Water is clear but readings are all over the place

[aamoedo]

Hello,

I'm a first-time pool owner. Liner in-ground pool, 20K gallons, chlorine tablets and I add liquid chlorine once per week, per my old pool guy's instructions. Everything was testing great until we had a middle school pool party & a few days of extreme rain. The pool looks great- crystal clear.

For a few weeks, my CYA has shown up as zero on my test strips, even after I added stabilizer. We do swim a lot, AND it's been hot so I've been adding water at least once or twice a week...maybe that's the CYA culprit? I entered all my readings into the app but I wanted to get some advice from folks as well. Thank you!

Here are my readings:
Hardness 25 ppm (we live in Louisville and have extremely hard water)
TC: 20
FC: 10-20 (hard to tell between the two but it's closer to 20)
Bromine: 20
Alk: 40
CYA: 0 according to the test
PH: 6.2

So I think, according to the calculator, I need to add quite a bit of baking soda, some borax and some stabilizer. But, I'm not sure what order to add them in & if/how I would even go about adding 5 lbs of baking soda.

Please share any wisdom you may have!

 

[mknauss]

Welcome to the forum!
You need a proper test kit. I suggest the TF-100/Pro or Taylor K2006C. A proper test kit is needed to get the accurate water chemistry results needed to follow the TFP protocols.
While you are waiting on your test kit, add 5 ppm FC worth of liquid chlorine / plain bleach to your pool each evening with the pump running. This will replenish the FC lost each day to the sun and also inhibit any algae in the water from growing further.
I suggest you read through Pool Care Basics - Trouble Free Pool and even look at a few of our videos TFP-TV - Trouble Free Pool

 

[aamoedo]

Thank you so much! I have been reading all the articles & appreciate what y'all do! I'll try some of the videos and get that test kit.