nadjarea

[nadjarea]

Hello! We are brand new pool owners and pretty clueless on what we need to do! So far, sifting through some of the posts I have some good ideas. We have a 15' x 48" Intex metal sided round pool with a SWG.

We have four kiddos from 9 down to 3 and living in Florida we must have a pool!!

I would be interested if someone could point us in the right direction for balancing our chemical levels, I was kind of having a hard time finding what exactly we really need to do with a SWG. Last night was the first night of running our SWG and I took the water to a pool store to have it tested this morning because the test strips Intex gave us were wonky, at least to me.

It's nice to meet you all and thanks so much for such and informative board. I think you've just made my life a whole lot easier.

[duraleigh]

Hey nadjarea,

Welcome to the forum. You are off to a good start nixing the test strips. For the most part they are horrible. Post a set of test results from the pool store (don't buy anything) and let us comment on the condition of your water currently. You may need to add very little but we'll see.

What does your water look like?

What have you put in it so far?

[The Mermaid Queen]

Welcome to TFP!

[nadjarea]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Here are the results, the water is clear as of today. Filled it Monday. We put 110 pounds of pool salt in on Tuesday night. Ran the SWG for 3 hours last night and got this:

chlorine 0
pH 8.0
salt 3100
T.D.S 4400
Stabilizer 0
Hardness 260
Alkalinity 170

Sorry, I haven't learned all the abbreviations yet...give me time

[dmanb2b]

chlorine 0 = add 48oz of 6% bleach or 1 quart plus 2 cups...this will raise your FC to 5...then run the swg and see if you can maintain that FC level

pH 8.0 = add 12 oz of muratic acid or roughly 1.5 cups...this will bring your PH to 7.2 range which is OK given your somewhat high TA...you could also use 1lb of dry acid or powdered PH minus...easier to handle...if you use the muratic acid...please be very careful...use gloves/saftey gogles and try not to breath in the fumes
salt 3100 = OK
T.D.S 4400
Stabilizer 0 = Add 2lbs of CYA aka stabilizer/conditioner...this will bring your CYA level to 50-60ppm range...just a little shy of recommended levels for swg pools, but that OK...we can fine tune later...CYA will help you maintain FC
Hardness 260 = OK...just make sure to keep your ph between 7.2 and 7.8 (MAX)
Alkalinity 170 = a little high, but will come down as you add the acid or PH minus


remeber to keep your pump running after adding chems and always wait an hour with the pump running between each chemical addition...this is especially important with muratic acid and chlorine...THEY do not mix well so add the bleach first...wait an hour...then add the muratic acid...follow the same protocal anytime you add chemicals to your pool. Hope this helps

[dmanb2b]

also...after your done adding ...remember to check all you numbers before swimming in the pool...just to be safe and make sure your level are where they are supposed to be...we don;t like stingy eyes

[nadjarea]

Thank you so much!!!! That really helps a lot. The pool store here gave me all kinds of recommendations, I didn't buy anything today because I wanted to be sure I knew what was really going on.