Hello everyone! Posted this in the introduction area, but thought I may need to post here as well. Looking forward to getting educated and potentially helping others. We purchased this home in February and have been ready to open the pool and swim. We’ve never owned, nor maintained a pool, so this is new and exciting for us. After waiting for 3 weeks for a pool guy to come open our pool, we opened the pool ourselves Saturday afternoon. It’s basically a 20’x40’ and had a mesh safety cover.
When we pulled back the cover, we discovered a nasty, dark green, almost black colored pool. After walking through the steps to open the pool, find all the winterizing plugs (that was fun and had surprises along the way), checked equipment, brushed the walls and floor, skimmed and removed all we could find, turned on pump and got sand filter going, then we did what everyone told us to do... we threw 12 bags of 4in1 shock in at different places (one at a time) and stirred the pool with our brush and pole to stir it up. With 3-4 times the amount we were supposed to use, we were sure this would eat through the nastiness.
We have kept aquariums for over 20 years and I know the first thing to ever do before adjusting water is to perform a test to see where I am. I didn’t do that before shocking! I know better.
Our Taylor K2006 is awaiting Amazon’s lackluster shipping. It will be here Thursday now after a second delay. Thank you Covid-19! So, we bought some cheap test strips knowing they’re likely useless. They showed everything at the minimum levels or less. How could we have zero chlorine in a 33,000 gallon pool when the evening before we used enough for 120,000?
pH is off the chart towards acidic (guessing 5.5 - 6)
Alkalinity is 0-20 ppm
CA is 0
Hardness is 0
We bought a liquid test kit at Home Depot today to validate if the strips we’re complete garbage. We know it’s likely not much better, but yes the chlorine, TA, and pH are bottomed out.
We know we need to raise cya, pH, and TA before shocking again, but do not know which to raise first, then the order following.
Thanks for reading and can’t wait to talk with everyone.
Richard & Regina
When we pulled back the cover, we discovered a nasty, dark green, almost black colored pool. After walking through the steps to open the pool, find all the winterizing plugs (that was fun and had surprises along the way), checked equipment, brushed the walls and floor, skimmed and removed all we could find, turned on pump and got sand filter going, then we did what everyone told us to do... we threw 12 bags of 4in1 shock in at different places (one at a time) and stirred the pool with our brush and pole to stir it up. With 3-4 times the amount we were supposed to use, we were sure this would eat through the nastiness.
We have kept aquariums for over 20 years and I know the first thing to ever do before adjusting water is to perform a test to see where I am. I didn’t do that before shocking! I know better.
Our Taylor K2006 is awaiting Amazon’s lackluster shipping. It will be here Thursday now after a second delay. Thank you Covid-19! So, we bought some cheap test strips knowing they’re likely useless. They showed everything at the minimum levels or less. How could we have zero chlorine in a 33,000 gallon pool when the evening before we used enough for 120,000?
pH is off the chart towards acidic (guessing 5.5 - 6)
Alkalinity is 0-20 ppm
CA is 0
Hardness is 0
We bought a liquid test kit at Home Depot today to validate if the strips we’re complete garbage. We know it’s likely not much better, but yes the chlorine, TA, and pH are bottomed out.
We know we need to raise cya, pH, and TA before shocking again, but do not know which to raise first, then the order following.
Thanks for reading and can’t wait to talk with everyone.
Richard & Regina
Because of the water condition, hold-off on stabilizer at this time. But you sould be able to increase the TA and pH. You should try to get the pH to about 7.0-7.2 and the TA at least to 50, but anywhere in the 50-80 range is fine. While baking soda raises TA, you can also use soda ash to raise pH and TA. Soda ash is available as ARM & HAMMER® Super Washing Soda Detergent Booster. Do not confuse this with ARM & HAMMER® laundry detergent! It is sold in the laundry detergent section of most larger grocery stores and some big box stores. It is also sold by pool stores under various names, including PH Increaser, PH Up, Balance Pak 200, etc. Soda ash is best added by pre-dissolving it in a bucket of water and then pouring that slowly in front of a return. 
