Just drained and filled now what???

[natrich]

Hi, Everyone so Ive owned my pool now for 2yrs. My CYA had gotten out of control and I drained it down to about 3 ft in the deep end and now it is refilled. Last night i did add 1 gallon of pool chlorine and that is all I have done. I ordered a test kit tf-100 unfortunately it will not be here for a week. So I took some water to Leslies and had them test it for me. I did not buy anything from them.
f/c 0
total available Chlorine 0
calcium hardiness 40
cya 80??
total alkalinity 120
ph 8.2
acid 1
copper 0
iron 0
tds 400
phosphates 700

So what do I do until I get my test kit??? Pictures coming soon. Help me TFP community I do not want to by anchored to the pool guy...

 

[tim5055]

Welcome to TFP!

First, what is "acid 1" and where is the pH?

You have a fairly large pool, so I would add one bottle of bleach to the pool each day with the pump running until your kit comes in.

 

[natrich]

Ph 8.5 acid 1 is what leslies told me i will have to test it

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I"m not sure what "pellet chlorine" is but... stop it! Until you know exactly where your CYA is by using your own test kit, you don't want to be adding any by mistake.

Granular chlorine either has calcium or CYA in it as an added curse, oops, I mean bonus. If you don't need it, you don't want to be adding more. Right??

 

[Richard320]

The pH test is pretty foolproof, and it's one even Leslies usually gets right, so I'd believe it's off the scale. So it needs to come down. How much? Good question.

You don't have your test kit yet (BTW congrats on ordering the Cadillac of test kits) but do you have anything at all? Even the simplest of cheapo kits have the pH test. Any neighbors with a pool? Ask if they have a tester you could borrow to double check yours.

Or go to Walmart or some big box store and spend ten bucks on a simple 2-way tester that'll give you pH and TC. Get some bleach and acid, too, if you don't already have some.

When you have new numbers from a sample taken fresh from the pool, post up and we'll see if we can't figure out what to add to at least hold you until the good kit arrives.

If you haven't added CYA since the refill, you won't have any in the water so I find the 80 reading very suspicious. CYA comes in stabilizer, pucks, and powdered "shock." But you would have had to add a whole bunch of any of them to get to 80 so fast. Let's say you haven't been dumping all kinds of crud in -- another on not letting Leslies get their hands on your wallet -- so CYA is zero or close to it. In which case, your target chlorine is 3. 3/4 of a jug of plain bleach will get you there. If it's liquid pool shock - 10 or 12.6%, then half a gallon will do you.

Can you check the label on your chlorine powder and tell us what it is? You might be able to use some of it once you know precisely what your pool chemistry numbers are from your own test kit.

 

[natrich]

I was using pucks before i drained my pool. Since i drained it I have only added 2 gallons of chlorine and that is the only thing Ive added. I will test the acid and ph again today myself. I also thought that my cya should have been lower since i did drain so much water. Cant wait to get test kit

 

[Richard320]

I was using pucks before i drained my pool. Since i drained it I have only added 2 gallons of chlorine and that is the only thing Ive added. I will test the acid and ph again today myself. I also thought that my cya should have been lower since i did drain so much water. Cant wait to get test kit

An excellent plan.

And as you can see, your pool store test was worth every penny you paid for it -- nothing.

 

[natrich]

I tested ph it looks about 8.0. I also tested chlorine it registered 0. I used my home depot test kit for this. I put a gallon of home depot chlorine in today. That means ive put a total of 3 gallons one a day so far. HDX 10% chlorine

 

[natrich]

Kit in now here is my results
C 2-3
F\C 1.5
CC 1.0
CH 100
TA 170
CYA 28

To get cc do i add fc and cc to get total chlorine so then would it be 2.5?

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Ok, letsee.....Did you test the pH?? CYA is 30, so you need to keep your FC at (please see chart-->) [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]

CCs are 1 so something is growing in there. You probably need to SLAM --> SLAM Process

CH is too low for a plaster pool. Use PoolMath to advise you on how much Hardness Increaser to add. Aim for about 300 since your water tends to be hard and the evaporation will cause it to raise more.

TA will come down when you lower your pH. It may take a little time.

Ignore TC (Total Chlorine) as we don't give a fig about that. We want to know the individual elements instead.

Yip