Help with chemicals/level for new pool

[Liz315]

You guys have been so extremely helpful throughout the build process and I truly appreciate it all. I’m just done my 28 day plaster curing process on a 15,000 gallon gunite pool. My current numbers are below. I haven’t switched it over to salt yet, I have the bags of salt ready to go but wanted to get through a pool party before taking that step. I’ve been using tablets in the meantime but my CYA is still so low it’s not measuring with the tp-100 test. I’m guessing that needs to be taken care of before the switchover since salt pools require a higher number. As it is now I have had zero problems with it so low and effecting my chlorine levels. Even after a pool party with 15 people I did not have to add any shock or slam.

PH: 7.5
TA: 60
Free chlorine: 8
Combined chlorine: 0
CYA: not registering but I’ve used about one bucket of tablets so there’s some in there.
Calcium hardness: 650

what should my next step be? Do I adjust the TA up to 80 then lower PH some prior to adding Stabilizer to get CYA up then add the salt? If so what numbers do I follow start going off of salt pool numbers?

thanks,
Liz

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello again Liz. Good to hear things are going well. A few things concern me:
1 - Virtually no CYA. You know it and are waiting patiently for tabs, but you should add about 20-30 ppm of granule stabilizer. It's not just for the sun, it's also for buffering the harshness of the chlorine from anything it touches (skin, vinyl, etc). With little or no CYA, the FC intensity shoots-up exponentially. So add that 20-30 ppm of stabilizer, then you can continue to use the tabs since this you are going salt later anyways.
2. Speaking of tabs, if you keep using them, watch the pH and TA because the tabs are pulling those down. If the TA hits 50, increase it with baking soda back to about 70-80 while using tabs.
3. The CH is really high. Do you know how? Have you used cal-hypo products? Local water that hard? You sure about the test? Seems odd.
4. The pH is fine. If anything, let it rise naturally and only address it if it hits 8.0.
5. You can add the salt at anytime, even if you don't run-on the SWG until later.

 

[Liz315]

So I just went to the pool store to get CYA increaser and they told me I have to do the salt system first because if I add the cya now it will stabilize it now as a chlorine pool and I will have problems having my chlorine levels register when I make it a salt pool. So they tell me to do the salt system start up first then balance my numbers for a salt system then add the cya.

does this sound right? I have 10 bags of salt what is the correct salt system start up? They said to start with 8 bags of salt.

here are my numbers today:
PH: 7.8
Alkalinity: 60
Free chlorine: 5
Calcium hardness: 600

To answer ur question about my high calcium number. My fill water low only like 50, the store water test registered in the 175 they had me add 30 lbs of calcium increaser since it was new plaster and they were worried it would pull calcium from the new gunite. I asked people here if I should drain my water at all and they said it’s in range so leave it. They said that adding those 30 lbs of alkalinity increaser would only increase it 215 so 215 +50 or even the 175 the store test came up with should probably have me in range. I believe my dropper tip from my test kit is not giving me accurate numbers, because it has been all over the place.

thanks again.

 

[proavia]

In a word - NO
You do not have to have a salt system installed to increase you CYA using stabilizer.

If you didn't purchase stabilizer yet, check at Walmart. I bought 4 pounds for about $15 a few months ago.

Please add your pool and equipment info - including test kit - to your signature. This will help us to help you.