Stabilizer levels question

[Nordy-que]

Very new here. Just had my pool redone so I'm making a commitment to mostly doing all the treatment myself. The pool builder has been doing everything up until today, and I've been relying on the pool store to do my water testing in the past, and I'm in the process of ordering test equipment now. In the meantime, I took a sample to the pool store and they say everything is fine, no adjustment needed. Based on the recommended levels, they look mostly good.

The stabilizer level is high, though, based on everything I've read here so far, at 100ppm. Total Chlorine is at 2ppm, so I added some liquid chlorine to bring that up.

I shut off my inline tab feeder, because now I'm concerned that the stabilizer is going to creek up otherwise. The pool is evaporating like crazy, so I will have to add some water, and hopefully the rainy season kicks in soon down here in Florida, which should dilute it further.

Does this sound like a decent plan of action? Anything else I should do for the moment?

The pool is still curing, about 3 weeks in, and looks great otherwise - crystal clear. Have not turned on heat or cleaner, waiting at least another week for that.
Thanks!

 

[thetekgeek]

What test kit did you purchase? If you got the TF100 you should have it pretty quick.

I'm leary of the 100 CYA right off the bat. If it was a fresh fill 3 weeks ago, your builder would have had to add quite a bit or the pool has been on a HIGH diet of dichlor/trichlor. The CYA test is the hardest one to get right and based off our experience, the one the Pool Stores get wrong more often than not.

I don't have experience with plaster pools, but I know in the first few weeks, PH is crucial to the curing process. You might want to pick up a cheap PH drop test somewhere to get you by until the full kit arrives, but someone else will need to chime in on how you should manage that in the short term.

While you wait for your proper test kit, it's at least a good idea to add 5 ppm worth of bleach (liquid chlorine) each day (Use PoolMath to calculate). Once the kit arrives, you'll want to run a full set of tests and post them back into this thread. The fine people on this site can help guide you from there.

 

[Nordy-que]

Thanks! Yes, I'm ordering the TF100. I thought that the stabilizer thing
was crazy too, honestly. The builder did add stabilizer, but I don't know how much. He's going to stop by later today or tomorrow, I'll ask him to verify. There's only been 2 tabs in the feeder since startup, and it's been off most of the time - first week before he added liquid chlorine, then last week when the gasket started to leak water so I turned it off. The Ph is good right now, that's the one thing he's been staying on top of, he's added acid several times to keep it in check.

 

[thetekgeek]

In that case, it seems you are on a decent path. Just make sure you add bleach each day until the kit arrives. Once you have your kit, get us some test results to work with. If the CYA is over 100, you'll have to exchange some water to get it to a manageable level. But, we won't know until we know so don't sweat it in the short term.