New to forum, new pool. Build was completed in early December, and we opened mid-April. The water has been sparkly clear since opening in mid-April, but we've had trouble keeping the FC up throughout the day. Thanks to this forum, I suspected low CYA. I have a Taylor K2006 test kit on it's way, but in the meantime I brought a sample to the local pool store because we've been battling high pH and low FC during the day essentially since the PB opened the pool. I have a SWG that's been set at 100% with pump running 24/7. When I open the autocover first thing in the morning, the FC reading is 2.0 (using OTO kit). When I test an hour later (on sunny days) FC reading is 0. I have the strips, which are super hard to read (why I ordered K2006 after reading through this forum), but on the strips it looked liked CYA was in the 30-50 range. According to local pool store readings today (3pm sample), these were the numbers:
FC 0
TC 0.1
pH 8.0
CYA 0
TA 175
Salt 3000
Fun. So as I thought (thanks to reading here), all this FC issue is likely due to non-existent CYA (I know I have pH and TA issues as well, but from my reading here, CYA and FC are most important to get on top of first). The guy told me to add 4 pints muriatic acid, followed by 1.75 lbs of BioGuard Stabilzer 100 (severely under-dosed according to pool calculator here which shows I should add 134 oz or 8.375 lbs of cyanuric acid to get to 50ppm) followed by 6 pouches of BioGuard BurnOut 73. Wait one hour in between the addition of each chemical. I know TFP recommends using bleach and not BurnOut products due to cost as well as adding calcium along with chlorine, but I did it and it's done now, so can't go back.
I added the 4 pints of muriatic acid (we previously added a full gallon of the 30% over the course of the last 2 weeks), and added the stabilizer to a sock in the skimmer basket. Before adding the stabilizer, I added the 6 bags/pouches of the BurnOut 73. Then, as I was looking at my printout, I noticed it said to add 2 bags of BurnOut 73 (NOT 6!!!). I asked the guy several times if he was sure about the 6 bags/pouches of BurnOut 73, and he said yes. So now of course my FC is instant purple (10 ppm) on the Aquacheck test strips I'm using.
My question is, how long will it take to burn through all that added chlorine? Did I do any permanent damage? Do we have to wait to swim until it's back down to <10pmm? I'm hoping it'll be a sunny day tomorrow here in Chicago-land, and with that non-existent CYA the chlorine will burn off fast. I turned off the SWG and left the pump on (as previously stated, we run the pump 24/7 because we're new to this and don't know any better right now).
Thanks for any help and insight!
FC 0
TC 0.1
pH 8.0
CYA 0
TA 175
Salt 3000
Fun. So as I thought (thanks to reading here), all this FC issue is likely due to non-existent CYA (I know I have pH and TA issues as well, but from my reading here, CYA and FC are most important to get on top of first). The guy told me to add 4 pints muriatic acid, followed by 1.75 lbs of BioGuard Stabilzer 100 (severely under-dosed according to pool calculator here which shows I should add 134 oz or 8.375 lbs of cyanuric acid to get to 50ppm) followed by 6 pouches of BioGuard BurnOut 73. Wait one hour in between the addition of each chemical. I know TFP recommends using bleach and not BurnOut products due to cost as well as adding calcium along with chlorine, but I did it and it's done now, so can't go back.
I added the 4 pints of muriatic acid (we previously added a full gallon of the 30% over the course of the last 2 weeks), and added the stabilizer to a sock in the skimmer basket. Before adding the stabilizer, I added the 6 bags/pouches of the BurnOut 73. Then, as I was looking at my printout, I noticed it said to add 2 bags of BurnOut 73 (NOT 6!!!). I asked the guy several times if he was sure about the 6 bags/pouches of BurnOut 73, and he said yes. So now of course my FC is instant purple (10 ppm) on the Aquacheck test strips I'm using.
My question is, how long will it take to burn through all that added chlorine? Did I do any permanent damage? Do we have to wait to swim until it's back down to <10pmm? I'm hoping it'll be a sunny day tomorrow here in Chicago-land, and with that non-existent CYA the chlorine will burn off fast. I turned off the SWG and left the pump on (as previously stated, we run the pump 24/7 because we're new to this and don't know any better right now).
Thanks for any help and insight!