So, I found some left over tablets at my house from when I had the pool guy servicing the pool last spring after we had moved in. There was only a little left of one, and then a really small piece of another. Put them in the floater, waited until they dissolved, and picked up some of this:
Shop Clorox Pool&Spa 4-lb Stabilizer Pool Balancer at Lowes.com
My plan was to raise it w/ the Clorox CYA, but then I had the thought that in Aug. we are going on vacation. So, why not raise it with pucks? I have not bought the pucks yet, but I did research many threads about going on vaca and using pucks for the time being. I really don't have someone reliable to come by our house to pool sit and have thought about hiring a pool company to come by every other day or third day, but the cheap route would just be to bring it to shock level, leave my solar cover on, fill a floater with pucks (maybe it could hold 4 or 5), and leave my Hayward MaxFlo VS pump on 24/7. I was going to perhaps buy a 2nd floater and try to see if I could get someone (may be a neighborhood kid) to put in the 2nd floater after maybe 5 days (not sure if or when to add a 2nd floater, as I don't know how quick the 1st floater's pucks would dissolve). Our vacation would be maybe 7-9 days.
This post was to ask people what they think about that idea. But, I also have another dilemma. I think my pool is consuming CYA. Today, I re-tested my CYA. I have not brought it up yet since it was detected to be 30 about 1 month ago. Since a SLAM episode about 1 mo. ago, I have been adding chlorine daily but bringing it up to a level of 7, even though Pool Math showed that a CYA of 30 had an upper limit of 6 for FC. I am being very safe b/c I don't want to lose anymore precious swim days. Anyway, here are my numbers from testing now:
FC 6.5
CC 0
pH 7.4
TA 60
CH 925
CYA 20
temp = 90
I don't understand how a mo. ago my CYA was 30, but now I am getting 20. I am certain I am doing the test right, but wonder about filling the CYA squirt bottle. in my TF100, the bottle says to fill to the bottom of the label w/ pool water, and to the top of the label with R-0013. I fill to the bottom of the label with pool water no problem, but when I fill to the top of the label with CYA I'm thrown for a loop sometimes. Should I be filling w/ R-0013 so that the meniscus is at the top of the label? I usually fill until the meniscus is at the top of the label, which then causes the mixture be higher than the top of the label, towards the neck of the bottle. The Expanded Test Kit directions say to fill until the mixture hits the base of the neck.
Now with a CYA of 20, should I raise it to 40 with the Clorox CYA I have or get some pucks and raise it that way which will allow me to test out the dissolve rate for when we go on vaca?