opening pool all levels low where to start

[daughtermoat]

OMG please help. I have a 24 ft round intex pool hols aprox 13,500 gallons water with intex .95 pump with 100 lb sand filter. Refilled this year with city water. ( had small tear to repair so drained and started new. Please I know I need a good test kit but for now I only have strips. I shocked the other day with Calcium hypochlorite but levels will not stay. I am guessing it is because I have a :
TA of 100
Total hardnes 100-150
Total Chlorine is about 100
Free chlorine
pretty much zero
Ph is no doubt belo 7.2
no stabilizer out in as of yet
I did put in 1 box of baking soda yesterday ( going sloooow)
but adding that made no numbers increase.
I do not know what to add first. My water is clear and I want it to stay that way! and calcuim hypochlorite (shock ) will not add calcium to the pool will it? I thought it was pretty much powered bleach. ( I know they use it at water treatment plants for city water)
Bleach was getting awfully hard for me to lift up and put in pool over the past year( getting old I guess)I do not want to add one thing as I know this works( used this method for years) but just do not know what to add first since I can NOT keep chlorine in it I thought I have to maybe add Borax first...just confused and frustrated THANK YOU to all on this site yo have been a huge help tp me for years

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

Yeah ... those numbers are pretty useless.

How can FC be 0 and TC (and thus CC) be 100??? That would pretty much be the highest number this forum has likely ever seen and would require tanker trucks of bleach to clear up.

So you can not maintain FC because you have no CYA ... the sun is breaking it down very fast. You need to get your CYA up to around 30ppm and then keep maintaining FC.

All the rest, TA, CH, pH are fine and do not matter at this point.

 

[daughtermoat]

Thank You! I will start with the cya then. I am sorry I did not mean 100 (that would be wonderful at this point if my chlorine was that high )it is at prettymuch 0 also. I just did not know if it was from no PH or if I needed cya up first so thank you again!

 

[Richard320]

pool-school/temporary_pool_guide

 

[jblizzle]

If your "ultra-accurate" strips {sorry could not resist}, have a minimum pH of 7.2, then you are right it could be lower and adding some borax to raise the pH would be a good idea. Do you happen to have a cheap drop kit to test pH and TC? That pH test is much better than the strips and the same thing that the recommended test kits come with.

But, realize, the pH is really independent of getting the CYA and FC in the pool, they do not really affect each other.

 

[duraleigh]

I would suggest you start in Pool School and read The ABC's of pool water chemistry to learn what needs to be tested and why it needs to be tested and what are the normal ranges. Reading that article is BASIC to begin clearing your pool.