New Pool Owner. Help Please.

[hansn484]

Ok Poolforum,

I am a brand new owner of a pool that came with a house I purchasedin March. Both the pool guy, the pool store and the previous owner said the pool was a piece of cake. So far it has been anything but easy. It is slowly getting more fun at least as I am learning a great deal.

The pool guy said it is approx. 20,000 gal pool. It is a 'True L' shaped pool that is 16x32 .

I had been using test strips, 3 inch chlorine tablets(Tricholo-s-triazinetrione 91.1%), shock (Sodium Hypochlorite 12.5%), and algecide (dimethyl benzyl ammonium chlorides 30%, dimethyl ethylbenzyl ammonium chlorides 30, inert 40%).

The test strips have been all over the place. Initially I had nothing showing up for the chlorine. I finally got some CC to show up but the total hardness is not showing anything.

I found these forums and every post indicated I purchase a FAs-DPD K-2006 kit. SO I have that, here are my readings:

PH - barely 7.2(I had a little trouble telling if it was 7.0 or 7.2, but I'm pretty sure it was 7.2 and my wife said 7.2)
Hardness - 40ppm
Alk-30ppm
Free Chlorine - 0 ppm
Combined Chlorine - .4 ppm
CYA - 35ppm

If I'm reading the book right, here is what I think I should do:

Increase alkalinity by adding 20lbs of baking soda
Increase hardness by adding 48 lbsof calcium chloride
Decrease CC by adding 3 pt of 12% sodium hypochlorite

I also think I need to decide whether I am going to use the 3 inch tablets or the shock, not both. From what I am reading the 3 inch tablets add the cya but they also screw with the alkalinity. For that purpose I'm going to guess I should go with the shock.

Is my plan good, any alterations I should make? I would like to use the products I have but I also have Bleach and Borax for when they run out.

-Nathan Hans
Albany, NY

[Watermom]

Good that you got the kit but ignore the book that comes with it. It is not good.

Take a look at the ingredients of those tabs. Does it say that they have copper in them? If not, then you can use them for awhile but they will increase your CYA and drive your pH down since they are very acidic. When your CYA gets to around 50ish, you'll want to quit using them and just stick with the sodium hypochlorite.

For now, get some chlorine in there before the pool turns green. Use that sodium hypochlorite. Each quart of it will add about 1.5ppm of chlorine to the pool. Since you currently have no chlorine in there and are detecting a CC reading (ideally, CC should be 0), I am going to suggest that you shock the pool. If you take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below, you will see that with a CYA reading of 35, your shock level is 15ppm. So, add about 2.5 gallons. You want to be able to go from sundown one evening to within one hour of sunrise the next morning without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine and without having more than 0.5pm of CC. When you are able to do that, then I would suggest that you keep the chlorine high for one additional day and then let it drift down and keep it between 3-6.

(By the way, when you start using the bleach which I assume is 8.25% sodium hypochlorite, each quart will add 1ppm of chlorine.)

Forget using that algaecide.

You do want to raise your alk but do NOT add 20 lbs all at once unless you want to take the chance of having a cloudy pool! Add a couple of pounds at a time and then add more a few hours later until you get the alk to between 80-120. Add it slowly through the skimmer.

Keep an eye on your pH. If it goes lower than 7.2, you'll want to use a little of the Borax to bring it back up. Try to keep it between 7.2-7.8.

Hope this helps. Re-post if you have more questions.

[hansn484]

Ok. I put in the chlorine and some baking soda. I'll keep adding baking soda. I don't see copper on the ingredients for the tablets, Zinc sulfate monohydrate(3.5%) and other ingredients(5.4%)

Do I need to do anything about the low water hardness?

I'll read the site a bit more now that I know the book isn't good.

[Watermom]

I'm not sure about the zinc. Let me run that past Ben.

Is this a liner pool?

Also read on www.poolsolutions.com.

[hansn484]

Yes it is an inground liner pool.

[hansn484]

Here are my test results that past 2 nights

FC CC PH Alkalinity Hardness CYA
22-Jun 1.2 0.2 7 50 40 <30
23-Jun 0.2 0.2 7.4 100 40 35

I'm losing Chlorine pretty fast. It's been quite sunny out, and will be for this week. Other than shocking it I haven't added any more Sodium Hypochlorite, should I be adding that daily? How much? Should I shock it again?

I added the baking soda on the 22nd, after testing, which is why pH and Alk are both up on the 23rd.

Thanks for the help.

[Watermom]

Since your chlorine has dropped so low, go ahead and shock the pool up to about 15ppm using the reference amounts I gave you in a previous post.

Most people need to add a little bleach every evening or maybe every other evenings.

Each evening, test the water for chlorine and pH. (Don't try and test pH when the chlorine is high, however, or you'll get a falsely high reading.) After you test, add enough bleach to get your chlorine back up to 6ppm. The next evening, test again. If you find that you didn't make it through the day without having your chlorine drop below 3, then take your chlorine up to 7ppm. Continue to do this each evening. You'll soon learn how high you have to take the chlorine so that you don't let it drop below the minimum from the Best Guess Chlorine Chart (in my signature below) before the next evening. Does that make sense?

You only need to test the alk every few weeks and if you don't use any calhypo, you don't even need to test CH. Only test the CYA if you add some and then, wait a week after the addition before you test it to make sure you let it dissolve.

(If you find that you have trouble keeping chlorine in your pool, you may want to bump your CYA up to around 50ppm.)