My pool was just installed, now come the chemicals questions

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vaindioux

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May 15, 2015
94
Atlanta-GA-
Hi

I just had a 12' above the ground installed and I have questions.
How do I know how many gallons of water my pool contains? The pool guy couldn't tell me:confused: This is key to putting chemicals in it.
The pool guy also said to go to the pool place with a water sample to be tested so they can sell us what we need. I was told by many of you in another thread on this forum to not go there and post my questions here instead.
I have chlorine tablets from Costco, shall I start with them when I know how many gallons of water in my pool?
Then I bought the stabilizer (Cyanuric acid) at walmart. Shall I put that in next?
Then for the ph, what shall it be? I saw at walmart products called "PH up" and "PH down", do I need those? Is baking soda ok to raise PH if needed?
Then total alkalinity, not sure what that is.
I have the good taylor test kit that was recommended here.

Sorry for all the questions and thank-you so much.

Patrick and Kris
 
Welcome! :wave:
vaindioux said:
Hi

I just had a 12' above the ground installed and I have questions.
How do I know how many gallons of water my pool contains? The pool guy couldn't tell me:confused: This is key to putting chemicals in it.
Click to expand...
Go measure the depth of the water in the pool and convert to feet. Not sidewalls, water depth. Then plug the diameter and depth into the bottom of http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html and it will give you volume in gallons
The pool guy also said to go to the pool place with a water sample to be tested so they can sell us what we need. I was told by many of you in another thread on this forum to not go there and post my questions here instead.
I have chlorine tablets from Costco, shall I start with them when I know how many gallons of water in my pool?
Then I bought the stabilizer (Cyanuric acid) at walmart. Shall I put that in next?
Then for the ph, what shall it be? I saw at walmart products called "PH up" and "PH down", do I need those? Is baking soda ok to raise PH if needed?
Then total alkalinity, not sure what that is.
I have the good taylor test kit that was recommended here.

Sorry for all the questions and thank-you so much.

Patrick and Kris
Click to expand...
Pool School - Guide for Seasonal/Temporary Pools has most of your other answers.

I would encourage you to return the bucket of tablets to costco and buy some clorox instead. Tablets raise CYA. You already have CYA from Walmart. I'm guessing maybe a cup a day of plain bleach is all it will take. A couple jugs a month isn't much... you can buy a lot of bleach for the price of those pucks and have plenty of money left for steaks and beer.

You'll need to test pH and TA with the test kit to determine whether pH needs to go up or down and if TA needs raising. What chemicals do what and how to add them is in Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to figure how much of each is explained thoughly in Pool School - PoolMath

If it seems too baffling, we can get you started. Get the pump going and make sure nothing's leaking, then collect a sample of water and run all the tests you can except CYA because you know fresh fill won't have any. Tell us the water depth and your test results and we can walk you through the rest.
 
Richard

I am going to stick with the chlorine tablets, I had opened it to check them out and it's now non returnable. I will switch to Clorox when I finish this bucket.
My pool is filled where do I start?
Do I add the chlorine tablet first? Or do I had the stabilizer? Or do I need to do some testing first, like PH?
I read the pool school and the ABC of pool chemistry but it doesn't say where to start.

Thanks so much

Patrick
 
pH first. Then stabilizer if you're going to use it, then chlorine. If you're determined to use pucks, return the CYA if you can.

How big of a bucket of pucks did you buy? Poolmath calculates a 12' diameter pool filled to 3' deep is 2500 gallons.

16 oz of trichlor -- that's two pucks -- will raise CYA by 27. So four pucks will raise CYA to 54. After you use four pucks, you're done with them for a while and will have to use bleach or replace water to lower CYA. Four individual pucks. If the water depth is lower than 3', it's even less water and the pucks will drive CYA even higher. Looks like you will have pucks to last you several seasons. Keep them dry and they will last.

When you use poolmath, go down to the last row in the table (the yellow one) and enter trichlor as your chlorine source while you're using pucks. It will fill in the suggested levels you should maintain. You may have problems with dropping pH and TA because the pucks are very acidic, so don;t be alarmed if you discover you need to add borax or baking soda.
 
vaindioux said:
I bought a 40lbs bucket of chlorine tablets.
My water level is 3.75 feet deep (45 inches). So I entered 12ft wide and 3.75 deep and it gives me 3200GA. It says not to enter the length but even if entered at 12' it still is 3200GA.
Click to expand...
Okay... down at the bottom of poolmath where it says Effects of Adding Chemicals, 40 lbs - 640 oz - of trichlor will raise CYA to 832.

A mere 5 pucks will yield 52 CYA by the time the last one is dissolved. Keep that bucket closed up tight so they're still good next season.
 
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