Need Advice on Teal Cloud Pool and SLAM

[tdn96]

I have a chlorine pool with an approximate 25k gal capacity. For context when I opened the pool it was dark green filled with algae. I have been SLAMing for 2 days now and running my sand filter 24/7 (16 total 1 lb bags of Leslie’s Power Powder Plus shock). This is 2 days of quadruple shock based off of a 1 lb bag treating 16.5k gal if I rounded my pool’s capacity up to 30k gal.

I’ve just gotten it to a good decent total chlorine level, but I’m unsure where to go from here. I’ve been using pool strips every morning and sunsets. Pool chemistry is:

Hardness - 120 ppm
Total Chlorine - 1 ppm
Free Chlorine - 0.5 ppm
Bromine - 0 ppm
Alkalinity - 80 ppm
Cyanuric Acid - was 0, expected to be 30 ppm with recent conditioner addition
pH - about 7.2

I held off on adding any CYA until now because I didn’t want to overchlorinate the pool and risk needing to de-chlorinate.

Since Total Chlorine is still somewhat high, is it a good plan to add 2 more lbs of shock which adds 6 ppm of chlorine to my pool? Or should I continue with 8 more lbs of shock? I don’t want to over chlorinate and waste money on more chemcials to bring FC back down. I anticipate the pH to rise naturally with shock additions as well. When chemistry is balanced, I’ll add clarifier in the end.

Thanks for the help!

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum.
You need to follow the SLAM Process. To do that, you need a proper test kit. I suggest the TF-100 or Taylor K2006C. A proper test kit is needed to get the accurate water chemistry results needed to follow the TFP protocols.

While you are waiting on your test kit, add 5 ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine / plain bleach to your pool each evening with the pump running. This will replenish the FC lost each day to the sun and also inhibit any algae in the water from growing further.

 

[IceShadow]

Without an FAS-DPD test kit, you're flying blind. The strips aren't going to give you a firm numeric amount of FC in the pool, so you can't be sure you're adding enough, or you could be potentially adding too much.

The kits are going to be your best investment in the pool, as they let you add only what you need to. You'll save money in other chemicals that more than cover the cost for them.

 

[MITBeta]

Welcome to the forum. While you're waiting on a good test kit, you're going to want to read up on the FC/CYA relationship around which all Trouble Free Pool advice is built.

The Free Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid Relationship

Managing your cyanuric acid and Free Chlorine levels is key to stabilizing your pool. Learn how these two items affect each other.

www.troublefreepool.com

Your 1ppm of FC (if the test strip you used is anywhere close to correct) is by no means "decent" and needs to be raised a considerable amount to eradicate the algae that remains in the pool.

But get the test kit first and then we'll walk you through the process.