chlorine products is what ELSE they add to the water. The following are chemical facts independent of product concentration or of pool size:

For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Trichlor, it also increases Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 6 ppm.

For every 10 ppm FC added by Dichlor, it also increases CYA by 9 ppm.

For every 10 ppm FC added by Cal-Hypo, it also increases Calcium Hardness (CH) by at least 7 ppm.

How long the chlorine lasts when exposed to the UV in sunlight is dependent on the CYA level and NOT on the source of chlorine itself. One can buy CYA separately to raise it and then use unstabilized chlorine after that though can use Trichlor/Dichlor on occasion if the CYA level has dropped from water dilution.

The "Green" problem, most commonly algae, but sometimes could also be copper in the water (usually well water), is very easy to correct with a proper algicide. Algae all 60 is what we would recommend because it is 60% active (stronger than what you can get at supercenters.)

Algaecide is better at preventing algae than killing algae. Polyquat 60 is also a clarifier so is why it helps to clear the water, but it does not kill algae quickly as chlorine does. Of course, it's best to prevent algae in the first place and one does not need algaecide for that since chlorine alone kills algae BUT it is the active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) that kills algae and the active chlorine level is roughly proportional to the FC/CYA ratio so if the CYA level climbs from continued use of stabilized chlorine products (Trichlor, Dichlor), then the active chlorine level drops and algae can grow faster than chlorine can kill it.

For most pools, an FC that is at least 7.5% of the CYA level will prevent green and black algae growth. Saltwater chlorine generator (SWG) pools can usually have a minimum of an FC that is at least 5% of the CYA level.

Shocking a pool is common when algae is present, however it will take alot more. Some of my customers just use the smart shock because it contains algae killing crystals in it and works as an algicide. However, we would not recommend using an algicide when the PH is high, because it will only work partially. you want to make sure your pool is well balanced before adding shock or algicide because the chemicals will not work to their full potential if it is not.

No, it doesn't take any more than shocking the pool, but if the CYA level is high then it takes extraordinarily high levels of chlorine. Since a high CYA level needs to be dealt with anyway, the best approach is a partial drain/refill to lower the CYA level. Then one does not need to shock as high. For a reasonably fast killing of an algae bloom, an FC that is 40% of the CYA level will work. However, shocking is not a one-time event and the chlorine level needs to be MAINTAINED at shock level at least until the algae is all dead though you can keep it there until the pool is cleared (after the algae is dead, it's more about getting the dead algae filtered out though chlorine does continue to oxidize some of it).

Secondly, the Balance pak 100 is a great product and while baking soda is a very common practice, the "Alex" system will recommend a certain amount to be added of Balance Pak 100, which is not very expensive at all. The balancing chemicals are actually very inexpensive.

Oh please. Balance Pak 100 at poolgeek.com which has low pricing is $1.74 per pound for 4 pounds or $1.58 per pound for 12 pounds ($2.42 with shipping), but you can get it at Ace Hardware at $0.89 per pound for 4 pounds ($1.39 per pound with shipping). Or there is Walmart at $0.53 per pound (in stores) for 4 pounds.

Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate aka sodium hydrogen carbonate) is not the only grocery/hardware store product that is less expensive than the pool store version. Instead of pH Up, one can use Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (careful: NOT the laundry detergent) which is the identical chemical sodium carbonate. If one wants to raise the pH with half the rise in TA, then one can use 20 Mule Team Borax. Instead of Calcium Increaser, one can use Peladow or Dowflake. Instead of BioGuard Optimizer Plus, one can use either a combination of 20 Mule Team Borax and Muriatic Acid (added separately) or one can use Boric Acid from The Chemistry Store or from AAA Chemicals or from Duda Diesel.

Whether you want to buy BioGuard chemicals or not, i would still suggest to use a LITHIUM based chemical. Alot of what you see in the supercenters are CALCIUM based, which is very harmful for a pool if the levels exceed 225 ppm.

