Pre-pool opening questions

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M

Metsy10

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Jul 6, 2013
130
Scotch Plains, NJ
Happy spring from NJ!

Pool guy is coming sometime this week to open up my pool for me. I want to be sure I'm at the ready to tell him to back away with his chemicals and I will handle it.

I know that the almighty dictator of next steps is pool water test results which I will have once the pool opens up. However, I have a pre-opening question. I had a fairly elongated ammonia SLAM process last spring that I'm still suffering from lack of sleep from. When he opened the pool last spring, he dumped his 5 gallon bucket of liquid chlorine in and left and then the problem started. The water went untreated other than that for several days. I have always suspected that it was due to the CYA levels at the time not being properly adjusted prior to him adding the FC.

So my question is before anything goes in the pool, where do I start? I'll get my results first, but is the first official step to treat with FC or to bring up the CYA first THEN add the FC? And should I be adjusting the pH prior to any this since it's a liner pool and my understanding is that pH that is severely out of whack can damage it? I read the sticky which mentioned adding FC but I'm a little gunshy based on the results of that last year (which of course can be different this year, but once bitten twice shy and all that jazz).

Welcome to stress....er...pool season folks!
Thank you for any advice,
Lorraine
 
Welcome Back!!

The issue would have been there regardless. If you have Ammonia again this year, the first thing to do will be adding FC. Lets see what you have when its up and running before we borrow trouble. It might me smooth and easy this year. If not, we can get you through. :goodjob:
 
If you suffered through an ammonia conversion last year I understand your not being comfortable this year.

The actual first step will be to have water pumping and get a full set of readings once the water is mixed, including the CYA. If he added 5 gallons of 10% to your pool he took your FC to 18, when with unreadable CYA 10 was your shock level.


Do you remember what your CYA was last year when you closed? If you test it when you open and it is MUCH lower (remember, you will have had a substantial water exchange in the closing/opening) add 342 oz of 10% which should get you to FC-10. Leave the pump running and test FC again in 30 minutes. If the FC is near 0 and you have high CC you can assume ammonia. You could also purchase an ammonia test kit from a local aquarium/fish store to be sure right off the bat.

If you have ammonia, do NOT add CYA but SLAM without it until the FC begins to hold and the CC drop indicating the ammonia has been oxidized. At that point you would add CYA to bring you to 30 and conduct your "normal" SLAM.

If you don't think there is ammonia then add CYA to bring you to 30 and conduct your "normal" SLAM.


You are correct, you do want to adjust the pH before you begin a SLAM as the high FC will skew the pH test.
 
Thanks all. Pool guy is here, water is going in now. I've instructed not to add chlorine at this point and I will handle. Once the filter is on and running per Tim's comment, I'll come back with results. Fingers crossed. (Water is green with some algae at first glance.)
 
Ok finally got it filled up and vacuumed out. First batch of readings for this season are

FC - 0
CC - 0
pH - 7.2
CYA - 40
TA - 60

I feel like these numbers look good, but before I dump anything in can someone confirm? I can use pool calc to determine the amounts if someone can tell me the right order or if anything calls out as bad here!

On edit - the pool guy left me his 5 gallon bucket of liquid chlorine. There is no label on the container and I've confirmed with him that he does not know the strength but that it is the standard liquid chlorine. Any guesses on what that percentage might be? Would that 10% number you mention above be a good standard to calculate from, Tim?
 
yes, assume 10% the first time, use poolmath to verify that you get the expected result.

Those numbers are good except that big 0 for FC. Algae is knocking at the door.
 
Ok - with my SLAM target of a 16 for FC, 5 gallons of 10% are going in now. Per pool calculator it needs 549 ounces, so i'm overshooting a little bit on the ounces but figured better safe than sorry. 640 ounces going in now. Will also brush and check the filter to ensure it doesn't need to be backwashed. Fingers crossed !
 

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Good morning everyone -

So the other night, on Tuesday night we finally got the pool filled up and chlorinated. I added a 5 gallon container from my pool guy that was not labeled as mentioned earlier. An hour later (with an expectation of FC of around 16 based on gallonage and the pool calc when assuming 10%), it was showing 32, exactly double of what I would have anticipated. So I'm wondering where he is getting the good stuff from?!?!

The best news I can share is that the OCLT that night passed. Yesterday morning my husband ran the levels and they were right at 32 even though the pool was a tad bit cloudy. This is a side note as we know where we messed up, but a note to all the newbies who haven't SLAMMED previously. We forgot to check the pressure on the filter prior to adding the chlorine. By yesterday morning it was barely spitting coming out of the jets. We backwashed yesterday morning and within hours the water was clear.

It was sunny and sort of warm in Jersey yesterday, and my chlorine as of this morning is at 22 - still from the other night. So I'm confident I'm holding chlorine. My water is now crystal clear. And my pool is perfectly green.

Now - I have a sneaky suspicion that this has to do with metals. The reason I have a sneaky suspicion about this is the third year we have the pool and everytime we add water we end up with metals. (We rent the house and are not going down the road of hiring trucks to deliver metal free water so we deal with the metals in the water.) My husband ran the metal test kit and it showed nothing yesterday. However, I think I recall someone mentioning once that sometimes once there is staining, the metal test wont produce results because it's stuck to the liner and not in the water. Am I misremembering that?

I think I'm doing pretty well with the water aspect/balancing at this point. Should I open a new thread in the Chemistry forum to figure out the best way to treat the metal stain? I need to refresh my memory on what to do next. I think I need the chlorine to drop first...and I'm pretty sure I need Jack's Magic something for liner pools. Am I on the right track? The Metals article (http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/137-metals-in-the-water-and-metal-stains) doesn't mention liners specifically.

I will attach a photo from this morning so you can see the clarity and lovely shade of green if that helps. That picture is on the deep end at 8 feet. I can see everything crystal clear hence why I'm thinking the green is due to the metals.

Lorraine
 

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