Drained and Filled - now what?

[tunacan]

Hi All,

First off, thank you to everyone who contributed to pool school, etc. I've been an oblivious pool owner for almost 7 years. I just listened to the advice of a Kemtek delivery guy at Home Depot - tabs, bags of shock, etc. Considering I have a 30 year old pool in need of a replaster, as well as 100 degree summers here in socal, my pool has been a huge maintenance project for several summers. To compound my problems the pump finally gave out last fall, and I decided to pretend my green swamp didn't exist until about a month ago. After spending a significant amount of time reading through the forums, and purchasing a Taylor k-2006c test kit, I'm excited for a new beginning this summer. Some real quick details:

* I replaced my old Pentax/Purex filter and pump with a Hayward DE bump filter and 1hp Hayward Superpump. PVC can be fun.
* I balanced the PH and used 6% bleach to super chlorinate the pool.
* I used my leaf rake, ran the filter constantly, vacuumed, backwashed everyday, and about 10 days later I had a blue pool
* Unfortunately, my first run of tests did not go well:
PH: 7.4
TA: 150
CH: 460
CYA: 190 (as a newbie I realize I may have erred on the high side)
FC: 1.2
CC: 0
TC: 1.2
* The CYA level was not a huge surprise considering I had been dumping bag after bag of "Shock" as well as having two tab floaters constantly circulating in the pool. As you can imagine algae has been my worst enemy over the years. As such, I had a lot of algae staining and it looked like some calcium scaling on the plaster as well.
* Since a full drain was almost necessary, I decided to acid wash the pool myself (I realize this is not always recommended as a DIY job but I'm pretty experienced with my hands and felt comfortable with the proper chemical protection).
* another bonus was that I was able to get a fairly accurate estimate of the size of my pool (measuring the flow rate times minutes until full)

NEW WATER
* all I've done thus far is breakdown and cleaned the filter, powered it up, and added DE.
* here is my first run of test results:
PH: 8.0
TA: 120
CH: 130
CYA: 0
FC: 1.0 (I was surprised I got any reading at all from tap water)
CC: 1.0 (after measuring FC, my solution turned back to pink, I followed the instructions for CC and got a reading of 1.0 - this doesn't make sense to me - do I really have cc?)
TC: 1.0

So where do I go from here? If I remember correctly, I need to adjust PH first. Then what? I used the pool calculator which determined the following adjustments:

PH: 24oz 31.5% muriatic acid
TA: nothing
CH: 285oz by weight of calcium chloride (where do I get this?)
CYA: 79 oz stabilizer
FC: 92 oz 6% bleach

So my questions are as follows:

1. Is there a specific order and timeline for adding and measuring chemicals?
2. I've heard of the "sock method" for adding CYA. I've yet to research and would appreciate any tips.
3. Why is my TA so high from the tap? From what I've read, the target is 70-90+. By "90+" does that mean 120 is ok?
4. Do I really have CC of 1.0ppm in my water from the tap? I was also surprised to get any chlorine reading at all considering it's drinking water.
5. Is there any need for an OTO test going forward? If so, do I just use whatever they have at Home Depot or is there something better out there?
6. Finally, I just purchased a Polaris 9300 cleaning robot - very exciting. Should I wait to balance my water before using it? Could there be any harm in dropping it in today? Really, I'm just anxious to watch it cruise around the pool.

This is my first post after over a month of reading lots of great stuff on this forum. Hopefully I wasn't too long winded, but I figured the more info the better. I'd appreciate any and all help. Thank you in advance!


Ron

 

[JasonLion]

1) It varies depending on what needs to be done and how they interact. Your specific situation doesn't require any special ordering.
2) Pour the CYA into a sock, and put the sock in the skimmer.
3) Presumably your tap water has a TA of 120, which is common enough. The + does mean that you probably don't need to worry about it very much. As long as PH isn't rising quickly enough to be annoying you shouldn't have to worry about TA very much.
4) Having some CC from the tap is common. There is a form of CC which is a disinfectant that some water companies use.
5) Having a FAS-DPD chlorine test is important. OTO can be handy now and then and is inexpensive, but many people never use it.
6) The Polaris should be fine to use right away.

By the by, as long as you don't have any CYA, add 2 ppm of chlorine each evening. Starting the day after you add CYA start adding chlorine normally (to reach your appropriate target level based on your CYA level).

 

[tunacan]

Jason,

Thank you for your reply. I've also learned a lot from your posts on other topics - much, much, much appreciated!!!

Some quick follow ups if you have a moment:

1. Thanks - that gives me confidence to move forward today.
2. So put the 79oz of stabilizer in a sock, tie the top into a knot, and just throw it in my skimmer basket? Dumb question, but better than a dumb action
3. Thanks - I'll keep an eye out for PH fluctuations.
4. Ok - makes sense
5. OK, I'll just use my Taylor k-2006c kit to test FC and PH then
6. Thanks - new toy!

I'm going to add CYA in a sock within the hour, and I'll add 2 ppm chlorine tonight as you instructed. By tomorrow night, can I just add the recommend amount of bleach to get to 4ppm FC or do I need to continue to add 2ppm per night until CYA reads 40ppm?

Finally, I wasn't sure how to calculate exactly 2ppm of chlorine so I used the pool calculator and plugged in FC = 0 target = 2ppm. That gave me a recommendation of 61oz of 6% bleach. Did I go about that correctly?

Thanks a million, Jason!


Ron