Lithium hypochlorite is ridiculously expensive, even accounting for it's higher % Available Chlorine of 35% compared to chlorinating liquid at 10-12% or bleach at around 6%. You have to look at pricing PER FC. BioGuard BurnOut 35 is $7.99 per pound which with 35% Available Chlorine is $7.99/0.35 = $22.83 per pound of chlorine. I get 12.5% chlorinating liquid (10.8% Available Chlorine) at my local pool store for less than $4 per gallon which weighs 9.66 pounds (denser than water due to the chlorine in it) so is $4/9.66/0.108 = $3.83 per pound of chlorine. Some bleach is even less expensive. Though chlorinating liquid or bleach is heavier to carry and not as concentrated, on a weight basis you are mostly paying for water at a low price per pound. To claim that lithium is any sort of bargain or better than chlorinating liquid or bleach is deceitful. The ONLY benefit of lithium hypochlorite over chlorinating liquid or bleach is that it is less weight to carry, but you pay a HUGE premium for that benefit.

Cal-Hypo is OK to use on occassion such as for shocking if one's CH is not already too high, but you are right that using it for regular chlorination it will build up CH. However, as noted earlier, Trichlor builds up CYA nearly as fast and a higher CYA is much more problematic a lot faster than a higher CH. That is, adding 100 ppm CYA is a much bigger problem than adding 100 ppm CH. One needs to get the CH a lot higher before one runs into problems.

Take the popular HTH brand for example: it is 54% calcium, which is why it is alot less expensive than bioguard, because calcium is a cheap filler. Calcium corrodes pools is the levels get too high and can cause major problems and sometimes the customer even has to do a partial, if not full, drain. I've seen many customers that had been using HTH for 10+ years and their pool would not get clear, keep in mind, their calcium level was 395. No chemical out there can bring down the calcium level so you must do a partial drain because all that calcium is suspended in the water with nowhere to go. LITHIUM based chemicals, like BioGuard are a little bit more expensive BUT they are MORE concentrated so you will in turn be using less.

Calcium does not "corrode pools". Too little calcium hardness (assuming other water parameters are such that the saturation index is negative) will dissolve plaster surfaces, but too much calcium hardness can cause cloudiness or scaling. That isn't corrosion.

If you had pools with a CH of around 400 ppm and the water couldn't be kept clear, then the TA and pH were also too high or there was algae growth because the FC/CYA ratio was too low. There are pool owners in high CH fill water areas with CH of nearly 1000 ppm that are able to maintain their pools scale-free and clear by maintaining lower TA and pH targets. It's all about the saturation index.

I have a 16,000 gallon pool (shown here and here) and with my mostly opaque electric safety cover my chlorine usage is lower than most at around 1 ppm FC per day even though we use the pool about an hour every weekday and longer on weekends. It costs me around $15 per month for 12.5% chlorinating liquid I add twice a week and some acid added as needed. I do not shock my pool regularly (I haven't shocked once this year at all), do not use any algaecide, phosphate removers, clarifiers, flocculants, enzymes, etc. Even at a more normal 2 ppm FC per day with an open pool exposed to sunlight, it would still only cost around $30 per month. There are tens of thousands of pool owners on various websites including this one, The PoolForum, Trouble Free Pool and others who maintain their pools using mostly chlorinating liquid or bleach or with saltwater chlorine generators and with no other products other than some acid. It is true that chlorinating liquid or bleach is not as convenient as using Trichlor pucks/tabs since one needs to add chlorine every day or two (unless one has The Liquidator or a peristaltic pump), but it's very quick and easy maintenance. The key is understanding the chlorine/CYA relationship -- something that is not disclosed by the pool industry in spite of it being known science since at least 1974.

If you are interested in the technical resources that explain the truth, I suggest you read Certified Pool Operator (CPO) training -- What is not taught and follow its links to numerous peer-reviewed papers in respected scientific journals.

[waterbear]

Chem geek was posting the same time as I was so I will only cover the points that he did not.

