Need Help balancing water

RiFisher · May 31, 2011

I am a little confused on what to do first with my pool water. I have been working on opening for about 2 weeks and have most of the crud off the bottom. Need advice on how to get the water balanced. I have the TF 100 from last year and these are my test results from this morning.
Fc 3
CC .5
PH 6.8
TA 50
CYA 35

My CYA was 0 to start with and I have added about 7 pounds of CYA over the last week.

RobbieH · May 31, 2011

Don't add anymore CYA. You may find it continuing to go up for a few more days.

Your pH is low. Get that up with some borax before tackling the rest. Once it's in range, the other numbers can be worked on. I'd tick the FC up a bit, but you should be good there either way. Keep in mind if that was a morning reading, it's going to drop during the day. The reason I mention that is if I took that reading in the morning, I'd bee adding some chlorine to get through the day, at that CYA level I'd add enough to get it to around 5 or 6 using the Pool Calculator to help me figure the amount to add.

RiFisher · May 31, 2011

Borax is twenty mule team borax correct?

Acording to the pool calculator if my target ph is 7.5 I need to add 170 oz of borax.
Also the pool calculator says I need 305 oz of baking soda to reach a target TA of 100.
I have a fifty pound bag of sodium bicarbonate left from 2 years ago is this the same as baking soda.

Sorry for all the questions. I had a pretty good understanding of pool chemistry last september but need a little help to get started this year.

Thanks in advance.

RobbieH · May 31, 2011

Yep, that's the stuff!

Get the pH in order first, then retest. You don't want the pH being off throwing your test results then causing you to add stuff you don't need.

Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Wow, 50 lbs is a lot!

duraleigh · May 31, 2011

RiFisher,

Raise your pH, let it circulate for a good hour or so, and then test your TA again before dosing. You will find the borax will raise your TA somewhat.

Butterfly · May 31, 2011

Why are you targeting a TA of 100? I suggest you aim for 60 or 70 for now.

See Recommended Levels in Pool School.

frustratedpoolmom · May 31, 2011

The only reason you would want your TA 100-120 is if say you were going to use tablets for chlorination.

RiFisher · May 31, 2011

OK Thanks for correcting me on the TA I'll change my target to 60 to 70. I looked at the Recommended Levels and see where I went wrong.
I used the BBB method last year and had very few problems after I got the water balanced and the pool cleaned up. I think poolmom helped me last year. This years start up has been the easiest and least expencive in the 10 years I have had the pool.

I put 2 boxes of borax in the pool about 8:30 and will check my numbers again in the morning.

Thanks for the help and please correct me if I am wrong.