I think that's calcium at 300.

I doubt the conditioner is really at 0 but it could be. You'll know when you test it yourself - did the kit arrive? It must sound like we are all waiting for Christmas morning vicariously through you...

How big is the pool? 15 pounds of CYA in, say, 20K gallons would be 90 ppm, which is too much unless you're using an SWG AND it's really 0 now. I share the previous skepticism that it's really 0 - your initial issue sounds exactly like excessive CYA, and draining half the water will only cut that in half, not bring it to 0.

Don't add ANY stabilizer until you have the kit and can properly test it yourself. Even when you do, I very much doubt 15 pounds would be appropriate.

Geo, Look up at the top where it says user control panel. Press that button and enter as much info as you can about your pool and equipment as you can in your signature. It will show up every time you post. Especially the size of the pool. 15 lbs of stabilizer sounds like a lot unless this is a very large pool and the CYA is really zero.

The test kit should show up soon, let's just get it in hand and do your own testing and we will take I from there. You can only test down to about 15ppm with the kit so you could still have 10ppm or so even if you overflow the tube and still see the dot.

Based on your own test I would like to add enough cya to get to 30ppm. Add it by puttin it in a sock and hang it in front of a return. Do not put it in the skimmer. Cya takes up to a week to fully disolve and you want to loose as little as possible to back washing. Don't bother to test for cya for a week after adding it. You will begin shocking based on 30ppm cya.

The more cya the more bleach it is going to take to shock so 30ppm cya will save you some money. If your test comes out higher than 30ppm just go with that level. Have plenty of bleach on hand and if I remember right you have a DE filter, if so have enough for several backwashes. And "Let's get ready to rumble!" it's time to kill some algae and put some overalls on the filter and put it to work getting all the dead stuff out of the pool. It's going to be a marathon but you are going to be happy with the results. Don't forget put your pool info in your sig. We don't want any miscalculation errors.

And don't add all the cya at once - since you could still have 10-15 when the test shows 0 put in half of what the pool calc recommends and wait a week and retest. Given that to need to get shocking to clear the pool and that will involve backflushing, it may be worth the cost of liquid CYA as you don't have to Wai a week for it to full dissolve and show up on the CYA test. Just a thought.

I just reread your earlier posts and saw they had you drain for total dissolved solids . Do you know what your CYA was at that time? Which pool store are you going to? I skip leslies and go to Coral Pool Supply on Convoy; don't know if that's close for you. Thy use strips for the basic tests but they're usually pretty close to the results I get with my own testing. They do CYA with the turbidity test and we've matched well on that. I even took the 50ppm standRd that tftest kits sells and they were spot on.

Once we know your cya level we'll be able to get you going.

That's why I said 30ppm. If it raised it to 40-45 it wouldn't be a deal killer and he will most likely loose some to back washing anyway. It sounds like he will be backwashing a few times a day at first. Liquid cya would be fine if it is available where he lives. I have never seen it here.

Leslies carries it here in San Diego. I've seen it at the mom and pop shop I go to also.

don't add anymore what? conditioner? when should I add chlorine?

Don't add any more conditioner/stabilizer/cya (all the same thing). Add chlorine now. If you've been using chlorine tabs, your CYA most likely isn't 0. If they are using the strips, the lowest level is 0-30 so it could be higher than 0.

In a 10,000 gal pool, one gallon of chlorine will raise your FC approx 6ppm. (By extension, a 15,000 gal pool will raise FC to 4ppm).
So once you input your pool info, it'll help us and you figure out chemical amounts.

BTW, did you in fact order a test kit?

So how to get Calcium hardness to under 150? When to start adding chlorine?

ignore last post, just refreshed screen

how much is 2 ppm chlorine? sorry, novice.

went to Tru Blu in Poway

Geo, the first you need to do before you post again is go to the user control panel(UCP) and create a signature and add basic info about your pool, how many gallons, what kind of filter and what size pump as best you can. There is a button at the top left The sig will show up everytime you post. You see it at the bottom of everyones post. Nobody can tell you how much anything to put in your pool unless they know how much water the pool holds. You are going to have to learn to use the pool calculator at poolcalculator.com You enter you pool info and tell it what you want to do and it tells you how much to add. We will do it and tell you what to add and you can do it as well to learn. It is very easy. The pool calculator is going to be your friend in the shocking process.

Next answer this question. Do you have a test kit in hand? If not what is the status of getting one? Is it on the way or what? If you have it do a full set of tests and post the results here.

If the kit is on the way we can start dumping some chlorine in to get things started but that is about all we can do is get a start without it.