Good day, everyone! I am a total newbie at the pool care thing. We just bought a house in Little Rock, AR with a 20,000 gallon vinyl in-ground pool. It’s got a sand filter with a brand new 1.5 HP Century motor. Looks like it has four returns plus the main and skimmer to pull water into the filter. Again, I’m totally green regarding this stuff, so feel free to ask more questions or correct any nomenclature I may have wrong.
Before we bought the house, the owner said he had all the chemicals out in the shed that we would need for the rest of the summer. Being the DIY guy I am, I found this forum and set about going through Pool School and learning as much as I could. I bought a Taylor K2006 test kit, and got straight to testing as soon as we took ownership. The chlorine and CYA were a little low (roughly 3 and 35 respectively), and the pH and TA were nonexistent, though the pool water looked fantastic.
I spent $30-40 on bleach, borax, baking soda, and muriatic acid based on my reading here at TFP, and I have everything dialed in just right after several days of testing/treating. Here are the latest numbers:
FC: 5
CC: 0
pH: 7.5
CYA: 30-35
TA: 100
CH: Pretty low, if any
Water is crystal clear perfect as of this morning, and has been since we took possession over the weekend.
I feel like maybe my CYA number is a bit low, but that may not be a big deal at this point, and I've tested so much that I ran out of R-0013 already :king:. Also, I’m not sure if I should want any calcium or not, given this is a vinyl pool.
The current air temperature is between 90-98 F in the heat of the day, and this pool gets full sun most of the day, so the water temperature gets into the upper 80s, even though I’m running my pump 24/7 at the moment.
My question to the forum right now is this: Is it worth using any of the products I have on hand to finish out the summer? Here’s what I’ve got in the shed:
So I’m curious if I can get by with this stuff for the next 6-8 weeks without having to buy any more products, or if I’m better off just getting rid of this stuff and following the advice found here (with stuff from the grocery store/Home Depot). Any thoughts would be appreciated. Also, any advice about reducing pool water temperature would be helpful, since we’re in the dog days of summer here, and 100-degree-plus heat indexes are pretty common right now.
Before we bought the house, the owner said he had all the chemicals out in the shed that we would need for the rest of the summer. Being the DIY guy I am, I found this forum and set about going through Pool School and learning as much as I could. I bought a Taylor K2006 test kit, and got straight to testing as soon as we took ownership. The chlorine and CYA were a little low (roughly 3 and 35 respectively), and the pH and TA were nonexistent, though the pool water looked fantastic.
I spent $30-40 on bleach, borax, baking soda, and muriatic acid based on my reading here at TFP, and I have everything dialed in just right after several days of testing/treating. Here are the latest numbers:
FC: 5
CC: 0
pH: 7.5
CYA: 30-35
TA: 100
CH: Pretty low, if any
Water is crystal clear perfect as of this morning, and has been since we took possession over the weekend.
I feel like maybe my CYA number is a bit low, but that may not be a big deal at this point, and I've tested so much that I ran out of R-0013 already :king:. Also, I’m not sure if I should want any calcium or not, given this is a vinyl pool.
The current air temperature is between 90-98 F in the heat of the day, and this pool gets full sun most of the day, so the water temperature gets into the upper 80s, even though I’m running my pump 24/7 at the moment.
My question to the forum right now is this: Is it worth using any of the products I have on hand to finish out the summer? Here’s what I’ve got in the shed:
- About 15-20 Trichlor pucks
- Several boxes with packets of hth Shock ‘n’ Swim, which appears to be Calcium Hypochlorite, mostly
- Several canisters of Lo ‘n’ Slo granular pH decreaser, which appears to be dry acid, maybe - it says sodium bisulfate on the label
So I’m curious if I can get by with this stuff for the next 6-8 weeks without having to buy any more products, or if I’m better off just getting rid of this stuff and following the advice found here (with stuff from the grocery store/Home Depot). Any thoughts would be appreciated. Also, any advice about reducing pool water temperature would be helpful, since we’re in the dog days of summer here, and 100-degree-plus heat indexes are pretty common right now.