New Pool, now what?

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Prinler

Active member
Jun 21, 2007
25
Barstow, CA
Hey everyone,

To our family discussed it and we decided to get a Intex 18'x48" AGP
I built it, after about 1.5 hours with my shirt off i was cooked like a lobster. Thank god i was done.
Took about 24 hours to fill up(Sunday) We have been swimming in it since. About 3 times a day.
The Water is no longer a Crystal blue color but more a dull light green.
I know you need to put chemicals in it but i have never done this. My first step is usually Google.com This is how i got here.
Anyway, I purchased a test kit from Walmart today and ran the tests.

Chlorine =0
PH = 7.8
Alk = 130
Hardness was tought because it never started red and after 20 drops it never turned to blue.
and my CYA never turned Cloudy

I hope this makes sense.
Oh i purchased a "starter kit" when i purchased the pool but there are no directions on doseing
Looks like a bucket full of big round chlorine tablets and also 2 bags of Shock?

Let me know my first steps

Steve from Paso
 
I think I'd quick turn the pump on and put a bag of shock in your pool. Retest, in the morning.

What is your pool volume? We need to know to tell you how much of anything to use.

You most likely won't have CYA in your fill water. CYA is stabilizer for chlorine. The tablets and shock may have stabilizer in it but may not be enough for your pool. You may need to add some. Ideal range is 30 - 50 ppm.

What are the ingredients of the tablets and the shock?
Any other items in your starter kit?

Your pH is getting a little high, depending on what else is in your kit, you may need to get some muriatic acid tomorrow.

Come back here tomorrow with your readings and the other info and someone here will give you more instructions.
 
You are going to need chlorine added everyday, either with the tabs in a floater or by adding a two or three cups of bleach. Shock the pool, but put the shock in a bucket of water and get it dissolved before adding it to the pool. I'd shock it again in 8 or 10 hours. Run the filter as much as possible. Once the shock is used up, you can shock with a gallon of ultra laundry bleach whenever the water doesn't look right.
 
How darn hard would it be for those Intex people to give some very general and simple instructions to folks that buy them for Petes sake? Is the pool a metal frame or pop up type? Either way, you got good advice. It turned that color because you have an algae bloom and probably some bacteria in there from all the swimming. That will also bounce up the PH. Load up on some Ultra bleach from Walmart for the summer - keep in a cool dark place. Thats the main chemical you will need for your Intex pool and not a lot at a time after you get that algae cleared up. Just use it regularly (PROACTIVE) and you won't have to clean up like this later (REACTIVE) - keep the cover on when not using to keep leaves and bugs out, they create bacteria and algae can bloom. Run the pump on a timer, add bleach each evening with the pump running, cover when not using and you should be good to go. There will be exceptions but not many.

Put your powdered stuff into the bucket with water, pour in and mix around. Run that pump steady.

The Walmart kit Calcium Hardness (CH) test will only show red if you have hard water to start with. If it did not turn red, you don't have hard water. Not the biggest problem anyway with a vinyl pool. Your main concern is the chlorine level and the PH. Get chlorine up and PH at about 7.2-7.6 range and you will be good to go on most of it.
 
Wow thanks so much for the warm response.

"HTH Vinyl and plaster pool start up and maintenance kit" is what i purchased
contains
7-hth duration 3" chlorinating tablets 47%
2 bags super sock it pool shock 54.6% Calcium hypochlorite
10-hth test strips
my pool http://www.intexcorp.com/metal18x48.htm
18' x 48" 6,423 gal.

Ok last night i put 1 Tablet into the skimmer basket and let it run all night. In the morning i checked the reading and it was about 3ppm now after work its 0ppm and the water is clear again and the ph is 7.5 looks like that helped but as i read your post i need to keep up with this.

Ok should i use the shock in the pool? one or both? can we still use it after? if not how long do i wait.
 
They are all the same thing. BTW, Shock is actually something you DO and not one particular product (although they like to put that on their label with their brand name) You can just as easily shock with a jug of bleach or certain portions. The powder works fine for an algae bloom. You don't have to shock unless you have algae or bacteria that you need to kill off. If there are no CCs, cloudy water or visible algae, just stick with regular additons of chlorine.

You can use up your tabs in the floater and they will keep some chlorination going on but importantly FOR NOW, they will add some CYA, which is an acid that stabilizes or buffers the chlorine so the sun doesn't burn it off so fast. CYA is good to have but only up to a limit around 30-40ppm. After that, too much and you need to actually have MORE chlorine to stay sanitized.

