Swimming pool

I'm not a chemist, just a dumb plumber. Does that come from adding ammonia?

 

My water stays clear a summer even when it rains and in full sun.i would never go to any thing else The salt machine and the salt was 200$that was one time expense now it's 48$for salt once a yr

 

24x40!?!? No wonder you hate taking care of that thing. Put some bass and blue gill in it, wait a while and do some back yard fishing. With a 3000 gallon pool I think I'll be able to get by with only spending about $75 to $100 a season on chemicals.

 

No joke. its actually chemistry.

Do you mean Total chlorine and Free chlorine?

 

I have a 16 x 32 in-ground pool. We put it in about 16 years ago. Had the orange construction fence around it for about a year, built the pool house, did the fence, deck to the stamped concrete, mesh safety cover, etc.
It took a couple years to get it the way we wanted it.
We had priced out a couple above ground pools, but I'm very glad we decided to go with an in-ground.
The wife and the dog use it much more than I do.
Takes me about 5 or 6 hours to open it for the year, then a day or two getting the water right....then the rest of the year the wife maintains it.
Takes about half a day to close it up for the season.
If I ever sell my house and the real estate agent tells me I'm gonna take a hit because of the pool.....I'll probably ask them to leave.

 

Sweet setup

 

Yes I do, and we LOVE it. My yard had space for a huge pool, but decided on AGP 18' instead for maintenance and heat reasons. My in laws have a 28' round AGP and it's so big it's always cold. The water in mine 18' tends to warm up faster with circulation. I take pride in my water chemistry and don't use the pool store at all. Way overpriced and overrated those stores, plus workers in the store don't have the knowledge to keep the water sparkling.

 

My wife's been begging for a pool. I told her if we decide to stay in our current house I'll think about it. But personally I'm not much for swimming unless it's while doing water sports like wake boarding or tubing, while my wife just likes to sit in the sun next to a pool and my daughter will play in the water for 8 hours straight. I'm all for them being happy, but I know that I'll be the one maintaining it and not enjoying it. I think I'd rather have a boat.

 

I can't figure how anyone could spend $1000 on chemicals/season
My pool is 20x40 in ground, opened it Thursday morning by myself. Takes me about 30-40mins to vacuum and usually that's once a week depending on storms - I am surrounded by trees.
Use it almost everyday after work or when I work up a sweat in the yard. Before you get excited about where you want to put a pool make sure your leach field & tank if on septic aren't in the area

100lb bucket of shock runs ~$200 and lasts me ~2 seasons. A bucket of tablets ~$50 lasts me 3+ years
Spent $40 on some stabilizer(Muriatic acid), and alkalinity increaser(Baking soda) which should last me 2 seasons.
Having an understanding of chemistry makes maintaining my water a bit easier, sometimes pool stores will sell you stuff you don't need.

Chlorine - sanitizer kills the bugs 2-3ppm is plenty, chlorine naturally strips from the water surface in sunlight so shocking the water brings it back up, tablets will help preserve levels between shock treatments
pH- keep between 7.2-7.6, this is the optimal range to prevent chlorine stripping, also the best range to prevent algae growth.
Stabilizer - helps to prevent chlorine stripping and will drastically reduce your shock usage 30ppm minimum, once its in the water its there for good, unless you are constantly pumping rain water then you need to add some.
Alkalinity - basically prevents pH shifts/swings, a buffer against acidic rain water from causing you problems
Calcium Hardness - how hard/soft your water is if you are adding water that is hard your levels will get high enough to cause little nodules/scalings occur. too low and the water will begin to corrode any metal surfaces - ladders bezels etc.

 

Forgot a couple more things.
Algaecide - you may or may not need it, most of them are copper-sulfate, make sure you don't have high metal content in your water. You can buy powder form copper sulfate online way cheaper than the bottles cost.
If your water gets cloudy Flocculent - circulate and let stand for 3 days, vacuum to waste. I keep a bottle on hand just in case - online retailers are usually cheaper.
Moving pH with the powder form chemicals if your alkalinity is high is an effort in futility.
pH up - industrial drain clog cleaner Sodium Hydroxide on the label
pH down (should never really need to perform this other than new gunite pools or if you get an algae bloom/die off) Muriatic acid - gallon jugs of concrete cleaner/etcher are stronger than any powder form

 

This year I'm trying the BBB method and using bleach for chlorine. One advantage to starting out with a small pool is that it's easy to experiment and anything I add to the water changes the chemical composition pretty quickly.
I use baking soda to get the ph up and muratic acid to bring it down. Can you test for algaecide or is a visual green buildup thing? I have some copper sulfate.

 

I think I typed wrong above - cyanuric acid is the stabilizer for chlorine. Definitely add some to bring up to minimum 30ppm
As for testing algaecide, there are kits, but I don't use one. If I start noticing algae I double check that everything is balanced and use 8-10 tsp mixed in a 5gal bucket dispersed around the pool.
Your pool is a lot smaller than mine .5-1ppm copper will control algae, once it's in the water no need to add more unless you are performing water changeouts/rain etc

Bleach is actually more expensive than granular chlorine and isn't stabilized chlorine. A bucket of granular shock will last you a long time.
Using baking soda to raise pH will constantly raise your Alkalinity - to the point where you can't move pH

 

I've read that the stabilized chlorine may add too much cya to your water and over-stabilize it. Any truth in that?

 

yes there is truth to that.
The bags they sell at wally world have stabilizer in them and will quickly bring your pool to the point where free chlorine is near impossible to maintain and you end up with algae growth.
Once you're in the 80ppm CYA levels its time for a water changeout.
I never bring mine above 30-40ppm when opening because it will build a little bit over time unless again you are pumping down from rain or vacuuming to waste then you'll need to add.
FC levels can be hard to maintain if your pool is in full sun all day - this where folks end up blowing money on algaecide and flocculent and vacuuming to waste depleting CYA levels and compounding their problem.
30-40 ppm with FC levels of 2-4 requires may be a once a week mild shock treatment - I use about 1-2 pounds per week on ~35kgal
If you have a lot of organic matter in your pool(leaves sticks) they will zap your chlorine levels as well.
Meant to reiterate above - be careful with copper sulfate, it can stain your pool and cause green hair proper chlorination levels are all you need typically to control algae

 

68F think its to cold for cannon ball Stinny ?

 

BBB method is the way to go, but be on the look out for rising cost in bleach.
My local ocean state job lot(department store)has 12.5% liquid shock for $2.99 a gallon. Do the math and it comes out way cheaper than Clorox 6.25% or even the concentrated 8.25%.

I don't use pucks or tablets whether dichlor or trichlor because both just keep ADDING CYA and eventually your chlorine usuage MUST increase to be effective. You set your CYA once and use liquid chlorine you don't run into that problem.

You shouldn't need to play too much with ph if your TA is set correctly, it's your ph buffer. Like CYA is to chlorine.