Filled Pool but delay on receiving saltwater system

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Summer424

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Aug 21, 2021
21
Springfield, IL
Small above ground pool (10 ft. dia.) was filled with water, but the shipping on the saltwater system was unexpectedly delayed. Now, I'll have about a week and a half between filling the pool and hooking up the salt water system. I've run the filter pump, but that's it. Do I need to do anything special to sanitize the water that's been sitting there for a week and a half? Do I have to drain and refill? Or just hook up the salt water system when it arrives and let it do it's thing? (People were in the pool shortly after it was filled. No chlorine to be found anywhere.)

Thank you!
 
Summer424 said:
Small above ground pool (10 ft. dia.) was filled with water, but the shipping on the saltwater system was unexpectedly delayed. Now, I'll have about a week and a half between filling the pool and hooking up the salt water system. I've run the filter pump, but that's it. Do I need to do anything special to sanitize the water that's been sitting there for a week and a half? Do I have to drain and refill? Or just hook up the salt water system when it arrives and let it do it's thing? (People were in the pool shortly after it was filled. No chlorine to be found anywhere.)

Thank you!
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You’ll need chlorine. Where in the US are you? Home Depot and hardware store has liquid chlorine in most states though I’ve heard a few are short. It’s the tablets that are more difficult to find but you don’t want those anyway.
 
Please add your location to your info. It really helps folks answer questions.

Go to either Home Depot or Lowes, and they stock liquid chlorine. I looked up a big "midwest" city- Chicago. The lowes there sells both Pool Essentials Liquid Chlorine for $4.28 and HTH Liquid Chlorine for $3.83. If you city has a Lowes or HD (and ha, who doesn't these days?) go buy some there.

You'll need some stabilizer (a 4 pound jug can be found at those stores also) and the liquid chlorine. Put in 30ppm of stabilizer and 5ppm of liquid chlorine- Use PoolMath (either the app, or old web version found on bottom of this page on computer) to determine how much = 30ppm, and 5ppm. I don't know what size in gallons your pool is or I could tell you.

You also need a test kit- Test Kits Compared

Maddie :flower:
 
Starting up saltwater pool. A small Intex with 1,180 gallons. The pH level is at 7.5, but TA is 130 and, according to the saltwater system manual, 80 is ideal for TA. (I started with low TA and followed calculations for baking soda and ended up here.) I'm testing with HTH 6 Way liquid test kit.

Pool Math says to "reduce pH to 7.0-7.2 with acid and then aerate to increase pH." Is there a way to aerate without special equipment? Would partially draining and refilling help solve this?

Also, can I go ahead and add CYA and salt and get the saltwater system working while figuring this out? Or hold off until balanced?

Thanks!
 
With your type pool, TA is of no consequence. Just keep your pH in the 7's for swimmer comfort.
 
Only one would be if your CH is higher than 400 ppm and your pH is allowed to get to 8 or above you could get scaling in the SWCG. You do not allow us to know what your location is so I do not know if you may or may not have hard water.
 
Getting Intex 1,180 gallon pool with salt water system set up. Added salt and cya, but have to wait 24 hrs. to turn on salt water generator. Water will have been in pool 48 hrs before I can start salt water system. I think from my search on past posts I need to add chlorine to get through that time. Is that right? How much do I need to add?

I need to figure out how to update location. Near Springfield, IL.
 

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Your pool will lose 3 ppm of FC per day if clean. So raise the FC to at least 10% of your CYA and then test each day to raise it back up to that level. Poolmath will tell you how much to add. You need to enter your current FC and your Target FC.

If this pool has been full of water for two weeks, I certainly hope you have been adding chlorine every day. If not, and the water is cloudy, you will need to dump the water and start over.
 
Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. I really appreciate your help. Pool has only been filled for about 24 hours at this point. But here’s another issue: I can’t get a cya reading. The hth liquid test instructions indicated a solution of pool water and reagent would be cloudy, but it was clear and so the black dot was always visible. I partially dissolved cya in water before putting in the pool, and it went in the pool about four hours ago. Would it a cya reading not show up yet? Or is my reagent faulty? Not sure what to do next. Do I hold off on adding chlorine? Try to test again later?
 
Anyone have a moment to help? Here’s where I am: Starting up Intex 1,180 gallon pool. Had to completely drain it last week because I had filled it but there was a delay in getting swcg and no quick access to liquid chlorine. So, I just refilled it two days ago. Turned on saltwater system yesterday after the salt dissolved. Today TC is at 2. My concern is I didn’t put chlorine in while setting up swcg. So, no chlorine for 48 hours. (Had help from here figuring out ratio of chlorine to cya but didn’t’t know how to proceed without cya reading.) TC is at 2. Do I need to be concerned about bacteria, given these details? Is it safe to swim now?

Here are current levels, tested with hth 6 way liquid test:
TC: 2
pH: 7.5
TA: 120
CYA: tested yesterday after cya was in for a few hours with hth liquid test and no reading, tested today with strip and reads low. (Waiting on liquid test because maybe cya takes awhile to dissolve and get a reading and hth test only comes with the ability to test this twice.)

Any help greatly appreciated!
Location: near Springfield, IL
 
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