Help me manage my northwest Indiana pool!

[draketurner]

Hey guys!

My name is Drake and I just bought a house with a roughly 16x32 vinyl liner in-ground pool...approx 20k gallons. I have never owned a pool before. The pool hadn't been opened all summer until I had it opened during the inspection. It was somewhat green and very dirty.

Since then, I had the previous pool guy show me how to use the pump/filter/etc and walk me through some basic pool maintenance...he tested water and told me to add 8lbs baking soda that night , and then 4 gallons of 12.5% liquid chlorine the next day...both of which I did.

The pool has cleared up a lot and i have vacuumed 95% of the dirt out (mostly to waste). I decided today to go to Leslies and get a water test done (I will order a good test kit today) and these are the results:
FC: 0
TC: 0
CALCIUM: 210
CYA: 0
Alkalinity: 50
pH: 7.4
Copper: 0
Iron: 0
TDS: 800
Phosphates: 300

Chemicals I have on hand:
20lbs 3" tabs
1 bottle of FLOC
4 gallons 12.5% liquid chlorine
6 lbs of stabilazer

Chemicals in pool now:
4- 3" tabs in skimmer basket (i ordered a floater-will be here Wednesday) [the pool has an in line chlorinator but the pool guy said it hasn't worked in years..haven't looked further into it]


The guys at Leslies wanted me to buy $100's of dollars of chemicals and but like 25lbs of stuff into the pool.

So what should I do? Its only going to be swimmable weather for another few weeks at best so I don't want spend several hundred dollars if I could avoid it.

 

[an1vrsy]

Welcome to TFP, Drake.

It is great that you’re taking control of your pool, by ordering one of the recommended test kits. Once it arrives, post your results so that the appropriate next steps can be determined by accurate results not pool store water tests.

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! We recommend using liquid chlorine in the pool. Since you live in an area where pools are partially drained and closed for the winter, you can use some of the things you have on hand for the remainder of swim season. Over the winter, read up on the TFP method so you can learn how to keep your pool clear all swim season. Add about 4 pounds of the stabilizer into a clean white sock and lay it in the skimmer basket so it doesn't block the flow of water through the skimmer. Give the sock a good squeeze a couple of times a day to help the stabilizer dissolve. Add a gallon and a half of the chlorine poured slowly in front of a skimmer. You can float a few tablets in the floater (not a good idea to put them in the skimmer basket) until your test kit arrives. You don't want to let the stabilizer level to raise above 50 ppm. Every 8 ounce puck you run through the pool will raise the stabilizer by 1.7 ppm. Keep track of how many you use and you can estimate how high the CYA/stabilizer is rising.

Read through ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry for more information about pool care, and feel free to ask any questions you may have.