Just opened and want to convert

[carrieinMD]

Hi all, I've read lots of posts so pardon me if I ask any questions with very obvious answers--just tell me it's been answered and I'll find it.
We've just opened our pool and want to convert from Baquacil to BBB (I convinced my husband yesterday!). Question is--we're going out of town for about 5 days, from Friday to Tuesday, and I'm wondering if we start now or next week. I'll have to get a test kit but won't have it until Tuesday or so. Obviously we didn't plan very well because when we opened it, we didn't intend to convert. Such is life!
Pool water is pretty green but we can see the bottom. We ended up with a hole in our cover so there's some debris too.
And background--we're in Maryland, pool is 20 by 40 with a plastic liner, and we bought the house last year. Pool's probably about 15 years old. Did I miss anything?
Oh one more question--and I probably CAN find this elsewhere--is Aldi bleach ok? Are BBB method proponents bleach snobs?
Thanks in advance.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

Aldi bleach is fine. There have been several good reports from people buying at Aldi and their prices have been quite good historically.

If you can get someone to add bleach even just once a day while you are away, I would go ahead and start the conversion now. If there is no way for any chlorine additions while you are away, it might be better to wait until afterwards. Though really, you could go either way in either case.

Jason

 

[carrieinMD]

Thanks Jason! We're not far from you--we're in southern AA county. I'll see if one of the neighbors can help out in exchange for pool use when the weather warms up. At Aldi yesterday the bleach was $1.19--hard to beat. I've seen warning about dollar store bleach here so I know to avoid that.
Can we start before we have the test kit?

 

[JasonLion]

You don't need the full test kit to get started. You can do the first couple of days with only a simple OTO chlorine and PH test kit. Those are fairly easy to find locally. For the first one to four days chlorine will get used up almost as quickly as you can add it. During that period you can use the simple OTO test to make sure that the chlorine levels have fallen to near zero before you add more chlorine. In the second phase, once you start getting chlorine readings above zero, you really need a FAS-DPD chlorine test, which is difficult to find locally for most people.