New Water and no FC - Dont Want to Mess it Up!

[RUSigX]

Hello, I am a new pool owner and I know little about pool chemistry but I'm trying to learn. My pool is a 27,000 gallon concrete pool and has new water in it as of maybe 3 weeks ago. It's a SWG but since it's so late in the season we (the pool guy) decided to just make it a chlorine only pool until next spring at which time salt could be added and the system tested. I had a pool service come out and get the pool 'started' and in the bill the said they added the following:

Calcium Hardness Increaser - 20lbs
Total Alkalinity Increaser - 20lbs
Pool Season Algaecide 60 - 1 qt
PH Down - 3lbs
Conditioner - 8lbs
Pool Season 3-lb Shockwave
Pool Season 4-lb Chlorinating Concentrate

They left me with no chemicals and said they were out of chlorine tablets. They did leave me with an AquaChek test strip kit. I checked the water the other day using a strip and the PH, Alkalinity, and Stabilizer looked to be ok but FC was 0. So for starters I need a real test kit because I can't call the pool service out here at $75 an hour anymore, they burnt me up with that. What is the best kit to get, digital would be nice?

I went to the store last night and bought a big bucket of chlorine pucks but now I'm scared to use them. I'm afraid I'm going to accidentally raise my CYA or screw something up. Plus I don't want to open a 40lb bucket of pucks if I don't need them as they were expensive. Do I need to use the pucks, go buy liquid chlorine, pour in some Clorox? Please help, also would need an idea of the quantity to use. I've heard such bad things about CYA I don't want to accidentally raise it either.

Frustrated but trying, thank you!

 

[Bama Rambler]

The absolute best kit to get is the TF-100 from www.tftestkits.net . Bar none.

They raised your CH by 80 ppm.
Your pH by 2.57 and your TA by 84.
Then they lowered your pH .3 and your TA by 5.2.
Then they raised your CYA by 36 and that dropped your pH by .66
Then they added 26 ppm FC and raised your CH again by 18.
Then they raised your FC by another 10 ppm and raised your CYA by 10 ppm more and lowered your pH .4

So now you have about 45 ppm of CYA in your pool, and that means that you need about 6 ppm FC in the pool. That's about 2 large jugs of 8.25% bleach. I'd get that in there now.

 

[jcowart]

I had a pool service come out and get the pool 'started' and in the bill the said they added the following:

Calcium Hardness Increaser - 20lbs
Total Alkalinity Increaser - 20lbs
Pool Season Algaecide 60 - 1 qt
PH Down - 3lbs
Conditioner - 8lbs
Pool Season 3-lb Shockwave
Pool Season 4-lb Chlorinating Concentrate

bama hit the nail on the head.
First thing is get your self a good test kit. Taylor K-2006 or TF-100. They use the same testing chemicals. TF-100 will give you more test that you need. Refills are the same for both kits. Then read pool school.... top of every page on TFP site. Where are you located and how much longer is your season. Looking at your CYA, 10lbs of tabs will get you to about 75 but that's only recommended for a SWG. If you are going to wait then don't add any tabs and use liquid.

Also a salt water pool is a chlorine pool. It just generates it's chlorine.

 

[RUSigX]

Wow, great analysis and info! As far as what they really added I have no way to know that but above is what was on the bill. I have on hand two 121oz jugs of 8.25% Clorox and I'll dump it in there now. How long should I wait before taking a reading with the AquaCheck strip?

I am in NC and I would say we are getting very close to the end of the season now. Come spring I'll be adding salt (guessing 16 40lb bags or so for 27k gallons) and getting the SWG working.

I'm assuming both kits above are good for SWG pool? I'll go dump the Clorox in now, should I take back by $80 jug of pucks?

And again, thank you!!!!

 

[jcowart]

Wow, great analysis and info! As far as what they really added I have no way to know that but above is what was on the bill. I have on hand two 121oz jugs of 8.25% Clorox and I'll dump it in there now. How long should I wait before taking a reading with the AquaCheck strip?

I am in NC and I would say we are getting very close to the end of the season now. Come spring I'll be adding salt (guessing 16 40lb bags or so for 27k gallons) and getting the SWG working.

I'm assuming both kits above are good for SWG pool? I'll go dump the Clorox in now, should I take back by $80 jug of pucks?

And again, thank you!!!!

2 jugs will add 5.9 FC. On average with a manual balanced pool 2 ppm FC loss a day is good. Might keep that in mind till you get a good test kit. Yes they are both used for SWG pools. Also next time save some money and get house brand bleach non scent. It should say 8.25% on it. Most use walmart GV bleach.

EDIT: also take a look at http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html. Plug your numbers into the fields. 27000 not 27,000. Set your goals, source, and surface type in the bottom yellow box. Then your test numbers go in the left column and goal in the right. What to add is then generated. You can also see what different chemicals will do at the bottom with effects of adding chemicals.