The ALEX software is notorious for overdosing on chemicals. IT IS DESIGNED TO MAXIMIZE DEALER PROFITS IN CHEMICAL SALES, NOT TO BALANCE WATER FOR THE CUSTOMER! IF the customer had balanced water they would not need to buy chemicals so it is against the bottom line of a pool store to actually help a customer get their water balanced in the way a commercial pool maintenance person would balance a pool to minimize operating costs! (And there is NO REASON the home pool owner cannot test and balance his water to minimize operating costs but they will have to do it own their own since it would go against the bottom line and testing/dosing recommendations of the pool store!) Also, it is used with test strips and a s trip reader which is useless. It is probably the WORST pool store testing available and is designed to be FAST sot he maximum number of customers can be processed in the least amount of time!

Bioguard is owned by Chemtura, who own 10 other retail pool/spa brands in the US (inlcuding the mass market AquaChem and PoolTime and the distributor Guardex, Sun, and Omni brands with much duplication of products between them) and are a large supplier of chlorinated isocyanurates. The corporate stance (which I was told by company representatives from some of their different retail brands on more than on occasion) is that CYA levels up to 200 ppm are not a problem in residential pools. However, if you peruse the internet forums on pools you will find a vast amount evidence to the contrary There was also the work of John A. Wojtowicz from the 70's (chem geek, I do not have the name of that particular piece of work available at this time but I believe you own a copy of it, correct?) on the effects of cyanuric acid on chlorine's activity that has been actively suppressed by the industry since it would hurt the sale of stabilized chlorine products. Wojtowicz had also published many papers in the JSPSI about the effects of CYA in the 1990s and 2000s that do not support Chemtura's corporate stance.

You may be a bioguard dealer but I will bet that just about everything you know about pool water chemistry came from bioguard training and not from an actual knowledge of chemistry. Fact is balance pak 100 is sodium hydrogen carbonate (per the listed ingredient) which is another name for sodium bicarbonate (perhaps so you can tell customers "Look, it's a different chemical than sodium bicarbonte or baking soda, which it is not and I have known of bioguard dealers who have done exactly this!) which is baking soda.. Also the baking soda that is sold much cheaper at the grocery is also going to be purer since it is UPS/food grade.

Calcium corrodes pools is the levels get too high and can cause major problems and sometimes the customer even has to do a partial, if not full, drain. I've seen many customers that had been using HTH for 10+ years and their pool would not get clear, keep in mind, their calcium level was 395. No chemical out there can bring down the calcium level so you must do a partial drain because all that calcium is suspended in the water with nowhere to go. LITHIUM based chemicals, like BioGuard are a little bit more expensive BUT they are MORE concentrated so you will in turn be using less.

There is so much wrong here I am just not sure where to start. Calcium corrodes pools? WTF are you talking about? If you believe that you don't know the first thing about pools. If the calcium is too low a PLASTER surface pool can be eroded at calcium from the plaster dissolves in the water but low calcium is not an issue at all for vinyl pools and probably not an issue for fiberglass pools but there is some emperical evidence that higher calcium levels might help prevent iron staining and cobalt spotting of the gelcoat, but I digress. A pool cannot get clear with a CH of 395? My own pool has a CH of 450 because I add calcium chloride to put it there to BALANCE MY WATER because I run a very low TA to prevent fast pH rise from my SWCG but I suspect that is going to be beyond your understanding because we are talking about water balance and pH rise from outgassing of CO2 and other topics that your bioguard training never taught you about water chemistry.I also maintain 50 ppm borate (from plain borax and muriatic acid,, much like the original optimizer formula and Proteam supreme that required the use of muriatic acid to maintain pH, except that I use the decahydrate form of borax instead of the pentahydrate. The only difference is the amount by weigh of borax needed to achieve a specific borate ppm with the decahydate requiring a bit more because it has 10 (deca) water molecules attached to it (hydrate) instead of 5 (penta) water molecules (hydrate).

High calcium, on the other hand, does not cause anything to corrode. It can promote scaling if the conditions are right but the fact is there are areas where the fill water used is 600 ppm CH or greater and, if adjustments are made to the TA and the pH is monitored to prevent it from spiking (another good reason for the home pool owner to own a GOOD test kit such as a Taylor K-2006 or LaMotte 7022 and test their own water) then scaling conditions can be prevented and/or minimized. In some areas such as Arizona, pools are successfully run with calcium hardness as high as 1000 ppm! Once again, your lack of knowledge about pool water chemistry surfaces.

