I am a new pool owner. We purchased a home with a 7 year old, inground, 20,000 gallon, gunite pool with pebble finish. Previous owners had pool company coming weekly to clean and add chemicals. We continued that for the last 6 months and were usually home when they cleaned. I tried to observe what they were doing and learn what they added when algae was growing, how much, etc. When I asked pool guy how he determined how much shock, algaecide, soda ash to add, his answer was "I've just been doing this a long time". Decided to take control of the pool since it did not look great between visits and I had no idea what to add. Bought the Taylor K-2006 test kit. First of all, FC was super low (0.2 ppm) 12 hours after the pool guy shocked it. Chlorine tablet feeder set on 3 on a scale of 1-5. On my initial round of testing, CYA was off the chart. Little black dot disappeared before even getting to the highest reading! Had to dilute sample and double result. I got around 180. Took sample to pool chemical store and they got 153. Went back and looked at all pool cleaning bills which had "test results" for each week. CYA always listed at 40 every week for last 4 months. Obviously, they were not testing it at all!! Drained almost 80% of the pool this weekend and just refilled it. Added one gallon of liquid chlorine last night and turned on the pump overnight. This morning here are my results:
FC 0.4
CC 0.6
pH 7.5
TA - 40
CH - 80
CYA - 40 (I am going to take water sample to pool store to get more accurate reading. My 9 year old son and I had a hard time determining when the black dot completely disappeared)
What do I do now?? Obviously, turned off chlorinator with tablets. I don't want any additional CYA. When I put values in Pool Math app, it tells me to put in a gallon of chlorine. When I slide the SLAM button, it tells my my SLAM Target FC is 16 and it outside recommended range. With 16 in the FC goal, it tells me to put 3 gallons of chlorine in.
FC 0.4
CC 0.6
pH 7.5
TA - 40
CH - 80
CYA - 40 (I am going to take water sample to pool store to get more accurate reading. My 9 year old son and I had a hard time determining when the black dot completely disappeared)
What do I do now?? Obviously, turned off chlorinator with tablets. I don't want any additional CYA. When I put values in Pool Math app, it tells me to put in a gallon of chlorine. When I slide the SLAM button, it tells my my SLAM Target FC is 16 and it outside recommended range. With 16 in the FC goal, it tells me to put 3 gallons of chlorine in.