First Nice n' Easy Opening! Chem Levels Included!

[garybtru]

Early last Summer I opened the pool myself (a local pool co. closed it the previous Fall). The water was green and nasty and I was just getting started with TFP. I dunno if it's just the TFP method or that I waited too long to open the pool last year, but I just took off the safety cover, got the pump back together and the sand filter up and running this weekend, and WOW what a difference!

I mean there are still some leaves, a handful of worms, and what looks like some dead algae down there, but I vacuumed that to waste and overall it's still 100x better than the green nastiness last year!

Here are my levels:

FC=4.5
CC=0
ph=~7.3
TA=60
CH=50
CYA=20

What should I adjust first? Obvs my CYA should be about 50 right? And TA about 100 (12 lbs of baking soda?? Yikes!) Is there any specific order I should do stuff in?

Thanks!
-Gary

 

[Texas Splash]

Hi Gary and congrats on what appears to be a nice spring opening. You'll probably still want to do a SLAM to be safe. Bump the CYA only to about 30 and increase the FC to 12 until you are sure you've passed all 3 SLAM criteria. Based on how tings look, your SLAM should not take a very long time, but still make sure to follow all the SLAM details (link below). After the SLAM, you can increase the CYA and FC to whatever you need for your area. I'd leave the TA alone for now. More than likely it (and pH) will climb soon enough on its own. Have a good day.

 

[garybtru]

Hi Gary and congrats on what appears to be a nice spring opening. You'll probably still want to do a SLAM to be safe. Bump the CYA only to about 30 and increase the FC to 12 until you are sure you've passed all 3 SLAM criteria. Based on how tings look, your SLAM should not take a very long time, but still make sure to follow all the SLAM details (link below). After the SLAM, you can increase the CYA and FC to whatever you need for your area. I'd leave the TA alone for now. More than likely it (and pH) will climb soon enough on its own. Have a good day.

Hey man, thanks a bunch! Ah-ha ok, good call. After draining the pool about 4 times last summer and re-filling (to lower my CYA) I feel like I'll probably always be worried about adding too much stabilizer, lol.

Cool, good to know re: the TA and pH. I read that adding baking soda will increase pH "a little" but adding 12 pounds seems like it might increase it a lot and then I'd have to bust out the muriatic acid to lower the pH. Hate that stuff!