New Plaster IG, which first: SLAM or treat scale?

[LazyLapper]

Sure do appreciate TFP!

Call our family authentic newbies. IG gunite with traditional plaster, completed just before winter. Closed by the builder and left covered with autocover most of the winter, so not much debris got in the water. (Just had to take a peek now and then.) Plaster is now about four months old.

Studying Pool School and lots of TFP posts, we have opened the pool ourselves. Because we are still having a few cool nights, we have turned on our gas heater. As soon as we can, we will convert to using our SWCG instead of liquid bleach. To keep things simple, for now we are not adding any borates.

We have the TF1000 Test Kit with SpeedStir and like it a lot.

Over the past week, we have adjusted our pool chemistry to:
TC 7
pH 7.2
TA 85
CH 250
CYA 60
CSI -.39
PSI with pump & filter on: 14

We have cloudy water (no yellow or green, though).
We have some scale and are brushing diligently, keeping pH and CYA down to keep CSI low.

So... which would you advise attacking first: SLAM to clear the cloudy water or keep chemistry as is and continue to attack the scale?
And if/when we SLAM, how does that affect the heater? Ours has no bypass piping.

THANKS, we are eager (as all pool people) to enjoy beautiful, clear water.

 

[jblizzle]

Fixing the scale is not going to happen in the short term. I would SLAM it and get it all clean then continue brushing the scale.

The heater will be fine if you follow the ShockLevelAndMAINTAIN Process.

 

[LazyLapper]

Thank you, jblizzle. We will get some DE to help our sand filter work faster.
So it's OK to leave the heater operating during SLAM?

 

[jblizzle]

So it's OK to leave the heater operating during SLAM?

I can not think why that would be a problem.

Have you started the SLAM? The DE is usually only an option at the very end if the cloudiness is not clearing fast enough.

 

[LazyLapper]

Will start SLAM tomorrow morning. Ok, we will hold off on the DE. Our sand filter can't be very dirty as we have had little debris. Just read that the DE would speed things up. But we can wait.

 

[LazyLapper]

All good. More than two days of SLAM thus far. Testing 2-3 times/day, topping off chlorine as needed. A bit less cloudy.

 

[tim5055]

All good. More than two days of SLAM thus far. Testing 2-3 times/day, topping off chlorine as needed. A bit less cloudy.

Great!

Just remember that the more times you test and adjust the better, but not more than once an hour. Brush at least once a day also to,help stir up areas that might not have good circulation. You want the chlorine to find the bad stuff everywhere.