New Pool Test Question

[hjgrimm]

We finally have our 30' 54" wall above ground pool up and running. Just finished the back fill from the leveling. Also received the test kit recommended here this week. Tonight we did our first test. Results were:

FC 2.5
CC 0
PH 7.8
TA 180
CYA 0

The chlorine here has been added with tablets from the install, but I have plenty of bleach on hand to start that. We have some powdered stabilizer that came with the pool, do we put this in with the sock trick I read here, or broadcast around the pool? I am also confused on if we should lower the TA or not? Thanks for the help in getting this pool up and running.

 

[pwrstrk]

Put the CYA in a sock in front of the return. Shoot for 30-50 ppm. Test in about a week. It will also lower your PH. If your PH stays put don't worry about TA.


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[pwrstrk]

If you need to lower TA we can help with that also.


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[woodyp]

Welcome to TFP. Be sure and adjust that miimum FC level up for your NEW CYA level per pool school.

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

How many tablets. From that you can know the cya levels. I would not add more than 30ppm since the amount is > 0 < 30 now. Later you can tweak things up.


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[techguy]

NO TABLETS. (assuming you hung a CYA sock in front of the return).

Liquid chlorine is your weapon of choice. Bleach is the name we normally use if the concentration of the chlorine is less than 10%. When its 10-12%, it's called it liquid chlorine.

 

[hjgrimm]

Tablets are done, it was before I stumbled on this site. I believe we used about 5- 3" tablets to get things up and running, along with a bag of "super shock" that the installers put in at install. Is it ok to use the tablets when we are on vacation for the short term? I purchased the concentrated bleach from Sam's Club, I believe it is about 8% and used the pool calculator to help with figuring out the dose. Tonight when I get home I will put the stabilizer in the sock to get that part going.

On a side topic my wife does not like the thought of putting bleach in the pool instead of tablets, anyone else had to fight this battle? She seems to think it is less safe, despite my assurances it is fundamentally the same.

 

[Razorhog]

You can assure her it's safe. A lot of people get a strange look on their face when I tell them I use bleach bought at wal-mart. To be honest, my first reaction when reading about the BBB method was one of disbelief. Do a little research and you'll find that it's the same stuff the tablets add to your water - minus other stuff you don't need. Trichlor or Dichlor will add chlorine, but also add CYA. Over time, the CYA level will get too high and you'll have to put more and more chlorine in to sanitize. The only way to lower CYA is water replacement. Long story short, get the water balanced and then use bleach to maintain FC levels. If you are going on vacation, the tablets can be a good solution but only if your CYA level is low enough that adding some won't make it too high. I did the same thing when on vacation. Please put the details about your pool in your signature so we don't have to search through your posts to find information in order to give guidance. Good luck!

 

[Isaac-1]

Maybe this will help her:

http://www.clorox.com/pdf/5813-50_service-bulletins.pdf

note our suggested doses and theirs do not line up, but for basic concept it may help

ike

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Tablets are done, it was before I stumbled on this site. I believe we used about 5- 3" tablets to get things up and running, along with a bag of "super shock" that the installers put in at install. Is it ok to use the tablets when we are on vacation for the short term? I purchased the concentrated bleach from Sam's Club, I believe its about 8% and used the pool calculator to help with figuring out the dose. Tonight when I get home I will put the stabilizer in the sock to get that part going.

On a side topic my wife does not like the thought of putting bleach in the pool instead of tablets, anyone else had to fight this battle? She seems to think it is less safe, despite my assurances it is fundamentally the same.

Any idea what shock product they used? If calhypo then no CYA. If dichlor or trichlor then if you knew what the bag weighed and what % was inert you could calculate the CYA added by that bag. The pucks too - assume they each weigh between 6-8 oz. Plug the total weight into poolcalculator.com with your pool size and it will tell you the amount of CYA you have from the pucks.

You can use them on vacation as you suspected. The trick is to stay low (30ppm) and use the headroom to say 50ppm as your cushion for vacations. Using the poolcalculator site you can see how much CYA will go up per Puck.



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[hjgrimm]

Unfortunately I am not sure the product that was used to shock, I was just running on the advice I was given at the time. I went ahead and added enough stabilizer to go up 20ppm and then test to see how high we are. I like the advice of keeping it low as we do enjoy camping and will have some time of using tablets to keep things in check while we are away here and there. She has slowly come to terms with the bleach over the past day after I got in the pool after putting a maintenance dose in to prove all was well! Very excited about the new pool, temp is up to almost 78!

 

[techguy]

Once you get the pool balanced, you will never (well...almost) smell the chlorine/bleach smell. Your pool will smell clean. I have noticed the chlorine smell in my bathroom's shower recently.

The "pool smell" is at most hotel pools is a sign that you have yucky (high CC, low FC, high CYA) water and need to SLAM it.