As far as removing calcium, there are a few ways to do it beside water changes. Commercially there are companies that do it using proprietary methods in high water hardness areas such as Arizona. There is lime softening (precipitating the calcium by raising TA and pH and causing it to precipitate out as calcium carbonate, which is then vacuumed to waste), or by the PROPER application of cal hypo for primary chlorination as done by commercial pool operators (adjusting CYA proper level and adding cal hypo via skimmer and adjusting TA and pH so excess calcium precipitates into the filter so it can be removed during normal filter cleaning. However this is only feasible if there is NO online or offline feeder for stabilized chlorine since the reaction between trichlor and cal hypo is, shall we say, explosive!)

What you say about lithium hypochlorite is basically true, it has no adverse effects on water chemistry and is basically net pH neutral on use (as is all the unstabilized chlorine sources--alkaline on addition a and acidic on consumption), while stabilized chlorine sources are net acidic (acidic on addition and consumption). However, sodium hypochlorite ALSO has no adverse effects on water chemistry and is MUCH less expensive to sue as chem geek pointed out! When I worked retail we sold a LOT of liquid pool chlorine in refillable carboys! We also sold trichlor, dichlor, and cal hypo in different strengths. We could not justify the cost to the customer so we did not sell lithium hypochlorite, which offered no real advantage.

I understand that as a dealer you want to maximize your chemical sale profits and the company you buy your products from want to maximize their profits but it is at the expense of the pool owner and it is being done with misinformation and, in some cases, deceit! I also understand that most dealers get a vast majority, if not all, of their chemistry knowledge from the companies who's products they purchase and I have sat in enough of these 'educational' seminars to know the amount of misinformation that is taught.

[chem geek]

There was also the work of John A. Wojtowicz from the 70's (chem geek, I do not have the name of that particular piece of work available at this time but I believe you own a copy of it, correct?) on the effects of cyanuric acid on chlorine's activity that has been actively suppressed by the industry since it would hurt the sale of stabilized chlorine products. Wojtowicz had also published many papers in the JSPSI about the effects of CYA in the 1990s and 2000s that do not support Chemtura's corporate stance.

I don't know about Wojtowicz work in the 70's (I just know of his later work published in JSPSI) and I know of some of his patents assigned to Olin Corporation (dating back to the '70s), but the definitive paper that determined the chlorine/CYA relationship may be found in this post where I scanned the O'Brien paper (chapter) from the 1974 book that is no longer in-print.

[Town&CountryPools]

I am aware that if Calcium Hardness is too low it can cause damage and it can cause damage if it's high, that's why the appropriate range for it to be in is 175-225 ppm. And please don't tell me that i don't know anything about water chemistry. I know enough. Calcium hardness scales, yes. What does scaling do? CORRODES! if the scaling isn't caught in time, it EATS at the metal surfaces and CORRODES!

I am not arguing that baking soda is cheaper, i just simply said that the balance pak 100 is not as expensive as people think it is.

I don't really think that it's appropriate for you to say "WTF"..come on now, aren't we professionals? hmm...

And furthermore..i am not using the "Alex" system to sell chemicals, i use this device because it is very informative for the customers and they find comfort in knowing what their pool is specifically reading at instead of looking at COLORS on a normal test strip. It gives them numbers and they like it. Do i sell everything Alex recommends? No, not everything. Because i am realistic and i know that the average pool owner does not want to spend $100 everytime they walk into my store. So i sell them what they NEED. plain and simple.

