Karmann said:
all is wonderful, i love the salt setup and the water feels GREAT.
when we switched to salt the PB didn't tell me i needed to drop my TA from ~120 to the suggested 60~90 when using a swcg but I figured that out with the help of this fourm and other online reading.
It's nice not having to worry about adding chlorine but i still check my pool water almost every day. I struggle to keep my PH down from 7.8 so i add about 1 gallon MA maybe a little more over the period of a week and that seems to be the sweet spot to keep my ph ~7.5
I'm probably adding about a half gallon of acid every 2~3 days and my pool is happy and crystal clear. So far I have only added 2lbs of shock the pool once when my FC dropped to 2 from the normal 4.5~6 but that was a heavy party weekend so it was expected. The next day my FC was 8 and slowly settled back down to 4~5 like normal.
The CCs for my pool according to the TF-100 kit have always been zero but i still check them about once a week.
I have a hard time keeping my TA below 90, it seems to settle there after a few days when I add acid but my pool water looks AWESOME. My PB said my results so far are to be expected since my fill water TA is about 420 and the PH is very high 8.2+, but i just keep an eye on it and everything is easy breezy
i prob don't need to do this everyday but I add fill water for about 15~20 min everyday to cover evaporation and splash out from the kids swimming so that's probably why my TA and PH are always creeping up so quick.
So glad to hear everything is going well!!
Let me see if I can help a little bit with what I have learned. I'm sure the experts here will chime in, as every pool is a little different. They have WAYYYYYY more experience than I do.
Regarding your PH... look at your MA bottle. If it says
SAFETY MA, it is NOT full strength, and it won't budge your PH hardly at all. I bought mine from Walmart, and didn't realize the difference until yesterday. I bought some "good stuff" from a pool store. I had been adding MA for weeks, with hardly any change in the PH. Now I know why, it takes nearly twice as much of the SAFETY MA. My PH dropped like a rock yesterday after adding the "non-safety" MA. It is the first time I saw a dramatic change in the color. It's also the first time the whiff nearly knocked me off my feet. When I poured it in the pool, I could "see" it swirling in the pool water. I knew THIS MA was way different than the last 3 bottles I had been using. That's what made me check into it, and sure enough there was an old thread on that subject.
MA will also lower your TA.
When you "shock," are you using bleach, or trichlor/ dichlor bags from the store? I have been told
that the bags of "shock" add other ingredients that skew my CYA and effect my CSI.
My CH seems to run high too.. maybe because of the new plaster (between 350 - 425) Today it is 375. I was concerned about that because of the Diamond Brite Plaster. The darker colors seems to have a higher discoloration rate, so I've read.
The other thing I did was turn off the Rainbow Puckalator. (The thing that holds pucks.) It was making my CYA climb up. It took a week or so, but it has now settled down and is stable. I guess that is for when you are gone for a few days and can't check your pool, you can turn it on.
I don't know if there is an right way or a wrong way to manage a pool.... but I do know my water is sparkling clean! Thanks to all the help on this forum!
The other night I was adding bleach to the pool and Mike said "Hold on, I'll go get my whites, and a bottle of Tide." My brain went into a frenzy
thinking what that would do to my "numbers." LOL!
Buy one of those little nets from Walmart, the net they sell for goldfish. It fits nicely into the skimmer, and you can scoop out the bugs that hide under the flapper. It also will catch those wasps that come in for a landing while you are in the pool.
I'm sure someone here will jump in and help you with your chemicals... I'm just sharing my limited experience. Good luck!!!
Maybe just have her keep the FC up. That's all I would have Mike do I guess. He has no interest in pool maintenance, but would help if I were out of town. One thing I've learned here is everything is fixable... so have no worries! 
. I had to add 16lbs of CH increaser to bring me up to 300ppm from 180ppm.
