When is it safe to swim after chemicals have been added

[bjthon]

This morning I started chlorine for the first time. Then I added some stablizer. Can't find an answer to this question: How long must my grandson wait to swim after these chemicals have been added?

I love TFP! What a terrific place to get needed information! Thank you all so much!

Billie

 

[woodyp]

If you just "started" chlorine and didn't shock it...........give it a half hour and GO!............CYA doesn't matter.

 

[jblizzle]

It is safe to swim up to the shock FC level for your CYA level.

What CYA did you have before you added stabilizer?
What was your target CYA?
How much chlorine did you add ... to what target level?

 

[bjthon]

It is safe to swim up to the shock FC level for your CYA level.

What CYA did you have before you added stabilizer? Zero
What was your target CYA? 35
How much chlorine did you add ... to what target level? 5

Hi Jason - First spring to use pool. I was talked into EZPool by pool people but realized I would have to come out of retirement to afford it. So, today was the day to start BBB.

I checked my pH - 7.5
T/A - 80
CH - 310

I added 128 oz of bleach. An hour later I added 6# of Stabilizer. I checked for FC an hour or two later and it was 1.2. So, I added 128 oz more. I just checked it again, and it's back to ZERO!

And:

pH - 6.8
T/A - 70
CH - 270

HELP!!!! Was it the stabilzer that changed these things?

I've read that I'm supposed to take a deep breath and tackle one thing at a time. However, I'm not sure which to tackle because one thing changes another!

It's 88 degrees here in NC and the sun seems to like my chlorine! Any help would be appreciated.

 

[XsAllOverIt]

My guess is you have CC in your pool and will have to put the pool up to shock level until you rid the pool of CC. You will have to add chlorine regularly to keep it at shock level. Pool School has the details about the shocking process.

 

[bjthon]

My guess is you have CC in your pool and will have to put the pool up to shock level until you rid the pool of CC. You will have to add chlorine regularly to keep it at shock level. Pool School has the details about the shocking process.

Thank you for your guess. When the pool store analyzed my water on April 5, it had zero CC. Guess I'll have them do it again.

This pool a new, all closed all winter and has only a few people in it since opened this spring. I'm mystified where the CC could have come from. I looked at the old tests and CC has always been zero.

Does anyone else have a suggestion?

 

[jblizzle]

How does the water look?
Do you have your own test kit? Pool store tests are notoriously wrong.

CYA will take up to a week to show up in the test. For a 26k pool, 6# should give a CYA rise of 28ppm and will lower pH by 0.51 according to the poolcalculator.com. Did you use it to determine the amount to add?
Because 128 oz of 6% bleach will only raise FC by 2.4ppm ... so that is not enough bleach to be adding.

So, the CYA is probably why your pH dropped. Do you have a method to aerate the pool as that would raise the pH?

Hard to say if the drop in FC is just due to the CYA not being effective yet or if there is some organic in the pool consuming it.

Might be a good idea to follow Shocking Your Pool to make sure you start off on a good footing for the season.

 

[linen]

Jbliz beat me to it again ...here are my thoughts:

Probably the best thing you can do for your pool is get yourself a good test kit. Running to the pool store is not only inefficient, but their results are often times incorrect. Just because you have no CC showing up in you test does not mean that you do not have something organic growing in your pool. With that said, since you just put cya in the pool (I am assuming you used the granular type?), it is not protecting your chlorine yet, so if you pool has a lot of sun that could account for some of the loss.

How does your water look?

Here is the link about appropriate test kits: http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/pool_test_kit_comparison...I like the tf-100

 

[PSW]

I checked my pH - 7.5
T/A - 80
CH - 310

I added 128 oz of bleach. An hour later I added 6# of Stabilizer. I checked for FC an hour or two later and it was 1.2. So, I added 128 oz more. I just checked it again, and it's back to ZERO!

And:

pH - 6.8
T/A - 70
CH - 270

Were both of these tests from a pool store? Like Jason said, pool stores tend to be inaccurate.
The first thing I noticed was your CH. According to your results, CH went down by by 40. This really would only happen unless you replace water.
I would highly recommend buying a good kit (like TF-100 from tftestkits.net), and learning to test water chemistry yourself. Once you get accurate readings, we can help you decide how to proceed. Like it says above, you should plan to shock your pool if you have more than one ppm of CC. Learning your current CYA will help you (and us) get the correct shock FC levels.

 

[supertune]

Hi bjthon and welcome to TFP!
I had the same problems with pool store being different every week and adding this, then need to do that this week.
I was never comfortable in that I felt like I had any control to what was going to happen the next week.
I Google'd water chemistry and landed here just over a year ago. After reading here I realized I would need my own testing kit. I did end up buying the TF100 kit, was the best value for me as I wanted a little larger kit than the K-2006 kit offered so I could test more to learn more about what I was doing.
I posted my test results here and got a overwhelming amount of replies and help as a newbie.
As I followed the methods taught here, my pool was perfect and well under control, so much I even had a few months it cost me under $15 per month! (except a broken $20 hose & elec)
A Good testing kit is the Snap-on tool of this trade, it's clearly the best tool in my toolbox to fix and prevent any water problems I have so the grand kids can swim anytime except naptime, dinnertime and bedtime!

Chuck