Drained and refilled the pool

[tfontoura]

Hi guys,
First time poster/pool rookie here.

This past weekend I drained my pool completely and refilled it back up.

I am now trying to look for what are the steps (and chronological order of the steps) I should be taking to balancing my water.

I assume I'll have to add some CYA.

I'm going to be testing the water soon and I'll post the results here.


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[Texas Splash]

Hello "pool rookie" and welcome to TFP! Did you refill the pool today, or did Mother Nature? Wow! Lots of rain. You are correct about the CYA. We'll watch for your test result and go from there. Nice to have you with us.

 

[Analogbytes]

Welcome to TFP! Great job on getting a great test kit. Results would be awesome a necessity. Chlorine is required ASAP. Then add CYA and start working on pH and TA. CH is last.

Here are Pool School - Recommended Levels and more reading Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

 

[tfontoura]

thanks for the warm welcome!

Here are my test results:

FC 1.2
Total Chlorine 1.8
CC 0.6
CYA 0
PH 7.5
TA 190
CH 170

Thanks again guys!


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[Texas Splash]

Great. So first order of business:
- Increase CYA to an initial target of 40 using granular stabilizer and the sock-soaking method. When summer gets here, you will probably go a bit higher.
- For now, add some bleach just to get the FC up to about 3. Once the stabilizer is all dissolved, then increase FC to 5-7 and never let it drop below 3. I like HEB's Bravo (regular) beach, but Wal-Mart's Great Value works great too.
- Tomorrow, test the FC and CC again and hopefully the CC's will drop below 0.5.
- Your CH is a little below the minimum of 250, so you might even consider using some cal-hypo a few times just to bring it up. As the temps increase and you refill with hose water, I suspect the CH will climb as well.

Later, we can help you lower TA a bit, but for now I'd just focus on those things.

 

[tfontoura]

Alright! Plan is under execution. I have adjusted the chlorine level up to 3 with bleach. Will have to wait for the stabilizer to get here so I can start building that up.

Question - I have a chlorinator in which I have used these Clorox trichlor tablets (below). Should I keep using them here or just put them aside for now?

 

[triptyx]

We just found out from Clorox that those tablets contain copper, which can build up and cause staining of your pool surfaces and hair. While we're still not sure just how much copper they contain (the current consensus is that it's probably a very, very small amount), please be aware of that if you're going to use them. If you're going to save them to use once in a long while for when you're on vacation, and you're monitoring your CYA levels and upping the FC level to correspond to the increase, you're probably ok. We generally don't recommend using any solid chlorine product for "normal" day to day chlorination.

 

[tfontoura]

That's great info. I'll follow that. Thank you triptyx.


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