Good morning? Evening? Ugh. We filled our 15'0 by 33" Intex Easy Set pool on Tuesday evening. My plan was to shock the pool with bleach and use 1" chlorine tablets to maintain...until I used the test kit and started to learn a bit more about pool chemistry. Now I am freaking out.
I let the kids swim in it Wednesday morning chemical free because I trust the water source. Then a huge storm hit and wiped out our electricity to the pump so we couldn't get started with chemicals until Thursday night. My cover won't come in till Saturday or Sunday...so at that time I was trying to keep our pool clean with the skimmer and floor attachment. Regardless, the water began to develop a slight green hue.
THURSDAY night: Filter is running and I'm trying to balance my chemicals. I start with a test. Ph is very high (>8.4). Alkalinity is high 180ppm. Hardness is 120. I read that my product (sodium bisulfate) reduces alkalinity and Ph so I think I'm good to go.
...OR SO I THOUGHT! Little did I know the battle was just beginning.
I bought HTH PhDown from the store, follow the instructions for dosage. 2,587-gallon pool so I add 6oz of product per instructions on the back.
FRIDAY morning: At 4-5am I re-test. No change. Back to the world-wide-interwebs. Click-click-click. Read that I might need to add a lot more of the product for adequate adjustment. Suggestion was 24oz because each "dose" was supposed to bring down my Ph .2 . Made sense. So I hit it with more. Tested again after a few hours. No change at all. I was concerned my alkalinity might be affecting my Ph, but now it's hovering at 120 (which according to my test strips is an "acceptable range).......so I hit my pool again.
FRIDAY 2:00pm: Long story short, after adding about 70 ounces of Sodium Bisulfate (82%) in my tiny pool FINALLY the Ph started to drop to 7.8 by about 2pm Friday. It had been about 2 hours since adding my last dose of acid, and I figured my pool was about to be in partial shade at 5:00pm so I added 2.8oz of HTH CalHypo shock. The 13.3oz bag treated 12,500 gallons, so 2.8oz appeared to be the dosage to fit my 2587 gallon pool.
FRIDAY 7:30pm: I tested my pool again my Chlorine level was 1ppm. (???) Can the midday sun really wipe out Chlorine that fast? Just a few hours? I decide to give it a few more hours to retest.
SATURDAY 1:30am: I wake in the middle of the night and instead of going back to bed, I check my pool and chlorine levels are 0. It's going to be scorching tomorrow. It's hard to read whether Ph levels are at 7.8 or back up again without natural daylight.......but being the bright human being that I am, I shocked my pool again. Shortly after this endeavor, I found this page.
SATURDAY 2:45am: Here you find me freaking out at 2:45am.....worried that I'm going to kill my kids with the ungodly amount of chemicals that appear to be in "fun little summertime pool."
SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE! If I have to drain and start over I will...but I'm worried I will just be back at the beginning with a high Ph and chemicals that won't effectively bring the level down.
I let the kids swim in it Wednesday morning chemical free because I trust the water source. Then a huge storm hit and wiped out our electricity to the pump so we couldn't get started with chemicals until Thursday night. My cover won't come in till Saturday or Sunday...so at that time I was trying to keep our pool clean with the skimmer and floor attachment. Regardless, the water began to develop a slight green hue.
THURSDAY night: Filter is running and I'm trying to balance my chemicals. I start with a test. Ph is very high (>8.4). Alkalinity is high 180ppm. Hardness is 120. I read that my product (sodium bisulfate) reduces alkalinity and Ph so I think I'm good to go.
...OR SO I THOUGHT! Little did I know the battle was just beginning.
I bought HTH PhDown from the store, follow the instructions for dosage. 2,587-gallon pool so I add 6oz of product per instructions on the back.
FRIDAY morning: At 4-5am I re-test. No change. Back to the world-wide-interwebs. Click-click-click. Read that I might need to add a lot more of the product for adequate adjustment. Suggestion was 24oz because each "dose" was supposed to bring down my Ph .2 . Made sense. So I hit it with more. Tested again after a few hours. No change at all. I was concerned my alkalinity might be affecting my Ph, but now it's hovering at 120 (which according to my test strips is an "acceptable range).......so I hit my pool again.
FRIDAY 2:00pm: Long story short, after adding about 70 ounces of Sodium Bisulfate (82%) in my tiny pool FINALLY the Ph started to drop to 7.8 by about 2pm Friday. It had been about 2 hours since adding my last dose of acid, and I figured my pool was about to be in partial shade at 5:00pm so I added 2.8oz of HTH CalHypo shock. The 13.3oz bag treated 12,500 gallons, so 2.8oz appeared to be the dosage to fit my 2587 gallon pool.
FRIDAY 7:30pm: I tested my pool again my Chlorine level was 1ppm. (???) Can the midday sun really wipe out Chlorine that fast? Just a few hours? I decide to give it a few more hours to retest.
SATURDAY 1:30am: I wake in the middle of the night and instead of going back to bed, I check my pool and chlorine levels are 0. It's going to be scorching tomorrow. It's hard to read whether Ph levels are at 7.8 or back up again without natural daylight.......but being the bright human being that I am, I shocked my pool again. Shortly after this endeavor, I found this page.
SATURDAY 2:45am: Here you find me freaking out at 2:45am.....worried that I'm going to kill my kids with the ungodly amount of chemicals that appear to be in "fun little summertime pool."
SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE! If I have to drain and start over I will...but I'm worried I will just be back at the beginning with a high Ph and chemicals that won't effectively bring the level down.
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A few points to help calm you down and get you back on track:
Remember free chlorine + combined chlorine (the trash) are totaled together to make up total chlorine. You really want to keep the free chlorine elevated more in the future to prevent algae. As long as you have 30-40 ppm of stabilizer in the water, I would never let the FC drop below 3 ppm, and ideally stay between 4-5 ppm. Small pools can get yucky quick, hence the dump and refill method.