Hi All! My name is Teresa. The hubby and I bought and installed an AG metal walled 12x24'x52" for the kiddos a few years back. I wish I'd have found this site then! Better late than never! We had some funky weather at the end of last summer (we are in southern Manitoba, Canada) lots of fluctuation in temperatures....ended up not using the pool too much and shutting down earlier than past years. This year we have lots of algae on the floor of the pool. The water itself is crystal clear. I want to catch it before it turns into a disaster. Both hubby and I have much to learn, unfortunately.
Yesterday my my husband brought out all the equipment and hooked it up, we filled the pool to operating level. Previously we have always dumped in liquid shock, circulated, scrubbed, vacuumed to waste and repeated as necessary. Then fixed PH and alkalinity as required. This has worked out, for the most part, but has always been somewhat of a guessing gAme. We have been using been using test strips and pool store chemicals. After reading on here almost all day yesterday, I am looking for somewhere to purchase one of the recommended test kits to be able to accurately read levels. Have to work with what I've got for now though. I did a test strip this morning and looks like PH is below 6.2 (the Color is lighter than the lowest reading on the bottle) and alkalinity looks to be around 60ish, chlorine is 0. We haven't done anything other than fill so far. I would like to try to get off on the right foot this year!
After reading so much on here yesterday, I'll admit I am very overwhelmed with information lol. I'm not really sure where to even begin now. We did go out and purchase 360 Litres of household bleach and a few boxes of borax, still on the hunt for larger sizes of baking soda (all we could find was the little boxes you put in the fridge). Would it be a bad idea to do what we have done in the past and dump in the bleach, circulate, scrub and vacuum? Seeing as I don't have a proper test kit yet.
Yesterday my my husband brought out all the equipment and hooked it up, we filled the pool to operating level. Previously we have always dumped in liquid shock, circulated, scrubbed, vacuumed to waste and repeated as necessary. Then fixed PH and alkalinity as required. This has worked out, for the most part, but has always been somewhat of a guessing gAme. We have been using been using test strips and pool store chemicals. After reading on here almost all day yesterday, I am looking for somewhere to purchase one of the recommended test kits to be able to accurately read levels. Have to work with what I've got for now though. I did a test strip this morning and looks like PH is below 6.2 (the Color is lighter than the lowest reading on the bottle) and alkalinity looks to be around 60ish, chlorine is 0. We haven't done anything other than fill so far. I would like to try to get off on the right foot this year!
After reading so much on here yesterday, I'll admit I am very overwhelmed with information lol. I'm not really sure where to even begin now. We did go out and purchase 360 Litres of household bleach and a few boxes of borax, still on the hunt for larger sizes of baking soda (all we could find was the little boxes you put in the fridge). Would it be a bad idea to do what we have done in the past and dump in the bleach, circulate, scrub and vacuum? Seeing as I don't have a proper test kit yet.
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