New pool owner, first post, just getting started

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Thanks for the pic and it doesn't look too bad at all. My guess for manual vacuuming would be an hour. It takes me about half an hour for my smaller pool, moving the vacuum head nice and slow so as not to disturb the dust too much. I do it one-handed because a coldie in the other hand makes for a better job. :)
 
Pool is vacuumed and clean! I'm sure I will do some more brushing here and there, and I didn't get every last leaf out, but it's like night and day compared to what it was like before. Yes, it took about an hour. Thanks, all, for all your vacuuming tips. Amazing how it works when it's hooked up right. Even with the other skimmer and drain turned off, the suction still didn't seem as strong as others here have suggested, but it worked.

Test results after most recent drain and fill but before vacuum:
pH 7.2
FC 10
CC 0
TC 10
TA 130
CH 300
CYA 70

While the CYA before the last drain and fill was 80, I am guessing I under-read that. I read this a few times, both diluted and undiluted, and 70 seems about right. While I had CYA readings of 120 and 160 before the first drain and fill, I bet the 120 was closer to correct. If that was then followed by 5,000 and 8,000 gallon drain and fills (estimating 33,000 gallon pool), going from 120 to 70 sounds about right to me. However, with the limited time I have, I think I am going to live with the CYA of 70 for now (at the cost of lugging more bleach) and do another drain and fill later (before a longer vacation).

So for tomorrow:
Brushing
Likely backwash DE filter
Start SLAM

So excited! I think the end is near - Memorial Day weekend seems well within reach!
 
Good to have that one done, huh? I'd think about working backwards... allowing 3 days for the FC to drop after the SLAM. It's safe for people, eyes, skin up to SLAM level, but not good for some swim wear. You'll be Slammin at 28, and hopefully afterwards it drops 3 ppm per day, so around 19 for your long weekend, and less each day. Non-believers will still think it's high, so personally I don't advertise the FC level unless talking to someone who gets the FC-CYA relationship. So if it were my pool, I'd shoot to be done by say Wednesday morning. That means I would need a clear OCLT between Monday night / Tuesday morning, and another for good measure overnight Tue/Wed. So there's 5 days for the FC 28 days of the SLAM - Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, and about 10 days of filtration 24/7 if needed. Bet you need considerably less of both cause your pool looks pretty good already.

The initial charge is a bit more bleach yeh, but much better at CYA 70, yeh! Glad you could fit in the drain/refill. Subsequent days will likely need much less bleach. Good decision on the CYA. It'll come down over time from backwashing and splash-out, and rain if extra draining is needed.

Think about anywhere algae might be hiding, e.g. back of skimmer weir, under the lip of coping, stairs, rails, light niches, etc. On the weekend if need be, just scrub those spots to help the algae suck bleach and die!
 
OK. First load of bleach in. That's a lot of bleach! FC 7 this morning, target 28. Added 5 jugs of 10% and 3 jugs of 8.25% Two conclusions from this:
1. Motivation to get CYA lower later.
2. Why not chlorinate with cal hypo regularly as long as my CH is below 350? It seems much easier to handle. Cheaper, even?
 
jonathanuy said:
OK. First load of bleach in. That's a lot of bleach! FC 7 this morning, target 28. Added 5 jugs of 10% and 3 jugs of 8.25% Two conclusions from this:
1. Motivation to get CYA lower later.
2. Why not chlorinate with cal hypo regularly as long as my CH is below 350? It seems much easier to handle. Cheaper, even?
Click to expand...

Really doubt that cal-hypo will be cheaper, especially with the higher concentrated bleach available today.
 
Razorhog said:
Really doubt that cal-hypo will be cheaper, especially with the higher concentrated bleach available today.
Click to expand...

