Balancing Order

[baudilus]

I sure this has been asked before, but I'm curious, and pose the following hypothetical situation. All of your test numbers are out of whack. What do you handle first?

I ask this question partly because I fully expect my numbers to be very wrong (given I was using the pool store as my tester, and I was taking water from the very top of the pool), but mostly because I know adding some chemicals to address one issue often after another (such as adding CYA affecting TA).

(Some hypothetical numbers)

10,000 gallons, vinyl, SWG

FC: 1
CC: 0
pH: 8.0
TA: 150
CYA: 10
CH: 30
Salt: 2200
Borate: 10
Temp: 62 degrees F

Given my limited knowledge but extensive reading here over the past few weeks, I'd do things in the following order:

Lower pH (which will also lower TA)
Add Chlorine (using Cal-Hypo)
Add CYA
Lower TA (if necessary)
Add Calcium
Add Salt
Add Borates

Testing in between steps, of course. How does that sit?

 

[257WbyMag]

That sounds pretty good to me.

CYA addition shouldn't affect your TA, but it can lower your pH a little bit. Also, maintaining a certain calcium hardness in a vinyl lined pool isn't quite as important as it would be for a concrete pool, but you can do it. And if you are using cal-hypo to chlorinate, be very watchful about your CH levels as cal-hypo can run up the CH pretty quickly. Not so important from a liner perspective but if the CH gets very high, it could make problems for your other equipment (heater) from a scaling perspective.

 

[JasonLion]

As a general rule, you want to adjust PH and FC right away, then start working on TA, CYA, and salt, then CH, then borates. Most of the time the adjustments can actually be done in any order, but there are a few cases where things are interdependent.
Here are the most important interactions:

• You don't want to add CH on the same day as doing anything which raises the PH.[/*:m:2yc4mghz]
• If TA is below 50, adjust TA before adjusting PH, unless PH is also really low in which case raise both at once with soda ash/washing soda.[/*:m:2yc4mghz]
• Insure that CYA is between 30 and 80 before shocking the pool.[/*:m:2yc4mghz]