Am I forced to completely drain and refill? Thanks
Hi there. While if your cya is truly 120 and your calcium 1000, yes, it is likely you will need/want to drain at least a portion, eg. 50% to get your water to a trouble free place.
But before expending the time and energy, please consider adopting TFP maintenance methods to optimize your efforts
1. Purchase either the tft100 or Taylor 2006 test kit (
TFTestkits.net ) so that you can accurately test your own water parameters, especially cya, which can't be tested with other kits
2. Have a read in pool school on water balance and get familiar with the cya-FC ratio...its a short learning curve but will help you master this quickly
3. Sanitize with liquid chlorine/bleach instead of using trichlor pucks...those pucks add excess cya which then causes interference with sanitation...they're handy for vacations, but otherwise left out o your pool as they cause a moving target via the constant addition of cya with ever nailing the correct FC level.
By adopting this approach, you will be able to get a fresh start on your new-to-you pool and be in a better position to troubleshoot
if your source water is high in calcium, his approach will help you read and manage the higher calcium levels to avoid degrading your surface etc.