Thinking about it, guess you're right. Bleach cost me about $24. Would need 8 pounds of 73% cal hypo, with 25# buckets going for $100. So that would have cost about $33. Still, not as huge a difference as I might have thought, and we'll see how sick I get of schlepping bleach from Walmart. But besides cost and watching CH, any reasons not to use cal hypo? A 25# bucket of it seems much easier to handle than 20+ jugs of bleach.
 
The reason to avoid Cal Hypo is because you have to drain to remove calcium if you ever need to, i.e. it can't be easily lowered. I would stick with bleach, and if I was willing to pay a little more, I'd buy chlorinating liquid over there (12.5%). TFPC recommends sticking with liquid so that you're not unnecessarily adding something you don't need. High calcium contributes to a higher likelihood of scaling, but as you've figured out, up to 350 is likely to be fine.

That said, your TA is 130 which also has an upward influence on CSI, although it can be lowered with a modest effort, as people with high calcium water do. If it were me, I'd leave the calcium at 300. It's a good number now and the advantage of using Cal Hypo will be an occasional thing because of the accumulating calcium, so you can always have that advantage down the track sometime.

Thankfully, you'll use less liquid to maintain your SLAM now that you're up to the shock level.
 

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Once you do some early FC testing and learn how to use the test kits, you confirm your pool size, calculations on Poolmath, and learn what works to raise your FC to a specific level. So if I need to raise my FC to 28 for example, I use the calculator to figure out how much bleach I need, measure it and pour. I won't re-test those normal/daily additions. I expect those to be very close to my target. BUT, ....... I WILL test my FC after adding bleach for the beginning OCLT (at bedtime) to ensure that one is exactly where it needs to be for the overnight test.
 
I've learned that X-amount of bleach will get my FC to a specific target almost exactly. But for the rare times I need to perform an OCLT, I do let the water mix a bit and double-check FC after adding bleach to ensure my "exact" FC reading since the OCLT has only a 1ppm limit before it fails.
 
OK. Some somewhat odd test readings ~9 hours after I dumped in enough chlorine to start the SLAM.

pH 7.8 (did this twice to confirm)
FC 35
CC 0
TC 35

Two big questions (and please advise!):
1. How did pH jump from 7.2 to 7.8 when all I added was bleach?
2. Any thoughts on how FC got so high? Based on PoolMath, I added 5 jugs of 10% and 3 jugs of 8.25% to get to a target of FC 28 from FC 7 with a CYA of 70. did I go wrong somewhere? At lease I will not need the additional 12 jugs I bought the way home!

Next step will be a recheck after the sun goes down for OLCT.
 
1 - Remember ... the pH reading is always skewed (high) when the FC is over 10.
2 - On the calculator (to go from 7 to 28), I entered 33K at the top, then 10% in the "weight" block, and it told me to add 7 gallons. In your example, 5 Gallons of 10% would get you to an FC of 22. Three more gallons of 8.25% would add an additional 8 FC for a grand total of 30 the way you did it ... according to my calculations. :)
 
Good to know about pH during a SLAM. Must have missed that somewhere.

Even with Texas Splash's calculations, that takes it up to 30. How did I get to 35? And tonight (OLCT), it's up to 36, and that's with brushing the walls for the first time! I have a feeling this will be a short SLAM. Will see tomorrow morning. At least I know the 8.25 and 10% bleach I got is potent!

Any harm in having overshot my shock target by that much? Anything I need to do differently in reaction to that?
 
No harm in over-shooting. It could be that your pool volume is a bit lower than 33k. Also remember there's +/- error due to drop size in the tests. Just bank that knowledge away for a while. If later additions also over-shoot, you can reduce your volume in PoolMath. Experience across many chem additions will tell you, once you're either right on, or over-shooting and under-shooting about the same amount. Kinda like sighting in a rifle.

All the bleach will eventually get used, so it's fine to have it in stock. Just a reminder, it's probably a good idea to refer back to Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain now that you're underway, and everything will come together. Follow everything in that to the letter, and future maintenance will be a breeze. Great work so far.
 

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