new 2 pool chemicals PLEASE HELP lol

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ignoranceisbliss

0
Jul 22, 2015
74
Knoxville
ok fellas new here and new pool owner, I have owned this house/pool for 2 months now, seems like I'm spending far to much money on store chemicals to keep the water so-so at most, would love to get to the far less expensive and less complicated BBB method, so I got water tested today at the pool store results are as follows, any advice appreciated and welcomed.... last shock was 24 hours ago:crazy:

total chlorine-: 4.6
free chlorine-: 4.2
ph-: 6.4
total alkalinity-: 40
calcium hardness-: 225
stabilizer-: 0
 
Not sure I trust your PS numbers. If you have been using the pucks for your chlorine I would think that you should have some stabilizer unless you have ammonia eating everything. If it was ammonia you would have an FC of 0 so I don't think that is it. Until you get your test kit I would use pool math and add the daily bleach needed. I have a smaller pool and I use about 1 gallon of 12.5% per day.
 
I would work on the PH first. IT is the most important right now for your equipment.

Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

PH and FC are what you need to work on right now.

The rest we will ge tto when you kit gets there.

- - - Updated - - -

I just wanted to jump right in so now I can take a breath and say HI! We are so glad you found us! We can save you SO much money it is not even funny!

Go to Walmart and get one of those cheap testers. You need it for the PH test. That is the one thing it does right!

We HAVE to get that PH up if it really 6.4.

For right now you can turn your returns up so they roll your water and if you have a waterfall or such get it going as well.

Do NOT allow anyone in the water with the PH that low.

HUGS! We got ya now!

Kim
 
There was likely no need to pick up "lots" of baking soda or borax. Just enough baking soda to get your TA to 70-80 or so. Borax you may never need much more than a little. The bleach... you can always use bleach.

No need to dilute either. Just measure your desired amount and sprinkle in front of a return slowly or around the perimeter of the pool and be sure to brush after adding anything powdered to your pool. It's a good idea to brush in the area where you add bleach (in front of a return) each time as well. Get that pH up first with some borax. TA will come up a little with borax as well so measure that again before adding any soda.
 
kimkats said:
.....
I just wanted to jump right in so now I can take a breath and say HI! We are so glad you found us! We can save you SO much money it is not even funny

Kim
Click to expand...
Welcome to TFP

Kim's right!
But as much as the cost savings can be great, and it has been for me, getting to really understand whats happening with you pool with little or no aggravation is priceless!
 

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OK so I added the soda and borax and figured I'd brush the bottom to move anything around if it made it down there, now I vacuumed it 3 days ago and brushed the sides and bottom yesterday, now today even brushing it looks like in pushing some brown dust around down there, now we have gotten some serious rain down here to the tune of me having to drain quite a bit to waste cause the water was really high, should I worry about this now or wait till water is balanced
 
Sounds like you've got a great start. I would get some bleach going in the pool. Use your OTO test to get an idea of where your total chlorine is at. Try to get it up to 5 and add bleach if it's below that until your test kit arrives with the CYA (stabilizer) and FAS-DPD FC/CC test that will allow you determine where your pool is at.

Is your water cloudy, clear, green, swampy? Sharing pictures is very much encouraged. It's best to upload pictures to a file/photo sharing site and post links to them rather than trying to add them to your posts as attachments. New members aren't allotted much storage space on this site and even most senior members choose to link to images posted on services such as photobucket.
 
chems are falling into place slowly, now I changed the sand in the filter the other day before I started all the chem adjusting just because I didn't know when the last time it had been replaced, I have added bleach, borax and baking soda between yesterday and today and my pool looks 100x better than it has in a long time the water is blue but is cloudy
20150724_114041.jpg
 
LOL @ dum-dum strips.

The kit Kim mentioned earlier can help you work on your pH till your TF-100 arrives. It will be the one that has the drop test with the little color block that is shades of yellow to pink on one side for pH and shades of yellow on the other side for FC.

You're gonna get one with your TF-100 but if it's cheap enough I guess it's not too bad to get one ahead of time to make sure your pH level isn't damaging anything.

Do you have a tracking number for your TF-100 yet? :)

*edit*

Dan has it right though, if your kit is going to be there really soon I wouldn't spend much on something you're only going to use for a couple days. :)
 

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