New Pool - do I really need to shock?

[strommen]

Hi all - I got my pool installed a couple weeks ago. I haven't shocked it, but I have added stabilizer and chlorine. Do I really need to shock it? It's nearing fall up here in MN and I don't want to lose 5 days to a SLAM when I'll be shutting it down so soon anyway.

Here's the timeline of what I've done so far. We've been swimming in it basically this whole time.

• 9/9 - Our first swim, in unheated water straight from the garden hose
• 9/14 - Heater was hooked up. Initial temp reading was 63 degrees.
• 9/16 - Pool reached 80 degrees.
• 9/19 - Added some dichlor and some liquid CYA
• 9/21 - Added more dichlor and more liquid CYA. FC level 1.6; CYA level 55.
• 9/24 (7pm) - Added a bunch of liquid chlorine to bring FC to 8.5
• 9/25 (11am) - FC is down to 6.0.

If it makes any difference, there have been lots of leaves falling in the pool this whole time, and lots of rain the past 2 days (our pool level is actually too high now for the skimmers to work, but our backwash isn't hooked up yet so I can't drain it...)

So my question is: do I really need to do a SLAM, shutting the pool down for days, or can I just get by adding liquid chlorine daily to keep the FC around 7-8?

Thanks!

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello! You only need to SLAM if you fail an overnight (OCLT) test, visibly see algae, or are preparing to close (winterize) your pool. Even if you had to SLAM, you can still swim as long as you don't exceed the FC level for your CYA as noted on the Pool School - Chlorine / CYA Chart. It's a good thing you increased the FC yesterday because it was surly low. For planning purposes, round your CYA up to 60 and base your FC level off of that number. If you lose more than 4 ppm of FC in 24 hours, the water gets cloudy, or you see any green at all, get ready to SLAM or at least do an OCLT to see if you need to SLAM. At some point, it would be good to add which test kit you are using to your signature as well. Hope that helps.

 

[strommen]

Thanks! I'm using K-2006C, and I've added it to my sig.

So you're saying I can still swim if my FC at the "Shock FC" level in the Chlorine/CYA chart? What is the upper limit on FC that is safe to swim?

 

[JEC11718]

Anything under your slam number is fine, you just might bleach out swim suits if it's really high. If you end up draining some water you should recheck your cya level. It got diluted from the rain.