2nd year with pool - need a quick check of my process

May 24, 2011
408
North Central Texas
We won't be able to really work with the pool until next week, but needed to fill it over 3-4 days, so went ahead and got it started on Saturday. Finished filling it on Tuesday. Ran pump for just a little bit on Tuesday to make sure it was working, but it was Wednesday before it really ran any amount of time. Wednesday I ran it for about 2 hours. Thursday I was more confident so I had it run 12 hours. We are about to leave for several days, so I'll probably set it at 6 hours per day while we are gone. While filling it, I stuck in a floater and about 8oz of the 1" chlorinating tablets. (Tri-chlor maybe?) Now, I have put about 2 cups of CYA into a sock and have it in the pool. Last night I also poured in a jug of old bleach to make sure if there was anything in there that I would kill it.

Background - Pool was drained last year, but left to sit in same location. By the time we looked at it this year, it was filthy. Mud all over the inside and outside and rust looking sediment in the area that still had some water standing. So, we spent some time scrubbing and dumping and sucking up with a shop vac. Got most of the dirt and yuck up, but got to a point where we were exhausted and not making much more headway. Decided just to fill and I would tackle anything leftover with the vacuum and filtering.

Appearance - water stayed clear during the filling (3-4 days). Did vacuum number 1 on Wednesday. Got up a lot of the leftover dirt, but a lot I just stirred up. Cleaned filter cartridge and inside of pump afterwards. On Thursday water was back crystal clear and just some dirt still on the bottom. Did not have chance to vacuum. Thought we were leaving town today, so dumped in 182 oz of old bleach. Not sure about the potency - it was leftover from last year, but had been stored indoors. Turns out we aren't leaving until in the morning, but will not have much time with the pool tonight. If I can, I'd like to just run out there and swap out cartridges. Will make sure there are tabs in the floater before we leave.

Then the plan is to start back with the BBB method next week when we come back in town. I've got new bleach purchased. I think I will need to order some more reagent for my test kit. I know I need CYA, but I need to check all the others before I place an order and I never think about it while I am at the house!

Hopefully will be back in our normal routine in a week or two.
 
RobbieH said:
Sounds good so far, be careful to not put too much bleach in at once, it'll fade your liner.

If it had been fresh bleach or if I hadn't known that it was going to be eaten up quickly I wouldn't have done it. (Although a faded liner wouldn't bother me a bit in a pool that I consider "disposable" like ours.

Got home late yesterday and hopped in to do more vacuuming. Got almost all the leftover dirt off the floor. Changed filters again and let the pump go and do its thing. I was able to change filters before we left town and also squeezed the CYA sock for a few minutes. It was completely empty last night. Was going to start checking chemical levels and then a freak storm blew in and I decided that since the floater still had some pucks in it, I'd just leave it until it was a bit safer to be messing with water.

Water is still nice and sparkly. No chlorine smell. Didn't want to chance things too much last night though so after I got out I did take a thorough shower and gave the dog a bath.

We'll pick up some salt this week (for feel) and some MA to get ready to spend the summer fighting high TA/pH again. Joy, joy.
 
Grrrrr. Rain brought in the ants. Plenty of work for the skimmer and filter to do tonight.

Broke out the real test. FC was 2.5. CC was zero. PH was already up to 7.8.

I'll need to hurry up on getting the MA and test my TA before I add any to get the amount right.
 
Ran all the tests but CH tonight. I know it is high and really doesn't mean much considering the type of pool we have.

FC 3.5
CC 0.0
PH 7.6
TA 300
CYA 35

Back to my bleach and MA routine. (This is pH rise after adding MA just last night. We had more storms come through that provided a lot of aeration!)

Need to buy a new measuring cup for each. I got pretty good at estimating last year, but I need to have some available.

I am out of pure CYA, but have some 1" pucks left. I'll use them throughout the summer when we are going to be gone to slowly bump up my CYA to 40 and supplement what gets lost to splashout. The entire bottle is only 1.5 lbs and maybe has half left, so I think this should be about right.
 
Boo. Redid my CYA test and come up with less than 30. That matches with my new estimated calculation based off the weight of my pucks (I was quite off.) and how much FC I am loosing each day. But at least since my minimum number is actually less than I was using, no worry about an algae breakout.

Looks like I'll be using some pucks this week!
 
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