Fresh water, chemical order?

[Moniyque]

I looked through all the information and couldn’t find the order in which to balance the chemicals after a complete water change. I have an above ground rectangular 10,000 gal pool. I had to empty and scrub it because I didn’t winterize it property las year and it was full of leaves and algae. I got it cleaned out last night and had maybe 5 inches of water left that had very high chlorine concentration. It is filling up now, looking nice and clear. What are the steps for balancing everything? We are on hard well water, and in the past I’ve had trouble with high iron, the pool would look green when it got filled, but this time we installed an iron filter for our well pump and the water is looking nice and blue.

Thank you.

 

[mknauss]

First thing all pools need is chlorine. Add 3 ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine. Add 30 ppm worth of CYA powder using the sock method. Test pH and adjust to the 7's.

Add chlorine every day to stay in target range for the expected CYA. Once the first dose of CYA is fully dissolved, test the CYA. If below 40 ppm, add enough to get to 40 ppm.

 

[Moniyque]

Thank you, that’s very helpful. So I don’t need to worry about alkalinity or calcium hardness, and I don’t need to slam it to start with?

 

[mepot101]

Same question I had, thanks for asking it. Also, should you add the chlorine as the pool is filling, or can you wait till it gets full?

 

[Fast7]

Hi Moniyque
Do you have recommended test kit?
Generally the first thing you want to focus on is adding stabilizer (CYA) to protect chlorine from being destoyed by UV rays.
At the same time you want to make sure there is enough free chlorine (FC) to protect your water from algae.
Next thing to adjust would be pH. This is somewhat tied to alkalinity.
If you have high alkalinity (TA), pH tends to rise up quickly.
If that's the case lowering pH with muriatic acid will slowly bring TA down as well.
For vinyl liner pools as your calcium hardness is not critical but it's good to know where you stand.

 

[Richard320]

Thank you, that’s very helpful. So I don’t need to worry about alkalinity or calcium hardness, and I don’t need to slam it to start with?

If the alkalinity was extremely low you might need to raise it a little. If it's high, it'll come down with pH adjustments. And to head off the next question: below 50 TA is low.
A vinyl pool doesn't have to worry about low CH, and if it's high on a fresh fill, what are you gonna do about it -- drain and refill with more of the same? Test it, sure. Worry about it? Not at startup. Get comfortable just keeping it swimmable before you obsess on fine-tuning everything.