Question on stabilizer before I slam

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D

dwilliams38242

Member
May 16, 2020
15
Paris, TN
Hey y'all!

I've had a pool for a season, but our small town pool supply store just went out of business, so I found TFP and am attempting to maintain it myself this year. I got a Taylor testing kit and got some numbers. My FC was 1, CC was 5.5, PH was 8.4, TA was 130, CH was 180, CYA was 0 (yikes) and Salt was 3000. I have a 35k gallon pool, so it said I needed to add 21 lbs of stabilizer and that would also lower my PH into the correct range. My question is this, my pool obviously needs to be slammed (it's cloudy, not green, but the CC is still 5.5), and the recommended stabilizer level is 70 for swg pools, but can I boost my stabilizer to say 30-40 and then do the slam and then boost the stabilizer the rest of the way? This would save me a lot of liquid chlorine because I would have to boost my FC level to 28 to slam with 70 stabilizer. It makes sense to me, but I've never done this before and I didn't know if that would mess anything up. Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks so much!
 
Welcome to the forum!
That level of CC is very concerning.
Before adding any stabilizer, do the following for me.
Raise your FC in the water using enough liquid chlorine to get to 10 ppm using PoolMath. Circulate the pool for 15 minutes. Test FC and CC. Report back what you get.
As far as stabilizer, when you add it, only add enough for 30 ppm to start. Once SLAM is complete then raise your CYA to the level for maintenance.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry.
 
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I put 4 gallons of liquid chlorine at 10% concentration just now Slowly in front of a return, which pool math said would get me to 10 ppm FC, but when I retested after 15 min my numbers were 1.5 FC and 1 CC. I’m confused, maybe the chlorine hadn’t had enough time to circulate?
 
That would be the key symptom of a CYA to ammonia conversion. It sometimes happens over the winter, a bacteria enters the water and consumes CYA and pees out ammonia.

You'll need to follow that same procedure again and continue until you hold at least 5 ppm FC fifteen minutes after dosing. After that you can adjust your pH and add enough CYA to bring your level to 30 and initiate the SLAM Process. Once you have successfully completed the process (met all three criteria) then increasing the CYA level and firing up the SWG will be your next step. From there it is just a matter of dialing everything in and getting it all running smoothly.

Ammonia is an annoying setback, but it is a temporary one and once it is done you can get back to normal. It just takes a lot of chlorine to correct, but the only other way to remove it is a water change.
 
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Donldson said:
You'll need to follow that same procedure again and continue until you hold at least 5 ppm FC fifteen minutes after dosing.
Click to expand...
This part could take a few gallons of chlorine! I would liken it to a battle............you have to break the ammonia's hold. Once you do then you can recover your pool.

Now if you want you can drain and refill some of your water. It depends on what kind of pool you have (in or above ground, plaster or vinyl) as to how much you can drain. If you water is not crazy expensive it might be cheaper than how much chlorine you will need.

Can you please tell us a bit more about your pool by putting the info in your signature. Go to your name and click on it. That should bring down a drop box with signature in it. Put kind and size in gallons of your pool. What kind of filter you have and the wonderful test kit you have.

Kim:kim:
 
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I added a signature, hope that helps! So do I need to have A LOT of chlorine on hand and add every 15 minutes until it gets to 5 ppm? Or can I add some today, some tomorrow and do it that way? It’s rained me out today, so I haven’t been able to add chlorine yet.
 
Best if you can hit it hard and end it. Rain does not bother pool, you will get wet.

Hard to tell how much chlorine you may need. If you want to find out, go to an aquarium store and get an ammonia test. See what ppm ammonia the water has. For example, if your pool has 2 ppm of ammonia, it will take 20 ppm of FC to clear it up.
 
Hey y’all, I think I’ve got the ammonia whipped today. After adding chlorine, my 15 min test was at 5.5 ppm FC and .5 ppm CC. I’m not super confident because I rechecked the levels twice more because I’m new to testing and got significantly higher numbers each time. I got 11.5 ppm FC and then 13.5 FC and no CC either time. I believe I tested each time identically: I dipped 10ml of water from the deep end side of my shallow end skimmer, which is far away from any return jets. I added two level tiny scoops of DPD powder, swirled continually and counted the drops of R0871 it took to turn the water clear while holding the dropper perpendicular to the ground, not at an angle. Any ideas if I did something wrong? Or if I need to add stabilizer and move toward my SLAM now?

Sorry to ask so many questions! I don’t want to mess this up!
 
If the FC was increasing then your mixing is not too good. I would brush the pool really good and then see if you still have the FC.
 
Sorry that took a minute, I brushed the whole pool and tested again, got 11.5 ppm (23 drops). Should I move on to adding stabilizer to 30 and slamming?
Thanks Kim! I feel bad being new to a forum and peppering people with questions! Pools definitely do not come with a manual... haha
 
I wanted to let y’all know I added stabilizer to 30 ppm, slammed it, passed all three tests and am now adding stabilizer to get to 70. The water is looking perfect, I added a before and after. Couldn’t have done it without y’all, thank you!

I do have a question about cleaning my filter, but I’m not sure if protocol. Should I make a new thread for it?4343E9F1-406E-4E4C-839D-4AAEB347E1CD.jpeg146F64AB-22D2-446E-9CD4-CEEBFA7D6E44.jpeg
 
If it is just about cleaning the cartridge, post it here. If it is a major issue with filter system, then start a thread in Pump, Filter, Plumbing.

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