[chem geek]

Scaling does NOT eat at metal surfaces nor corrode them. It simply deposits calcium carbonate onto surfaces, be it plaster or metal. It does NOT corrode the metal and in fact a thin layer of calcium carbonate is sometimes intentionally made to form to PROTECT metal, but we do not try and do this in pools for a variety of reasons. One can redissolve (remove) the calcium carbonate without damaging the underlying metal. Even low CH does not corrode metal. Low pH and certain oxidizers (especially dissolved oxygen or high chlorine levels) corrodes metal. And the appropriate range is NOT 175-225 ppm for any pool because vinyl pools do not need any calcium at all while plaster pools can have higher than 225 ppm with no damage whatsoever. The reason is that calcium carbonate is balanced between the water and plaster (so no net scaling or dissolving) when the Calcite Saturation Index is zero (you can use The Pool Calculator to calculate the saturation index). That index can be zero with a higher CH if the TA (actually carbonate alkalinity, so TA adjusted for CYA) and/or pH are lower. I have 500 ppm CH in my pool no with absolutely no problems and as I mentioned there are users in high CH fill water areas with CH approaching 1000 ppm in their pools with NO SCALING because they understand pool water chemistry and keep their saturation index closer to 0. You can certainly get scaling with a CH of 400 ppm if you don't properly balance your pH and TA, but it isn't the CH alone that causes the problem.

So your point is that Balance Pak 100 isn't THAT much more expensive. OK, you've seen the numbers where a low online price for Balance Pak 100 (even ignoring shipping costs, since we'll pretend you can get it for $1.74 per pound from your store) was only 2-3 times as expensive as Arm & Hammer Baking Soda from Ace Hardware or Walmart. I guess you and I differ as to what "not as expensive as people think it is" actually means. And then you conveniently skipped over your recommending Lithium Hypochlorite while ignoring the fact that it is around 6 times more expensive than chlorinating liquid (for the same FC).

If you sold customers what they need then you would be selling them chlorinating liquid instead of lithium hypochlorite. If you sold customers what they need, then you would explain that continued use of Trichlor tabs/pucks will increase CYA levels unless there is significant water dilution and that the higher CYA (with the same FC level) allows algae to grow faster than chlorine can kill it, so they need to use algaecide or phosphate remover to prevent that, but that this is extra cost and that there is another alternative -- sodium hypochlorite -- though requires more frequent dosing and is heavier to carry. It's a cost/convenience tradeoff, Mr. Customer, which do you prefer?

Is it possible for you to simply admit that either you were ignorant of these facts (just as I was 9 years ago), but are now educated about them, or that you did know about these facts and were intentionally deceiving (I hope is not the case), but are now sorry for that and apologize to all so that we can move on from here?

[Town&CountryPools]

"And then you conveniently skipped over your recommending Lithium Hypochlorite while ignoring the fact that it is around 6 times more expensive than chlorinating liquid (for the same FC)."

First of all, i did not conveniently skip over anything. Lithium is not harmful to a pool, therefore it should be used. I don't really know anything about chlorinating liquid so i can't really argue that, i guess when i think of liquid, i think of bleach, which then YES i am definitely against the use of bleach in a pool because of the harmful effects.

and i am not going to apoligize for anything. I am learning new things everyday about pool maintenance but i will definitely not take any advice from someone that feels like they have to demean other people in order for them to prove a point. There are some interesting ideas out there and i'm sure people use things in their pools that have worked for years for them and they never see a problem, until they DO and then they trust the PROFESSIONALS to take care of it, and we do. So i'm pretty confident in what i have been taught and the products that i am selling because my customers have been very pleased all summer long

[LegsOnEarth]

And furthermore..i am not using the "Alex" system to sell chemicals, i use this device because it is very informative for the customers and they find comfort in knowing what their pool is specifically reading at instead of looking at COLORS on a normal test strip. It gives them numbers and they like it. Do i sell everything Alex recommends? No, not everything. Because i am realistic and i know that the average pool owner does not want to spend $100 everytime they walk into my store. So i sell them what they NEED. plain and simple.

The Alex system is basically garbage. When I would use it to test water, I would follow it up with a manual test, done with a taylor test kit, and get drastically different results. Drastically.

