About to use tf100 for first time!!

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seth9180

Active member
Jul 5, 2017
31
ohio
Hello All!
First post here. I've been reading and learning a lot here within the last couple weeks. This site has a lot of great info. But a quick bio...Moved into my house 7 years ago with an IG vinyl 15k gal. pool. Never messed with testing chemicals. Just thought adding pucks in the dispenser was good enough (I know, that's probably like nails on a chalk board). So fast forward to this year. Opened the pool up only to discover the liner had a hole in it. Went through the process of measuring ALL angles and ordered a liner. Liner arrived and myself and a few friends installed it on June 25th (wasn't too bad). Was roaming the internet to see what kind of chemicals I should add to a newly filled (city water) pool and fell upon this site. Got to reading a lot of info and wondered why I hadn't found this site years ago :confused:. Kinda mad at myself for neglecting my pool this whole time! Anywhooo... so since joining this site I have ordered my tf100 kit with the speedstir. Which should be delivered today. I'm a little worried because the pool was filled on june 25th and has only had a little bit of pucks and bleach added to it. Nothing else. The reason I say a little bit of pucks is because ive learned that pucks add CYA which can be bad. So I pretty much turned the puck dispenser off. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have all the readings from the test and maybe someone can give me some suggestions from the readings.
 
Hello and welcome to TFP! :wave: Your pool water shouldn't have a crazy high CYA after just a couple weeks, but we'll watch for those test results. When you do post them, please post as follows:
FC
CC
CYA
PH
TA
CH

Congrats on the new test kit w/ speedstir. You'll love it. Have a nice afternoon.
 
Welcome to TFP!

Since you have a TF-100 on the way here is the template for your first test results post:

make sure pump running 30mins-2 hours before testing water sample taken

FC - Free Chlorine tested using 10mL water sample/instructions/multiplier - add one "extra" drop to be sure water can't get clearer, then don't count that extra drop in results if it caused no change
CC - Combined Chlorine done on the same water after FC test, using same 10mL multiplier
pH - straightforward
TA - Total Alkalinity - until the color change is complete and does not get darker (again subtract the extra drop that caused no further darkening)
CH - Calcium Hardness (same gets no darker, minus extra)
CYA - Cyanuric Acid (stabilizer) (remember, you can take the sample when it is cloudy but the dot measurement test must be done when it is bright and sunny, test at wasit, in your own shadow, glancing down, not staring - and you can pour the water back from test tube into dropper bottle and remeasure the dot test as many times as you want, taking average, and always round up to next multiple of 10)

That's about it! Here are three links for advanced test kit mastery: videos of some of the tests being performed here, instructions and frequency of testing here, and extended testing instructions (really helped me) available here.

Your first shopping list depends on test results, and we can help with that, but here are the links you'll need to build your personalized list, just so I can easily click them after you post :)
recommended-levels recommended-chemicals how-to-chlorinate [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA] PoolMath
 
seth9180 said:
Hopefully those aren't beyond fixing lol.
Click to expand...
You've actually got a pretty decent starting place.! Remember - bleach and muriatic acid need 20-30 mins apart between additions of each other.
Shopping list if you don't have any of these already:
4-8x (or more if you have a cool dark place to store) 8.25% any brand/generic, fresh dated bleach, no splashless, no scents (10-12.5% pool chlorine great too)
2 gals of 31% Muriatic Acid (try not to buy/transport in same trip as bleach, to be extra safe - and store in different places - don't store MA near important metals)
4lb tub of stabilizer (90-100% cya)

Walmart is great for great value bleach or 1 gal 10% pool chlorine and hth stabilizer in 4lb tub
hardware stores and/or pool stores usually have the good 31% muriatic acid (not less fumes or 15% kind)

dry acid is also fine but costs a lot more and is more annoying to add
muriatic acid is the best if you're responsible enough to handle and store and transport

Good news:
you don't need any other chemicals at all! and those are all very affordable!
 
I would get bleach in there quickly. If it were me I would start with an elevated amount, close to slam level. The only chlorine you have left is CC, which means its working on something...
 

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But I should get my pH and CYA under check first correct? Then move to SLAM. I can see the bottom of the deep end perfectly. I had a SLIGHT bit of green in the pool a few days ago but added bleach at night and brushed the pool. Seems that all the green is gone for now. Should I still slam?
 
I would increase FC to slam level, add acid to reduce pH to 7.4, (not within 30 min of the chlorine) and add CYA to get to 30... I wouldn't go higher than 30 until it is clear about how long you may need to slam.

I would run pump 24/7, brush several times and do an ONCL test and see if you loose FC overnight...
 
Good posts everyone!

To recap their posts in the form of a timeline:
First use PoolMath for FC 0 to 3, add bleach in front of return, pour slowly
Then start 20-30 min stopwatch
meanwhile use PoolMath for PH 8.2 to 7.2 calculation
After 20-30 mins has passed, retest FC using 10mL sample, skip CC test. If FC is 1-4, good enough for now move on - but if FC is 0, add same bleach again

If FC is more than 4, we might have a pool size gallons error and need to be extra cautious on acid calculations...
 
So I've added the bleach (waited 25 min) then added the MA. I have about 15 minutes left before 30 minutes is up from when I added the MA. So my next step is to test for FC. If all is good should I add the sock of stabilizer to raise my cya?
 
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So I competed my FC test...6.5. 13 drops. But I think my mistake. Someone mentioned add bleach to get up to 5ppm. So I went into the calculator and put the now=0 and the target=5. Which came out to 112 oz. I went ahead and added the whole gallon thinking it's close enough. Not sure if I did the whole 5ppm correct or if I should have done what someone said later on and calculated FC 0 to 3. And only used half the bleach that I did....help!
 

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