My husband has always wanted a pool, and I can't pass up a bargain, so I figured it was destiny when checking out a local garage sale, I happened upon a used Intex 16' X 42" Easy Set pool for sale.
Our house used to have a pool so even though the area was a bit grown over, once we got past a little layer of sod, we found a ton of glorious sand. We added literally another ton of sand to the mix, got it leveled out, set up the pool and promptly found a leak in the blow up ring. We got that patched and the pool filled up just in time for the last couple of weeks of terribly cold weather here in Wisconsin. We put the cover on the pool and I set out to figure out what all I should be putting into the pool - the previous owner handed me a bucket and two jugs full of chemical stuff and as I was investigating how to properly keep this pool happy, I came across this site, did a little reading about the BBB method for pool care and hope that I can use that to care for our new-to-us swimming pool.
Problem 1 - I can not get one single consistent answer as to the actual volume of this pool - I've read it holds anywhere from 3500 to 4500 gallons of water.
Hubby and I took the cover off yesterday, skimmed a few little pieces of debris out of the pool and started up the filter. Water was crystal clear. Not having enough liquid bleach on hand at the moment, and knowing I needed to "shock" the pool, I used half of a packet of Utikem "One Shot Shock Treatment" that the previous owner included with the pool. I have several more - previous owner said they just put in a pack a week and "let her go." They tried some sort of yellow "Extreme Pool Shock" liquid, but claimed they didn't like it as much and also included two full gallon jugs of that stuff. Previous owner also talked about using some sort of tablets and gave me a couple of floating dispensers for the aforementioned tablets as well.
I only used half the packet because it said it was for a 10,000 gallon pool and I know I didn't have 10,000 gallons sitting in my backyard blue rubber doughnut.
I have just received my Taylor 2006 testing kit and tested my water this morning. I came up with the following values (I didn't do all of the tests as I wasn't sure if they were necessary):
Free Chlorine 5.4
Combined Chlorine .2
pH 7.8
CYA = 0
This morning I ran out and purchased liquid bleach, Borax and baking soda. I also picked up chlorine stabilizer, but wasn't sure if I should put that in or if this magic shock packet included some (it doesn't seem that way according to my test results, right?) I still have at least five packages of the "One Shot Shock" and two gallons of the yellow liquid shock stuff as well
What do I do, what should I do now? I read I should have put the stabilizer in prior to the shock so there is my first oops. When I do use the stabilizer, how should I administer it? It seems like I should put it in a sock, since it sounds like it could take forever to dissolve, and keep it in a high flow area, but I am not seeing a good way to secure the sock to the edge of the pool near the filter out-take.
The water appears slightly cloudy after using the shock, but not terrible.
Any help or suggestions of where I go from here would be greatly appreciated! I currently keep several fish tanks and can talk about the ammonia cycle and how to keep tanks going without any chemicals, but I am just losing it when it comes to understanding this pool chemistry stuff!
Our house used to have a pool so even though the area was a bit grown over, once we got past a little layer of sod, we found a ton of glorious sand. We added literally another ton of sand to the mix, got it leveled out, set up the pool and promptly found a leak in the blow up ring. We got that patched and the pool filled up just in time for the last couple of weeks of terribly cold weather here in Wisconsin. We put the cover on the pool and I set out to figure out what all I should be putting into the pool - the previous owner handed me a bucket and two jugs full of chemical stuff and as I was investigating how to properly keep this pool happy, I came across this site, did a little reading about the BBB method for pool care and hope that I can use that to care for our new-to-us swimming pool.
Problem 1 - I can not get one single consistent answer as to the actual volume of this pool - I've read it holds anywhere from 3500 to 4500 gallons of water.
Hubby and I took the cover off yesterday, skimmed a few little pieces of debris out of the pool and started up the filter. Water was crystal clear. Not having enough liquid bleach on hand at the moment, and knowing I needed to "shock" the pool, I used half of a packet of Utikem "One Shot Shock Treatment" that the previous owner included with the pool. I have several more - previous owner said they just put in a pack a week and "let her go." They tried some sort of yellow "Extreme Pool Shock" liquid, but claimed they didn't like it as much and also included two full gallon jugs of that stuff. Previous owner also talked about using some sort of tablets and gave me a couple of floating dispensers for the aforementioned tablets as well.
I only used half the packet because it said it was for a 10,000 gallon pool and I know I didn't have 10,000 gallons sitting in my backyard blue rubber doughnut.
I have just received my Taylor 2006 testing kit and tested my water this morning. I came up with the following values (I didn't do all of the tests as I wasn't sure if they were necessary):
Free Chlorine 5.4
Combined Chlorine .2
pH 7.8
CYA = 0
This morning I ran out and purchased liquid bleach, Borax and baking soda. I also picked up chlorine stabilizer, but wasn't sure if I should put that in or if this magic shock packet included some (it doesn't seem that way according to my test results, right?) I still have at least five packages of the "One Shot Shock" and two gallons of the yellow liquid shock stuff as well
What do I do, what should I do now? I read I should have put the stabilizer in prior to the shock so there is my first oops. When I do use the stabilizer, how should I administer it? It seems like I should put it in a sock, since it sounds like it could take forever to dissolve, and keep it in a high flow area, but I am not seeing a good way to secure the sock to the edge of the pool near the filter out-take.
The water appears slightly cloudy after using the shock, but not terrible.
Any help or suggestions of where I go from here would be greatly appreciated! I currently keep several fish tanks and can talk about the ammonia cycle and how to keep tanks going without any chemicals, but I am just losing it when it comes to understanding this pool chemistry stuff!