Assuming you really DO want your customers to feel good about the numbers you give them (because apperently they trust a machine over a professional using a test kit. I don't miss working with home owners. ), you should invest in a LaMotte UDV liquid reagent test. So far, in my retail experiences with multiple test systems, this has delivered the most consistent results. I understand that suppliers like BioGuard often have you by the short hairs as far as the kind of things you can do with your own stores products and procedures, but I would recomend that you change given the oppertunity.

I don't really think that it's appropriate for you to say "WTF"..come on now, aren't we professionals? hmm...

Yeah, we're also posting on an internet forum for people that work on luxury goods and are more likely to wear a hawaiin shirt to work than a suit. Loosen up.

I am aware that if Calcium Hardness is too low it can cause damage and it can cause damage if it's high, that's why the appropriate range for it to be in is 175-225 ppm. And please don't tell me that i don't know anything about water chemistry. I know enough. Calcium hardness scales, yes. What does scaling do? CORRODES! if the scaling isn't caught in time, it EATS at the metal surfaces and CORRODES!

This is simply not true. Scaling is just deposits of calcium on a surface. Aside from being unsightly, it has very little structural effects. It can be a problem in heat exchangers as it will often deposit there if the water in the heater is not properly cooled by cycling for awhile after use has stop (scale forms more readily in warm water and large deposits are common cause of failure in heaters). Scale does not corrode metal, but acid does. A lot of "anti-scale" products, like Scaletec from Easycare for example, are acidic and may corrode metals in water that has scale(unlikely). Or (more likely) water with excessive scaling my just be poorly balanced in general, and thus have corrosion present.

[waterbear]

There was also the work of John A. Wojtowicz from the 70's (chem geek, I do not have the name of that particular piece of work available at this time but I believe you own a copy of it, correct?) on the effects of cyanuric acid on chlorine's activity that has been actively suppressed by the industry since it would hurt the sale of stabilized chlorine products. Wojtowicz had also published many papers in the JSPSI about the effects of CYA in the 1990s and 2000s that do not support Chemtura's corporate stance.

I don't know about Wojtowicz work in the 70's (I just know of his later work published in JSPSI) and I know of some of his patents assigned to Olin Corporation (dating back to the '70s), but the definitive paper that determined the chlorine/CYA relationship may be found in this post where I scanned the O'Brien paper (chapter) from the 1974 book that is no longer in-print.

I stand corrected. It was the O'Brian paper that I was referring to.

[chem geek]

I don't really know anything about chlorinating liquid so i can't really argue that, i guess when i think of liquid, i think of bleach, which then YES i am definitely against the use of bleach in a pool because of the harmful effects.

What exactly are the harmful effects from bleach, and by bleach I mean plain regular unscented bleach, not bleach that has thickeners or scents in it? Clorox Bleach, as shown on pages 2-3 of this document is EPA registered for use in pools and is documented for such use. That's why it says "% Available Chlorine" on the bottle and why it has an EPA registration number on the bottle. It has this PAN database entry showing details of it's EPA registration that lists "Swimming pool water" under "Crops and Locations". It has the Pesticide Product Labeling System entry shown in this link where you will see the same documentation as the service bulletin in this link. Even though off-brands are not EPA registered, if such off-brands (normally called Ultra bleach) have 6% or higher concentration and if they have no thickeners or scents, then they are the same as Clorox.

I buy 12.5% chlorinating liquid from my local pool store and they do a very healthy business selling it even though they also sell Trichlor, algaecides and equipment as well. I buy my pool cleaner bag replacements there and also Muriatic Acid and Cyanuric Acid. Even though bleach may be a little cheaper, I get the chlorinating liquid because it's less weight to carry and I have no problem spending a little more at a store that doesn't try and tell me that I should be buying Alkalinity Up instead of baking soda or that I should be using Trichlor instead of chlorinating liquid. The company that runs this store also services 2000 pools in two counties and I've talked to them about what they do and how they control algae in pools using Trichlor when the CYA rises. They target 4.5 ppm FC and dilute the water when the CYA gets to 100 ppm (because they use Trichlor and visit once a week) and they also shock weekly and if algae still occurs, which it sometimes does when the CYA gets above 80 ppm or so, they use a phosphate remover. They do not fully understand the chlorine/CYA relationship and that if they raised their FC target when the CYA got higher, then they could continue to prevent algae without supplements (say, at least to get to the same 100 ppm CYA limit). On the forums I linked to earlier, there are other pool services with over 1000 pools that use chlorinating liquid and/or chlorine gas and have no algae whatsoever in any pools. And then there's the tens of thousands of pool owners where the failure rate from following the chlorine/CYA relationship is less than 1 in 5000 (usually because of poor circulation). That's the real-world experience that validates the science in real pools.

