New pool and 1st time owner starting up pool

[Sunning in Pensacola]

Good morning!

We were just cleared to begin our water chemistry management yesterday following the installer's "Pool School." I thought their pool school balanced the initial chemistry but that wasn't the case. They just walked me through all the equipment/maintenance and shook my hand.

I've lurked on TFP for several months and studied hard at the TFP Pool School before signing up and downloading the Pool Math app. Had our water tested a week ago at Pinch-a-Penny just to see where our "tap water" was at and then tested it yesterday with a 2006C kit before getting started. Not a chemist but I'm very comfortable with following directions....I'm a quick learner.

Pool is a 19k gallon gunite/PebbleTech pool with an ozone generator. Pool was initially filled 3 weeks ago, water is crystal clear, and we're still daily brushing for another week. PH was high off the chart and CYA/FC was zero. I added Muriatic acid to start bringing down the PH and am using 3" stabilized tablets to start raising CYA while adding FC. Once the CYA is up to ~40ppm, I'll switch to liquid chlorine.

Does stabilizing PH and FC while slowly bringing up CYA sound like a good plan before we address low CH (and everything else) or should I attack everything at once? My thought is to slowly balance everything since water temp is 60 degrees. Thanks in advance for your expert advice!

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to TFP! While it is true that tabs will increase CYA, I would add 30 ppm of granular stabilizer now. Use the sock-soaking method. It's the minimum amount to buffer the free chlorine and protect it from the sun's UV.

As for the CH, it should be about 350, but 250 is minimum for a plaster-type pool, so if it's low, add only what you need to for now. Keep the pH anywhere in the 7.2-7.8 range, although it will probably like to hoover around 7.7-7.8.

Your TA s very flexible, but anywhere from about 60-90 is probably ideal for now.

Always keep the proper FC level as compared to your CYA as noted on the FC/CYA Levels to avoid algae.

Remember you can go into the Poolmath app settings and link your water testing results to this TFP profile so that we can see all of your numbers.

Hope that helps.

 

[Sunning in Pensacola]

Welcome to TFP! While it is true that tabs will increase CYA, I would add 30 ppm of granular stabilizer now. Use the sock-soaking method. It's the minimum amount to buffer the free chlorine and protect it from the sun's UV.

As for the CH, it should be about 350, but 250 is minimum for a plaster-type pool, so if it's low, add only what you need to for now. Keep the pH anywhere in the 7.2-7.8 range, although it will probably like to hoover around 7.7-7.8.

Your TA s very flexible, but anywhere from about 60-90 is probably ideal for now.

Always keep the proper FC level as compared to your CYA as noted on the FC/CYA Levels to avoid algae.

Remember you can go into the Poolmath app settings and link your water testing results to this TFP profile so that we can see all of your numbers.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll grab some stabilizer for CYA today and run a full test to share in Poolmath. Appreciate the advice!