If you live in Minnesota, you are most likely familiar with hard water stains left on sinks and faucets.  The same water conditions that those pesky stains can come from can also cause big problems with your pool’s water chemistry.  Water hardness, or calcium hardness, is the amount of dissolved calcium and magnesium in your pool water, usually measured in parts per million (ppm). 

Hard water (water that measures around 400 ppm) can create stains, or scale, on the walls and fixtures of your pool.  But water that is too soft, or “aggressive,” can also create problems.  It can lead to premature failure of a liner, pull calcium out of the pool’s plaster, or destroy the metal from ladders and handrails of your pool.  Understanding what water hardness affects and how to manage the high levels of calcium hardness in your swimming pool, will help you better maintain your pool’s equipment and the quality of the water.

In our region of the world hard water is a part of life.  Minnesota is notorious for hard water because of the geographic location and the minerals in the soil.  While the ideal level of water hardness is 180-220 ppm (parts per million) in a swimming pool, Minnesota’s calcium hardness level is generally over 400 ppm.  That is quite the difference.  There are several things you can do to treat the effects of hard water, or products to add to soft water to achieve the ideal hardness. 

If your water is too hard, there are bonding or sequestering products, such as BioGuard’s Scale Inhibitor, which can be added to your pool water.  These products require an initial dose, along with a suggested weekly maintenance application, but can protect the pool equipment and surfaces from scaling and corrosion.  Also, maintaining a low pH and Alkalinity with high calcium hardness levels can help with water clarity.  On the other side of the spectrum is water that is too soft.  To harden your pool’s water, it’s a good idea to add a calcium chloride product; we suggest BioGuard’s Balance Pak 300.  There are also calcium-based shocks (calcium hypochlorite) or oxidizers, that will supplement with calcium along with shocking, we recommend BioGuard’s Burnout 3.

Want to learn more what water hardness is? Watch Dolphin Pool & Spa’s YouTube video on Water Hardness here:

Earlier this summer we had mentioned in our blog about algae that if you are still having cloudy water issues, you may have phosphates.  If your water chemistry is balanced (pH and alkalinity in range), but still suffer from rapid loss of chlorine and cloudy water, you may have a high phosphate reading.  This can cause problems. 

What the heck are phosphates, you ask? 

Phosphates are described as one of the most common elements on earth and are essential to life.  They are found “naturally in food, water, and even human bodies.”  Phosphates can be introduced into your pool water by rain runoff, dirt, soil, bird, and animal droppings, or decaying organisms.  Also, through the tap water that we use to fill our pools.  Phosphates are essential to all life, even algae life, and you cannot escape them.  But, they are considered a high-powered fertilizer for algae and can eat up your chlorine.  Therefore, it’s essential to maintain and monitor the levels of phosphates in your pool.

How do you maintain a high phosphate issue?

Keep your water balanced, maintain your sanitizer levels, shock weekly, and use an algaecide.  But, don’t be mistaken!  You can have a high level of phosphates in your water, without affecting the chlorine levels.  And, although it’s not going to cure algae issues, it will remove one contributor to the problem. 

How do you know your phosphate level?

You can bring a sample of your water down to Dolphin Pool & Spa, and we will test it, free of charge, to determine if you have levels of phosphates that will cause issues.  We also carry a variety of phosphate removers, such as BioGuard’s Pool Tonic and Sea Klear’s Commercial Phosphate Remover.

Want to learn more about phosphates?

Watch Dolphin Pool & Spa’s YouTube video on phosphates here:

Despite how it sounds shocking a pool has nothing to do with electricity or with revealing something completely unexpected.

Shocking is the process of adding chemicals (usually chlorine) to your pool to:

• break apart chloramines, also known as combined chlorine
• quickly raise your chlorine level
• kill algae, bacteria or other harmful pathogens

Water Testing.

Your pool water is continuously changing due to conditions such as the weather and the swimmers you have.  There are a lot of things that will affect your pool’s water chemistry, which is why it is a good idea to test the levels frequently.  The more often you check your water’s levels, the better chance you have of getting that crystal-clear pool water you desire.  
    
Before we begin describing the different ways to check your levels, it’s important to let you know what desired range you are looking for on the results. The most important levels to be monitored, other than the sanitizer (chlorine, bromine) levels, are pH, total alkalinity, and calcium hardness.  The desired range for pH is 7.2 to 7.8, total alkalinity should range from 80 ppm to 120 ppm, and your calcium hardness should range from 180 ppm to 220 ppm.  These four are the necessary levels that should be monitored to achieve the desired crystal-clear water.  It’s suggested that you check your pH and chlorine levels two or three times a week, alkalinity should be tested if the pH has fluctuated, and once a month testing for calcium hardness is sufficient.    

There are several different ways to check your water, ranging from simple test strips to the more detailed tests that you can have completed at Dolphin Pool & Spa.  Test strips are the easiest to use but don’t always give the most exact readings.  Test strips are dipped into the pool water, and the color changing material on the strip will change depending on the various chemical levels in the water.  Some people find them to be irritating because they don’t give you an exact number, others appreciate their ease of use.  Another simple way is the DPD drop test kit.  Drop test kits use reagents that give you a level depending on the number of drops it takes to turn a water sample a specific color.  These can give a more detailed reading, but not as accurate as the digital readers.  Digital readers are easy to use and give results in numbers, not colors.  Water and liquid reagents, like the ones used in drop test kits, are added to a test tube which is then placed in the digital reader.  The digital reader can use the color to read the levels.  Each digital reader works differently, but it is important to have them calibrated regularly for accurate results.

Don’t forget that Dolphin Pool & Spa offers water testing, at no cost, with the purchase of chemicals.  We can check your chlorine/bromine, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid levels, along with the amounts of metals present in your water.  Having a better idea of where your pool water levels are at, will make it easier to treat any problems you may encounter.  So, stop by our store during our business hours for a free water test.  We hope to see ya soon!