Good morning everyone, I'm Bob from Warren, MI (sits on Detroit's northern city limit). I have a 21' round, 4' deep above ground pool with a small deck on one side. I bought this home on May 15th, 2015 and this is the first time I've owned a pool. Last year, I opened it with help from the prior owners in mid-July because I was busy remodeling the house prior to moving in. It had a lot of debris on the bottom and was green when we pulled the cover. It cleaned up well, but I never took true control of the water because I was only using test strips. It greened back up twice during the 2.5 months we had it open.
Last winter, when we closed it, we vacuumed it, scrubbed the walls, shocked it, and ran the filter for 24 hours before we drained it about halfway and put the new winter cover on. I also added a leaf net over the winter cover and that worked really well to prevent the rotten soup of leaves when we opened it this spring.
We opened it last Saturday, May 28th, 2016. The water was almost crystal clear with very little debris on the bottom. I filled it with tap water, put on the new 16 mil clear solar cover, added two 3" trichlor tabs to the floating chlorinator, and started the filter for 36 hours while I began to test the water with my TF-100 kit with Speedstir and balance chemicals. My first test results were:
FC: 0
CC: 0
TC: 0
PH: 6.9
TA: 80
CH: 125
CYA: 0 (black dot perfectly clear with view tube overflowing the top)
Based on those results, I added 80 oz. by weight of 20 Mule Team borax, 3 lbs. CYA in a sock in the skimmer basket, and 3 gallons of 10% bleach left over from last season. When I tested last night, my results were:
FC: 1
CC: 0.5
TC: 1.5
PH: 7.2
TA: 100
CH: 125
CYA: 25
I added about 25-30 oz. of 10% bleach and let the filter run for 30 minutes before retesting and finding an FC of 3.
My plan for this season is to use liquid bleach. Right now, Meijer has 10% bleach on sale for $9.99/4 gallons, but when that ends and it goes back to $12.99, I will be buying the pool store's 12.5% bleach for $12.99/4 gallons. I will retest tonight and adjust further as needed to reach my goals of:
FC: 5
CC: 0
TC: 5
PH: 7.6
TA: 100
CH: 125
CYA: 40
How am I doing so far? Is there anything I'm missing that I should be doing? What would be considered a normal daily drop in FC between doses of bleach? Thanks!
Last winter, when we closed it, we vacuumed it, scrubbed the walls, shocked it, and ran the filter for 24 hours before we drained it about halfway and put the new winter cover on. I also added a leaf net over the winter cover and that worked really well to prevent the rotten soup of leaves when we opened it this spring.
We opened it last Saturday, May 28th, 2016. The water was almost crystal clear with very little debris on the bottom. I filled it with tap water, put on the new 16 mil clear solar cover, added two 3" trichlor tabs to the floating chlorinator, and started the filter for 36 hours while I began to test the water with my TF-100 kit with Speedstir and balance chemicals. My first test results were:
FC: 0
CC: 0
TC: 0
PH: 6.9
TA: 80
CH: 125
CYA: 0 (black dot perfectly clear with view tube overflowing the top)
Based on those results, I added 80 oz. by weight of 20 Mule Team borax, 3 lbs. CYA in a sock in the skimmer basket, and 3 gallons of 10% bleach left over from last season. When I tested last night, my results were:
FC: 1
CC: 0.5
TC: 1.5
PH: 7.2
TA: 100
CH: 125
CYA: 25
I added about 25-30 oz. of 10% bleach and let the filter run for 30 minutes before retesting and finding an FC of 3.
My plan for this season is to use liquid bleach. Right now, Meijer has 10% bleach on sale for $9.99/4 gallons, but when that ends and it goes back to $12.99, I will be buying the pool store's 12.5% bleach for $12.99/4 gallons. I will retest tonight and adjust further as needed to reach my goals of:
FC: 5
CC: 0
TC: 5
PH: 7.6
TA: 100
CH: 125
CYA: 40
How am I doing so far? Is there anything I'm missing that I should be doing? What would be considered a normal daily drop in FC between doses of bleach? Thanks!