Good morning from Long Island

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Anron4

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May 27, 2015
15
Bayshore, NY
Good morning!! My name is Anne and I have a 24 foot round above ground pool. I'm a recovering pool store shopper:D...
Finally got my pool filled. Had a bad leak over the winter so we finished emptying it, cleaned it up all nice and shiny, added a patch or two and 3 days later its holding water. Now for the fun part.
My husband was the normal tester, but I've recently started working from home while he works long hours. We have a hth 6 way test kit from last year so that's what I'm using to test. Unfortunately Chemistry isn't my strong suit! I did check the chlorine level and the ph, because they each had one bottle to test with. Not sure about alkalinity because there are two bottles. One says alkalinity indicator the other says alkalinity titrant. There is also a bottle for cyanuric acid reagent as well as a hardness titrant bottle. I did not touch any of these 4.
My PH level is 6.8 and my chlorine level seems to be between .5-1. I know I need to add bleach. I'm pretty sure I need some borax.
I'm hesitant to add anything because I didn't test for alkalinity.
If I add a gallon of bleach will I bomb before I start? Do I need more then a gallon? Should I figure out which alkalinity bottle I should use? Should I wait until night time to add anything? Pressure pressure.....decisions decisions!

If anyone has any words of wisdom I'm happy to read them!
Have a wonderful Day!!!!
Anne
 
Welcome to TFP!!:handwave:

Well, you have a lot to learn and have come to the right place. First, I'm going to warn you - we do things differently than the pool stores, or even your neighbors with a pool.

I'm guessing that your 24' round is 4 feet deep which is about 13,500 gallons.

At this point with fresh water you have no stabilizer in the water, so you really don't want that much bleach. 20 - 30 ounces is all. But, the sun is going to consume it quickly. So you first order of business is to go to WalMart and pick up a bottle of Stabilizer, which is also know as CYA.

Now, here is the place you begin to learn to care for the pool (I used it to figure your volume). Use Pool Math (there is a link at the top of every page) to figure out how much CYA you need to add to your pool to go from 0 to 30. You will put that much in an old sock (I'm sure you r husband has an old one you don't want him to wear anymore) and hang it in front of the return. You will increase the CYA later, but let's not add too much so start there.

Your test kit is going to work for the short term, but we really would like to see you get one of the recommended test kits. To effectively practice the TFPC methods, the FAS/DPD chlorine test is essential. All the kits on the list contain that test while very few other kits do. The kits sold at the pool store generally won't won't cut it, but be careful pool store employees are known to say “it's the same thing”. Generally it's not!

I really don't want to load you up with links and reading so quickly, but how much Pool School have you read? Start with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to Chlorinate Your Pool
 
Welcome to the forum!

Also, check out the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]. This is how you will dose your pool with chlorine from now on. If you understand the relationship between CYA and chlorine, you will eliminate the majority of pool water issues that plague many pool owners that have not adopted our methods.
 
Good morning Tim, thanks for the quick response. It's a 52 inch pool. Probably around 4 feet of water. I have read pool school. 3 times. I'm not retaining it!! I'm sure its a mental block from 8th grade science when I added two funky chemicals to a beaker and made smoke. The teacher was very unhappy the students mocked me and I failed Science. Summer school stinks!!!!!!!

The plan is to update the tester kit this week.
Stabilizer will be purchased this afternoon.
Throwing in a few ounces of bleach just to give myself something to do until I go pick up stabilizer.
Have a Great day!
 
Anron4 said:
Good morning Tim, thanks for the quick response. It's a 52 inch pool. Probably around 4 feet of water. I have read pool school. 3 times. I'm not retaining it!! I'm sure its a mental block from 8th grade science when I added two funky chemicals to a beaker and made smoke. The teacher was very unhappy the students mocked me and I failed Science. Summer school stinks!!!!!!!

The plan is to update the tester kit this week.
Stabilizer will be purchased this afternoon.
Throwing in a few ounces of bleach just to give myself something to do until I go pick up stabilizer.
Have a Great day!
Click to expand...
The one thing we want to avoid is algae at this point. A little bleach a few times a day with the pump running. I forgot to ask and I didn't see you say the pump/filter were running/working. It is?
 
Thank you Texas Splash! I will try to relax. My husband started doing things the TFP way last year after we were advised to add 17 pounds of soda ash to our pool by the pool store and spend 3 weeks and HUNDREDS of dollars on chemicals, constant filter running and of course draining and refilling in the end. I was a great cheerleader last year. Now that I'm home a lot I want to take the work off of his overworked shoulders. The worse that could happen is I blow up the neighborhood, right?;)
 
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