I am sorry that you feel I am demeaning you. That is not my intention. I am trying to give you the facts, but you come back firm with your opinions or what you heard from others that are putting out misinformation. I was as ignorant about all of this 9 years ago when I first got my pool but learned from people and original sources and worked on the pool water chemistry based on these original scientific sources, not from marketing literature or what someone says on the Internet. That's why I link to scientific peer-reviewed papers in respected journals whenever possible and show calculations and refer to real-world experiments in real pools, etc. You are right not to believe anything you simply read on the Internet, but you shouldn't believe what some manufacturer with a vested financial interest is telling you either.

[waterbear]

The Alex system is basically garbage. When I would use it to test water, I would follow it up with a manual test, done with a taylor test kit, and get drastically different results. Drastically.

I would often do the same when I tested with the LaMotte system, which also has limitiations becasue it is all colormetric.

Assuming you really DO want your customers to feel good about the numbers you give them (because apperently they trust a machine over a professional using a test kit. I don't miss working with home owners.

Neither do I ), you should invest in a LaMotte UDV liquid reagent test. So far, in my retail experiences with multiple test systems, this has delivered the most consistent results.

It is a good system but does have it's limitations. If you know these (such as the fact that the calcium readings are only good up to about 350 ppm and the system will read low as the limit of 400 ppm is approached or passed--this told to me by LaMotte tech support when I questioned why their system was showing only about 300 ppm CH while a titration with Taylor reagents (checked against Taylor standard solution) was showing CH in excess of 600 ppm!)

The CYA test with the Waterlink Express has less precision than the Taylor CYA test with a range of =10/-25 ppm CYA in the Lamotte test!

Its main advantage is that a battery of tests can (and must) be completed withing 3 minutes and it does not use strips but dry reagents. It's just a matter of knowing when to break out the "testing lab" and doing the long test.

I understand that suppliers like BioGuard often have you by the short hairs as far as the kind of things you can do with your own stores products and procedures, but I would recomend that you change given the oppertunity.

I don't really think that it's appropriate for you to say "WTF"..come on now, aren't we professionals? hmm...

Yeah, we're also posting on an internet forum for people that work on luxury goods and are more likely to wear a hawaiin shirt to work than a suit. Loosen up.

I am aware that if Calcium Hardness is too low it can cause damage and it can cause damage if it's high, that's why the appropriate range for it to be in is 175-225 ppm. And please don't tell me that i don't know anything about water chemistry. I know enough. Calcium hardness scales, yes. What does scaling do? CORRODES! if the scaling isn't caught in time, it EATS at the metal surfaces and CORRODES!

This is simply not true. Scaling is just deposits of calcium on a surface. Aside from being unsightly, it has very little structural effects. It can be a problem in heat exchangers as it will often deposit there if the water in the heater is not properly cooled by cycling for awhile after use has stop (scale forms more readily in warm water and large deposits are common cause of failure in heaters). Scale does not corrode metal, but acid does. A lot of "anti-scale" products, like Scaletec from Easycare for example, are acidic and may corrode metals in water that has scale(unlikely). Or (more likely) water with excessive scaling my just be poorly balanced in general, and thus have corrosion present.

[waterbear]

I am aware that if Calcium Hardness is too low it can cause damage and it can cause damage if it's high, that's why the appropriate range for it to be in is 175-225 ppm. And please don't tell me that i don't know anything about water chemistry. I know enough. Calcium hardness scales, yes. What does scaling do? CORRODES! if the scaling isn't caught in time, it EATS at the metal surfaces and CORRODES!

