Newly Drained - Freshly Filled Pool

[JoshAZ]

We bought a house last summer and enjoyed the pool through the season. I had very high CH levels all season long and decided come spring I wanted to drain and refill so that I had a fresh start.

Drained the pool over this past weekend and it will finish filling by time I am out of work. I have the TF-100 test kit.

This is my action plan, please let me know if I should switch the order or change anything:

0. Turn off SWG open SWG and clean as needed.
1. Test the water when I get home to get levels.
2. Do a "deep clean" of my sand filter. (I probably should have done this earlier...)
3. Add stabilizer as needed to get to ~60
4. Add chlorine
5. wait, run pump 24 hours
6. test, add salt
7. wait 24 hours, test
8. Turn on SWG

Edit: I think my pool is ~13k gallons, how do I find out for sure? It took 16 hours to fill from my hose. I guess I can probably derive this by filling up a 1 - 5 gallon container... It's a beachfront entrance and slopes into the deep side. No idea what average depth would be.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Josh, at the bottom of PoolMath there is a section that will help you determine your gallons.

Just some comments:

0. Turn off SWG open SWG and clean as needed. Right- only if needed, as cleaning shortens the lifespan.
1. Test the water when I get home to get levels. Yup- and just note your filter pressure for reference
2. Do a "deep clean" of my sand filter. (I probably should have done this earlier...) This is as needed-were you having any problems with your water last year that might suggest channeling or that it may be filthy? I think I'd do this after getting chemicals in the water and mixing to assure that that's taken care of.... in case the sand filter cleaning gets prolonged?
3. Add stabilizer as needed to get to ~60 You're in sunny AZ... 60 may be a bit too low for you. I'd go towards 80ppm, as long as the pool is free of all algae and problems now. Get the socks into the skimmer and squeeze them now and then to speed it up. Or use liquid stabilizer if you're *really* impatient and rich.
4. Add chlorine You can do this almost immediately after the CYA goes in. Don't give the water any chance to invite algae in.
5. wait, run pump 24 hours Keep it running non stop until the CYA is dissolved.
6. test, add salt Use PoolMath to help you determine how many bags of salt to add. Do you have a salt test kit? (Taylor K-1766)
7. wait 24 hours, test Yup, Yup, Yup Double check your SWG manual for how high the salt should be. It varies based on device.
8. Turn on SWG Bring your FC up to the desired level with bleach first, then let the SWG maintain it.

Sounds like you have this all figure out Well done.

Yippee

 

[pooldv]

Yep, looks good.

+1 on CYA at 80
And brush the salt around after you put it in the pool. Give it 24-48 hours to dissolve and mix in. Your tap water is probably 200-300 ppm salt.

 

[JoshAZ]

Turns out my pool is not anywhere close to 12,000 gallons. More like 8,000.

It took ~21 hours to fill, and I measured the hose to output 384 gallons per hour.

Tons of white chunks inside of the SWG.

Watching a youtube video on cleaning the swg now and will get that out of the way. After that a water test, adding chemicals, turning on the pump and bedtime.

Thank you for the feedback.

 

[mac4lyfe]

What did you use as fill water? Did you use water from your house? You may have real hard water (high CH). Have you tested your water? A high CH would most likely scale up a SWG.

 

[JoshAZ]

Filled water from the hose yes and we do have a high CH.

Washed the SWG last night and got it set back up. I'm an idiot that then turned the pump on. The return lines started sending dirt and junk into the pool, was dark and I didn't see until a minute or two later. I should have backwashed first...

I added 128 oz of 10% bleach and had to go to bed as it was quite late.

Woke up to a cloudy pool =\.

Quick test this morning:

ph 7.8
fc 9
cc 0.5
cya < 20

I'm adding 4lbs of clorox chlorine stabilizer (to a pillow case in front of returns) and another 128oz container of bleach and letting it run.

Will check it out after work.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

If its just schmutz from the filter, it should get picked up fast enough. If you want you can even add a bit of DE powder to your filter to help pick it up-

Pool School - Add DE to a Sand Filter

Yip

 

[JoshAZ]

Phew seeing my fresh fill all cloudy was a heartbreaker! Glad to hear we will be okay.

 

[pooldv]

Yep, it always takes a few days to settle out, clear up and get sparkly.

 

[JoshAZ]

Water is clearing up. Needs vacuumed and will do it tomorrow.

ph 7.5
FC 3
TA 100
CH 250-500?
Salt 800-1000?

When testing these am I looking for the first color change? For example CH starts turning color at 10 drops (250) but was a darker all blue closer to 20. Salt gave a red splash with after 2 drops but didn't settle until 5...

Added another gallon of 10% bleach. CYA pillow seems to be doing its thing.

Thanks for the help.

 

[pooldv]

You are looking for the last drop that doesn't make a change and then don't count the last drop.