First, MrBfromNC, I really hope you are a school teacher or something cuz that's a great explanation to answer the questions he asked. Also, you need to be the one to write the Pool School articles, lol.
Hayseed, here, there really is no such thing as a stupid question or asking too many questions. Taking care of a pool can be complicated in some cases, especially if you have been given bad information in the past or if you have no experience at all with pools prior to coming here. The TFP method tries to (excuse the phrase) dumb it down as much as possible so that anyone of any age can understand it, and once you've gotten the hang of everything, it's super simple and easy.
From what you said, it sounds like you might be thinking bleach raises you CYA... Bleach or liquid chlorine raises your FC. You don't want to use anything that is a solid form of chlorine like shock powders or chlorine tabs, since those contain extra ingredient that keep the chlorine in a solid state, but also will raise other levels in your pool that are difficult to reduce. Liquid chlorine (which is just strong bleach) essentially just contains dissolved chlorine, water, and a small amount of salt. Using liquid chlorine or bleach means you don't add anything extra to your pool and only add what you want to add.
To low FC, add bleach; to high FC, don't worry about it. The sun will quickly degrade any excess FC in your pool, which means any FC that isn't protected by CYA. The CYA protects the FC from the sunlight, but it can only protect so much FC, which is why you don't target a FC that's higher than recommended. At the same time, CYA also reduces the sanitizing effects of FC, which is why as you increase your CYA, you also increase FC. See how the 2 go hand in hand? As CYA goes up, FC needs to go up, if CYA goes down (it does degrade at a very slow rate) you FC needs to go down.
To raise your CYA, you add stabilizer (I buy chlorox brand from Walmart). 9 out of 10 times, it will be marketed as stabilizer. This is a granular white stuff, not the stabilized chlorine tabs that are round discs. Recommended to start with a target of 30 or 40. If you live somewhere super hot with intense sunlight like Texas, or any hot southern state, you might end up raising your CYA higher to fight the degradation from the sunlight. If your CYA gets outrageously high, like 100+, the only way to reduce it is to drain some of your water and start over. CYA is one of those chemicals that basically never leaves your pool.
For CYA testing, you start with 0 in your tap water, use
PoolMath to find the amount to add, and only add 3/4 of the amount Pool Math says so you don't overshoot. Give it half a week to a week and retest, but during this waiting period, you go ahead and target your FC based on the CYA level you had targeted. Once you test your CYA a week later, you might need to add more, or might be fine where it is.
CYA and FC are the 2 most important chemicals to worry about at first, and once you've added your CYA to raise it's level, you can then work on other tests like Calcium Hardness (if you have a plaster pool), Total Alkalinity, and pH.
So now you're added your CYA in a sock and it's dissolved in your pool. Use your pH test now to check your pool. If the pH is below 7.2 add 20-Mule Borax from Walmart to raise it up some. If your pH is above 7.8, add muriatic acid from a hardware store to lower your pH back down. Generally speaking, pH tends to climb up over time, so you'll have to periodically add more muriatic acid (MA) to keep it in the 7.2-7.8 range.
For the TA (Total Alkalinity) test, make sure you wipe the tip of the final bottle in that test with a damp paper towel after each and every drop so you don't get too high of a result (bit of complicated reasons for this). If TA is high, your pH will rise faster, and adding MA to lower pH also lowers your TA, so it'll correct itself over time. If your TA is too low, add some cheap baking soda to raise it up. The proper amount of TA for your pool can vary quite a bit from pool to pool, and you'll notice over time that your TA tends to go towards a specific amount. The "recommended" amount is 60-80ppm I think, but my pool prefers 50 and so that's what I use.
Each day, test your FC, CC, and pH.
Once a week, test your TA and CH.
Once a month, test your CYA.
BTW, CC is the Combined Chloromines. This is an indication of if there's algae in your pool. If it's over 1ppm, you might have algae. Otherwise your fine.
Also, regardless of what the Taylor directions say, test your FC and CC this way to save some of the reagents: 10mL of sample water from your pool, 1 scoop of the powder, each drop will then equal 0.5ppm. So if it takes 8 drops, you have 4ppm. I think with Taylor's directions, 4ppm would be 20 drops cuz they are 0.2ppm per drop...
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