New Pool Owner

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mpool

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Apr 9, 2013
51
Millington, Tennessee
Good Morning,

I just bought a house in Tennessee and it has an AGP 36'X54". I have never maintained a pool before and am looking for any help here on the forum. It is currently uncovered and drained below the skimmer and has allot of leaves in the bottom, the water is clear but obviously dirty. The pool also has the perma salt system used previously. My question is where do I start? Should I fill it with water run the filter and clean all the leaves out? What about using the perma salt system? I have been reading about the BBB method and it seems cheaper than buying all the chemicals required for the perma salt system. Any advice or pointers would be extremely helpful right now. Thank you.
 
Welcome to TFP.

I would order a good test kit and then I would scoop as much of the debris out as possible while I was waiting on it to arrive. Then fill it and get the pump running. While all that's going on I'd keep reading Pool School. I would forego the Permasalt and use bleach to begin with. Once you're comfortable with the pool you can decide if you want or need to chlorinate some other fashion (swg, pump, etc).
 
Just received my test kit yesterday. :party: And also had to order a new pump :cry: , should be here next week. I did some testing on my fill water and also mu pool to practice using my test kit. Here are the results. Please let me know if their are any areas of concern before I start filling my pool. Thank you.

Fill Water:
FC-1.5
PH-7.8
TA-100
CH-120

Pool Water
FC-0
CC-0
PH-7.0
TA-80
CH-100
CYA-0 (the black dot never disappeared)
 
mpool said:
I did some testing on my fill water and also mu pool to practice using my test kit.
Click to expand...
If you haven't filled the pool yet, what is the difference :) On here we call fill water the water that is going into the pool and pool water is water taken from a pool. On a fresh fill in vinyl that has had no chemicals added the results should be very similar other than the ph might be little higher (due to aeration) and any FC in the fill water will disappear really quick in the pool.

If the pool water is actually from the pool, then you numbers are great except you want to start adding chlorine and cya. Your ph is a little low, but I would check again tomorrow before raising it, and then I would only raise it up to ~7.4 for now.
 
You don't need to drain water, you can clean debris out, fill it up, run the filtration system and get at it.
You need to get some CYA in there right off the bat.

PoolCalculator.com is a must have tool for determining pool chem levels.
 
mpool said:
This is from my first post on this thread. I was posting those to see if I am using my test set correctlly and if I needed to drain water before I add water.
Click to expand...
Thanks for pointing that out...sorry about that :oops:

If the equipment is functioning, first I would get as much junk out as possible with a leaf rake, then fill it up to the middle of the skimmer, and then proceed with the shocking process at the same time you are starting to add cya to the pool. For the cya, I would shoot for ~30 ppm for now and I would put it in a sock and hang it in front of the return.

What type of filter do you have?
 
Usually it is best to test the pool water after it has circulated for an hour .... so hard to say how accurate you test was since the pump is broken. Filling it will also change some of the levels.

Wait for the pump, fill it, run it, retest it.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short ;)
 

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I am ready to go!! I found all my chemicals at Walmart. So far I have $150 in chemicals and test kit. This is only a third of what I would have had to pay to get started with the existing perma salt system. I am not taking in account the pump and valve I had to purchase cause either way I would of had to buy those components no matter which way I went. Once I get my pump and filter going I will post a new set of test results. I am excited about this BBB method and can't wait to post pics of my pool water. Thank you to everyone who has given me help and advice so far, I am sure I will need more.
 
Well, I can tell you right off that you will not need the baking soda. That raises TA and your previous numbers are fine.

Borax raises pH, this also may never be needed as you may need muriatic acid to lower the pH.

The other 2 will certainly be needed.
 
Well I finally got my new pump installed, and I am running the pump for the last hour or so while the pool fill the rest of the way up. :party: I have a dual return and there seems to be no allot of pressure comming from the return. What is the normal return pressure supposed to be? I will post some test results tonight after my pump/filter runs a little while longer.
 
Well the filter may be dirty or the floor drain/ skimmer could be plugged resulting in low flow.

There is not really a "normal", just depends on you setup.

What pressure reading do you have on the filter?
 

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