Scaling is used to protect boilers FROM corrosion and that is original use of the Langelier Saturation Index, to predicts scale depost in bollers! Sorry, you fail here.

I am not arguing that baking soda is cheaper, i just simply said that the balance pak 100 is not as expensive as people think it is.

And I am sayting that balance pak 100 IS baking soda at an inflated price

I don't really think that it's appropriate for you to say "WTF"..come on now, aren't we professionals? hmm...

how about <facepalm>, is that better?

And furthermore..i am not using the "Alex" system to sell chemicals, i use this device because it is very informative for the customers and they find comfort in knowing what their pool is specifically reading at instead of looking at COLORS on a normal test strip. It gives them numbers and they like it. Do i sell everything Alex recommends? No, not everything. Because i am realistic and i know that the average pool owner does not want to spend $100 everytime they walk into my store. So i sell them what they NEED. plain and simple.

The first problem is the strips, the second problem is the Alex software itself. LaMotte also has softeware for it's Waterlink Express system that will give you a print out to tell the cusomter what to do. The problem with all these systems is that they are 'dumb' and do not take into accout how chemical interact (such as when the TA is extremely high and it does not take into accoutn that adding all the acid needed at once to lower the TA can drop the pH dangerously low and damage pool surfaces and cause CORRSION! Low pH is a main factor in corrosion. as are sulfates from dry acid (low n slo) and MPS! Isn't chemsitry fun?

[chem geek]

I went back and looked at this thread from April, 2007 (over 5 years ago -- my how time flies) and it reminded me of how pool store advice, with or without "automated" programs, can be so off. They are simply designed without considering consequences. They dose pH Up to adjust pH without accounting for the increase in TA since technically pH Up (sodium carbonate) is the same as a pure base like lye (sodium hydroxide) plus Alkalinity Up (sodium bicarbonate). Then they recommend Alkalinity Up to raise the TA not accounting for the pH Up just recommended so the pool turns cloudy from too high a pH and TA. Then they recommend a weekly shock such as BioGuard Smart Shock that is Dichlor with some copper in it and the pool turns green.

We've had hundreds if not thousands of these kinds of reports across multiple pool forums over the years with all kinds of variations where neither the pool store employee nor the test system with recommendations are aware of the chemical interactions or side effects.

By the way, in my own pool 9 years ago, I started out using Trichlor pucks and in 1-1/2 seasons (11 active months) my CYA climbed from 30 ppm to 150 ppm even though at that time I had an even lower daily FC usage of only 0.7 ppm. I have an oversized cartridge filter that only needs cleaning once a year and we have virtually no summer rains and I used a pool cover pump in the winter to pump water into the sewer instead of into the pool. So I had virtually no water dilution. 30 + 11*30*0.7*0.61 = 171 ppm and with some splash-out/carry-out and slow oxidation of CYA by chlorine, the 150 ppm is pretty much exactly as predicted. There is no mystery here. Science works.

It was at this point with 150 ppm CYA where I couldn't hold chlorine in the pool with my normal amounts of Trichlor tabs (with my target FC of 3 ppm) so I had to start using more and even (stupidly) added them to the skimmer to dissolve them more quickly (though I kept the pump running) and even then the water later started to turn dull and then cloudy. It was an impending algae bloom though I did not know it at the time. This was in spite of using Polyquat 60 algaecide, though only every other week (had I used it weekly, I could have held off the algae possibly for another year to 250 ppm CYA or so, but probably not beyond that). That's when I found The PoolForum and learned pool water chemistry (I majored in chemistry and physics at U.C. Berkeley) and eliminated my ignorance through knowledge. Since then, I've had none of these problems when maintaining a consistent FC/CYA ratio, but I still live with the rusted stainless steel mounts for underwater bars in the pool where my Trichlor puck "parked" itself and where the acidity of Trichlor rusted those mounts. They serve as a reminder to me to trust in science and not in pool industry dogma.

[waterbear]

Well said, chem geek!