 

[jblizzle]

I would recommend taking the pucks back if you can and using that money to order the TF-100 ... test strips are pretty bad, but generally you should wait about an hour after adding chemicals to test.

 

[RUSigX]

I'm in the process of ordering the TF-100 now ($76 including shipping). I added the two jugs of Clorox about an hour ago and I'll check the CF on a strip later today. I'll take the 40lb jug of tablets back and pick up some more wal-mart bleach. I purchased about 36lbs of baking soda the other day as well to have on hand. I think each bag is about 12lbs and it was only about $5 a bag so I figured why not. What other chemicals would you suggest I keep on hand besides bleach and baking soda to maintain the pool? I've heard if you keep everything in balance you don't need shock, etc. Would I need to purchase algaecide, stabilizer, etc?

 

[Bama Rambler]

Give us some results from the strips. Epsecially the pH.

If your TA isn't low you may not need the baking soda at all. The only thing you know that you're going to need is bleach. Wait until you get the good kit to buy anything else.

 

[RUSigX]

Here is what the strip is showing 3 hours after adding the 2 jugs of bleach. Chlorine looks much better now, before it was 0. The rest of the readings seem to look ok?

[attachment=0:3jnpau6t]IMG_0520.jpg[/attachment:3jnpau6t]

 

[jblizzle]

Ugh ... I have no idea how people can use these things ... it all looks like guessing to me :lol:

My guesses: pH 7.5 FC 2 TA 100 CYA 30-50
Anyone else got a guess?

The TF-100 will make this so much easier.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Taking those (with a grain of salt) You cna take the baking soda back and trade it for bleach. Lots of bleach.

Once you have the good test lit you will need to run a full set of tests and report the numbers.

 

[RUSigX]

Ugh is right, looking at the strip is terrible. I'd love to have something that gives me an exact number and hopefully the T-100 will help. I got it ordered today so I should have it pretty quickly. I will definitely return the baking soda and pucks.

The pool isn't used much; how much bleach do you think I'll be adding regularly until I turn this thing back to SWG in the spring? A large jug every few days for 27,000 gallons?

 

[jblizzle]

typically 2-3ppm per day, although lower in the winter.

That is almost one 121oz bottle of 8.25% bleach every day.

 

[Bama Rambler]

right now it's more about how much you'll add during the SLAM process once you start that. Since your pool was at zero FC you'll have to perform the SLAM process, but hopefully it'll be a quick one. Once you're past that, you'll be adding about 3 quarts of 8.25% per day. Or a little less.

 

[RUSigX]

Holy moly that's a lot of bleach...that's going to get pricey quick. I know Boat stands for bust out another thousand, I'm beginning to wonder what Pool stands for.

How long does this SLAM process go on for?

 

[jblizzle]

As long as it takes for you to pass the 3 criteria to stop (usually a few days to a few weeks). The 2-3ppm we are stating is only AFTER your pool is clear ... that is the maintenance dosages.

It is going to take a LOT more during the SLAM process.

 

[Smykowski]

...that's going to get pricey quick.

You would think so, but it's really not. If you do the math on a ppm basis, 1 FC from bleach is usually about the same as from other sources. It gets cheaper when you figure in the cost of other chemicals you also need if you use pucks/powder.

I have a 23K gallon above ground, and my bleach bill for a 4 month swim season was about $80 this year.

 

[RUSigX]

The pool is actually clear now and has never been cloudy or weird looking since it was filled a few weeks ago. Hopefully it won't take a lot of bleach since it doesn't seem to have gotten to far out of wack. I'm assuming I need to continue to test daily with the strips until the T-100 gets here?

 

[jblizzle]

I'm assuming I need to continue to test daily with the strips until the T-100 gets here?

If you want, but not sure what they are really telling you ...

 

[RUSigX]

Four days ago I had no test kit and only the strip kit that showed FC = 0 but water was still very clear.
Per advice I added two 121oz 8.25% bleach jugs the next day.
The next day I checked with the strip and it showed some FC so I added one 121oz 8.25% bleach jug yesterday.
This morning I checked water with the strip again and it showed better FC so I added half of one 121oz 8.25% bleach jug.
This evening I received the TFT Test Kit and was able to run the following tests.

PH = 7.7 maybe (hard to tell visually using the kit)
CC = 0 (as it stayed clear)
FC = 4.5ppm
TC = 4.5ppm
TA = 100
TH = ~180
CYA = Ran test 3 times with the following results - 37, 25, and 28.

As far as I can tell I ran all of the tests that I could with the kit. Again, I have a 27,000 gallon concrete pool in which I'm not currently using the SWG and pool has no salt in it. Any suggestions on next steps?