Must be losing my mind! (New Intex pool) :)

[aquamom1977]

Hi everyone! First, I just want to thank you all for sharing your pool knowledge by answering questions on this forum! I have been reading through the Pool School, and I still have a couple of questions.

We have an Intex Easy Set pool from Walmart and it's 12' wide by 33" deep...yes, 33" and not the standard 30". Not really sure why that is, but it says right on the side of the pool: 2 feet, 9 inches! Intex doesn't list this pool on their website for some reason, but I am guessing it has about 1600-1700 gallons of water based on the gallons the 12' X 30" and the 12' x 36" pools hold. We have a 1000gph pump with cartridge filter.

First of all, I have a floating chlorine dispenser with trichlor 1" tablets. I have the dispenser open about half-way right now to release the chlorine in the pool. I also have a small container of dichlor granules which I have not used. Can I stick with the floating dispenser? I read that CYA might one day cause algae out of the blue, but the pool is small enough to drain and refill if that happens.

Second, I have a liquid drop test kit that checks for chlorine and ph, and I also have AquaChem test strips that check for 6 levels. When I use the liquid test kit, the chlorine is consistently a dark yellow, which translates to 3.0ppm on the color chart. But when I used the test strips, the free chlorine was purple which according to the chart is very high, about 10ppm. The total chlorine, however, was between 1-3ppm. The ph was at 7.6 the past few days, but dropped to 6.8 today so I added some soda ash to try to bring the level back up. Am I right to think the chlorine levels are OK for now, since the free chlorine is so high compared to total chlorine? The pool does not have a chlorine odor; if I stick my nose about an inch above the water, I might be able to catch a whiff of chlorine, but even then..not really.

And lastly, if I want to shock my pool, how can I find out how much shock I'll need to add for the size pool I have? As I said, I have about 1600-1700 gallons of water in the pool and a 1000gph pump. Do I need to take a water sample to my local pool store in order to find out? I think I read on these forums that the pool calculator isn't very accurate for the Intex pools because of their shape!

Thanks for providing a forum where I can ask these questions!

 

[TizMe]

Welcome to the forum !!

Read in our Pool School. There is alot of good info there for you to read up on !

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

I'd go ahead and use the 1,700 gallons and use the pool calculator.

I think you should ditch the strips and get the cheapy 6-way HTH test kit from wallyworld or somewhere similar. That will be more accurate than the strips.

And I agree, if you do run into problems, it will be much simpler for you to just drain it and start over.

FYI Don't use the "dual action" HTH tabs, they contain copper.

It will take a while for your CYA to get too high. If you do need to boost your chlorine levels, use liquid chlorine or bleach.

Save the dichlor - there may be a time for it, just not yet.

Yes, read Pool School - alot of useful info there. Then if you still have any other q's post back here.

 

[PaulR]

First of all, I have a floating chlorine dispenser with trichlor 1" tablets. I have the dispenser open about half-way right now to release the chlorine in the pool. I also have a small container of dichlor granules which I have not used. Can I stick with the floating dispenser? I read that CYA might one day cause algae out of the blue, but the pool is small enough to drain and refill if that happens.

The trichlor tabs will be okay for 2-3 months, after that the CYA gets high enough that it's hard to maintain a sufficient chlorine level. I mean, it will look okay on the tests, but the excessive CYA will mean that nearly all of it is bound up instead of killing off the algae. So, CYA doesn't "cause" algae, but too much of it is like having almost no chlorine, and that is what lets the algae grow.

And lastly, if I want to shock my pool, how can I find out how much shock I'll need to add for the size pool I have? As I said, I have about 1600-1700 gallons of water in the pool and a 1000gph pump. Do I need to take a water sample to my local pool store in order to find out? I think I read on these forums that the pool calculator isn't very accurate for the Intex pools because of their shape!

The pool calculator isn't very good at calculating pool size for Intex pools. As long as you already know your gallons, it is perfectly good at calculating how much of what chems you want to add.
--paulr