First test kit arrives tomorrow - what chemicals do I need to have on hand?

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Yep, same here. Shopping trip: 8 gallons 8.25% bleach from HEB, $2.94/gallon. 2 gallons 31% muriatic acid from Home Depot, $12. 8lbs stabilizer from Leslies, $45. A hard time from dumb Leslies guy about how I should bring in a water sample so they can plug it into their machine and make it idiot proof and oh I should buy some algae cleaner or and I should buy some sparkle blue magic liquid or something and oh and what is troublefreepool is that on the internet and oops I forgot to plug in your rewards number despite asking for it 3 times. Aaaaargh I hate going into pool stores now. :)
 
yubbie2 said:
Yep, same here. Shopping trip: 8 gallons 8.25% bleach from HEB, $2.94/gallon. 2 gallons 31% muriatic acid from Home Depot, $12. 8lbs stabilizer from Leslies, $45. A hard time from dumb Leslies guy about how I should bring in a water sample so they can plug it into their machine and make it idiot proof and oh I should buy some algae cleaner or and I should buy some sparkle blue magic liquid or something and oh and what is troublefreepool is that on the internet and oops I forgot to plug in your rewards number despite asking for it 3 times. Aaaaargh I hate going into pool stores now. :)
Click to expand...

Hahaha! Last time I went there they Insisted I bring a water sample in. When I asked how they gave me a free bottle to bring my water in for testing... I now use that to collect my pool water and test using my Taylor 2006c kit :). Guess the pool store was good for something haha
 
I've lowered the pH with Muriatic acid, and I put in the 5-something pounds of CYA last night in a few socks. It's 85%-90% dissolved today. The CYA test isn't showing 30 yet, but it's definitely not zero. Can I add the bleach and start the slam? The pool is turning REALLY green.
 
Alright, here's what I have so far. Why is my FC so much higher than the SLAM target? Could my pool volume still be way overestimated? I've been using 23,000 gallons for a 40x15 mildly kidney shaped oval that goes from 8.5' to 4' (with an uneven slope - it drops off pretty quickly about 40% of the way from the shallow end due to an old diving board that has since been removed).

7:00pm: added ~400 oz 8.25% bleach
7:30pm: FC 14.2 ppm
8:00pm: FC 16.5 ppm
9:00pm: FC 16.0 ppm
11:30pm: FC 13.5 ppm

I plan to check again at 10, 11, and maybe 12 and then again in the morning. I presume there's no issue sitting at 16 even though the target was 14, right? As long as I keep it over 12 for a while and I don't consider the "am I done?" criteria until it starts to clear up a bit? I also assume that as soon as the sun rises I'll start dropping FC considerably.
 
You're doing great! :goodjob:

Save your reagents and only test every two or three hours, and use the 10 ml sample size and only one scoop of powder. If you see a few particles that haven't dissolved after you swirl to mix it, you have enough powder. Just a couple little flecks is proof.

It's very likely the bleach is a little stronger than they marked it if it's real fresh. They do that so it is still full strength after sitting in warehouses and on shelves for a few weeks. Overshooting a little is no big deal. It's those people that try to nuke the pool with twenty gallons all at once that end up with the bleached liners.
 
Phew. Ok, thanks. I really can't thank you enough for holding my hand through this, by the way. I'm learning a ton, but everything at this point is still new, and having a green pool is anxiety inducing :)

Good to know about the bleach. I cleared out most of the shelf at HEB, and the bottles all had a '17' on the serial number, so they must be pretty new. Good call about saving the reagents - I am getting low on R0871 and R0013 (swinging by Leslie's tomorrow to get more, unfortunately, I hate it there but it's convenient). Only one scoop of powder in the 10mL sample? I've been using 2. Is that bad?
 
Thought I'd give an update. I think I'm doing OK so far. The green went away last night (yay!) and is now a cloudy blue. Any time the FC went below 12 I used PoolMath to add enough bleach to bump it back to 12. I'll probably backwash the filter in the morning and run the Dolphin robot again a few cycles. Any other thoughts to reduce the cloudiness?

DateTimeFCCYA
6/17:30 PM14.2
6/18:00 PM16.5
6/19:00 PM16.0
6/111:30 PM13.5
6/27:00 AM12.5
6/24:30 PM8.0
6/27:00 PM11.0
6/29:15 PM12.030
 
Still cloudy, and I'm doing a decent job keeping FC over 12. Just keep it up until I'm not adding bleach much any more? Should I be measuring anything else except FC for the time being?

DateTimeFCCYAAction
6/17:30 PM14.2
6/18:00 PM16.5
6/19:00 PM16.0
6/111:30 PM13.5
6/27:00 AM12.5
6/24:30 PM8.0Added 136oz 8.25% bleach
6/27:00 PM11.0Added 34oz 8.25% bleach
6/29:15 PM12.030
6/37:00 AM12.0
6/31:30 PM7.0Added 170oz bleach
6/34:30 PM8.0added 136oz bleach
6/35:15 PM13.5
6/36:45 PM11.5Added 17oz bleach
 

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So looking back through my test results, I'm starting to think I was probably done with the SLAM overnight on 6/2-6/3... would anyone else agree? I think I got discouraged by the general cloudiness and kept SLAMming, but the FC drops I saw was due to sun & moderate to heavy rainstorms diluting things a bit. So what now? Do I readjust PoolMath to "sustain" levels and dump whatever chemicals it says to? Or wait for another test in the morning? BTW - anytime you see a FC below 12 in the chart below, I added the corresponding PoolMath quantities of bleach to bring it back to 12.

In other words, now what?

6/29:15 PM12.0
6/37:00 AM12.0
6/31:30 PM7.0
6/34:30 PM8.0
6/35:15 PM13.5
6/36:45 PM11.5
6/38:30 PM12.5
6/47:45 AM11
6/410:15 AM10
6/47:30 PM8
 
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Congrats! Yep, now you can let the FC drop on its won and then monitor it each day to ensure it stays in the recommended range for your CYA. You can also adjust any other levels as requiring, keeping in mind pH will still a little high until the FC drops under 10. Let the Poolmath calculator do the work for you. Enjoy. :swim:
 
I'm seriously blown away at how awesome the pool looks. I can't believe it was Ninja Turtle green just a few days ago. Y'all are AMAZING.

Numbers tonight are:

FC: 6.0ppm
CC: 0.0ppm
pH: 7.4
TA: 100ppm
CH: 160ppm
CYA: ~20ppm
84 deg F

So my plan is: 1) swim tonight because it's spectacular and we can't wait to get in. 2) Add a touch of CYA in a sock overnight (PoolMath says 61oz), 3) Look for Calcium Chloride tomorrow as PoolMath says I need to add 306oz to get CH above 250. Is it safe to assume there isn't a huge sense of urgency for CH? Do I have time to order it online?

Again, thank you everyone for your help walking me through this process. I'm seriously amazed and the wife is pretty impressed too :D
 
As a follow up question: It's been a few days, and so far things are going well. But man, I'm BURNING through bleach. Is that normal? Test results the last few nights:

06/07/17 6:28 PMTested Chemicals: FC: 0 CC: 0 CYA: 34 CH: 250 TA: 100.
06/06/17 7:46 PMAdded 20 lbs of Calcium Chloride.
06/06/17 7:45 PMAdded 131 oz of 8.25% Bleach/Liquid Chlorine.
06/06/17 6:56 PMTested Chemicals: FC: 2.5 CC: 0 PH: 7.4 CYA: 28 CH: 120 TA: 100.

I just got ZERO FC... shouldn't the CYA be protecting the bleach more?
 

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