Just use up the tabs you have and switch to a jug of bleach, using the correct amount they listed each evening when no sun is on it with the pump on.
 
The HTH duration tablets are slow dissolving Cal Hypo tablets, so you don't seem to have anything that adds CYA (stabilizer) to your water.

You do need to get some CYA - cyanuric acid - to get your water to 30 - 50 ppm. Stabilizer is sort of like a sunscreen for your chlorine - it helps to slow down the sun from burning out your chlorine from your water. However, too much CYA is not good, in that it reduces the effectiveness of chlorine to sanitize your pool.

Here's a very good lesson to learn - always remember this - DO NOT ever put a Cal Hypo product in a feeder/floater or any other container that has had a Trichlor or Dichlor product in it and vice versa. You can use those products, but never in the same container that has had Cal Hypo in it.

Always know exactly what you are putting in your pool - the ingredients.

What is the volume of water in gallons for your pool? We need to know this in order to help you with dosing your pool with the proper amounts of chlorine or other chemicals.

Since bleachcalc doesn't seem to work well on your pc, then look for another sticky post or another thread by JasonLion who has built an online version of a bleach calculator. Ahhh, here, I found the link to it.
JasonLion's calculator
 
18' x 48" 6,423 gal.
Hoping it wouldnt hurt i added 1 thing of "shock" the Clorine lvls spiked at 6ppm now the water is cloudy. Also i notice if i add clorine its gone within 24 hours. I can put in a Tablet before bed 10pm, when i get up i test it. 7am then there is around 3ppm when i get home 0ppm.
what am i doing wrong?
 

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You can get CYA at Lowe's. It'll be in their pool section (usually outside in the garden area) and it will be labeled as Sanitizer Stabilizer, I think. 4 lb's for $14. I'm thinking it's something like 1 lb will raise CYA 10ppm for 10,000 gallons, so go with about a 1 1/2 pounds for your pool, should put it roughly @ 30 ppm. This stuff dissolves slowly, so be prepared. Pour it into a sock or a knee high stocking and hang it over the edge of the pool. If you can get it near the pump return, it'll dissolve more quickly.
 
Prinler said:
, using the correct amount they listed each evening when no sun is on it with the pump on.???

who listed? Not to play dumb but i really need to figure out how much to add. Bleachcalc doesnt work good on my pc
Click to expand...

For 6423 gallons, the bleachcalc comes up with 13 ounces of 6% bleach to raise the Free Chlorine 1 ppm. If you get your CYA level up to about 30, then you'll want to try to keep the Free Chlorine level between 3 - 6 ppm, which would be 39 oz - 78 oz; to shock the pool, you would need to bring the level up to about 15 ppm, which would be 195 oz.

Once you get your CYA level up, then you shouldn't have to add the complete amount of bleach every day i.e. 39 oz a day to keep the FC @ 3 ppm. Test your water, see what the level is, then add enough bleach to bring it back to 3 ppm.

Once you get your CYA level up, if your FC level still goes to 0, then you might have some algae or some other organics at work in the pool. To find out, bring your FC level up to sanitizing levels (3-6 ppm) in the late evening, and then check your level again in the morning and see if it's dropped. If it has, then you have nasties in the water! That's when you would want to bring the chlorine level up to shock levels (15ppm), and try to maintain them there until the level holds overnight. After you get the shock level to hold overnight, then stop adding bleach until the chlorine level drops back to your normal sanitizing levels of 3 - 6 ppm, and then start adding again as needed to maintain your sanitizing level.

BTW, the 6% chlorine is the "ultra" bleach at the stores.
 
CYA most definitely. I prefer using bleach myself vs. the chlorine tabs, as you can get more exacting on your chlorine levels, but if you want to use up your tabs first, go right ahead. I get my 6% bleach at Walmart; they have it in gallon jugs, or in 174 oz jugs. BTW, I gave you the wrong amount of bleach to raise your chlorine level 1 ppm; it should have been 14 oz instead of 13, so for a FC of 3 ppm, you would need to add 42 oz, for 6 ppm it would be 84 oz, and so forth.

One other thing you might want to pick up is some spare filters, if you're using the pump/filter that came with the pool.
 
Once the algae dies it tends to bleach out to white, the appearance can range from vague clouds to something like skim milk. It can take the filter several days to clear it out from that stage. You should see some imporvement from day to day, though it might be slow at first. You also need to remember to backwash/clean the filter occasionally while it is cloudy.
 

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