Pool is filling - tap water results.....

[court475]

We have our pool filling now. 24' x 52" A.G. vinyl. I'm guess filled about 13570.56 gallons, assuming it would fill to about 48"?? I used the 5 way HTH kit from Wal-Mart. Have not gotten around to ordering Ben's kit yet, but I will soon.

Alk 330 (high!)
Harness 0
Ph 8.2
Cl 2ppm

So what are your thoughts?

Courtney

[JohnT]

Get some muriatic acid on hand to control your pH and start on your alkalinity. The chlorine is probably in the form of chloramines and isn't useful. Ben used to have a post somewhere recommending adding chlorine as soon as you got a foot of water in the pool.

[court475]

How much muriatic acid should I add?

Also, my husband just realized the pool they gave us is a 54", vs. the 52" that we bought. AND, they only put in one return jet, we're supposed to have 2.

Courtney

[KurtV]

We have our pool filling now. 24' x 52" A.G. vinyl. I'm guess filled about 13570.56 gallons, assuming it would fill to about 48"?? I used the 5 way HTH kit from Wal-Mart. Have not gotten around to ordering Ben's kit yet, but I will soon.

Alk 330 (high!)
Harness 0
Ph 8.2
Cl 2ppm

So what are your thoughts?

Courtney
Courtney,
Get some chlorine in the pool first. Because you don't have any stabilizer in the water yet, I'd start with about 3 ppm. Youll need about 3 quarts of ultra household bleach (6% sodium hypochlorite) to achieve that. You'll have to add chlorine every day until you get some stabilizer (aka Cyanuric Acid or CYA) in the water so test frequently and add bleach as needed. This is the most important chemical you'll add to your water so pay close attention to it.

After that, get your pH down to between 7.2 and 7.8. Start with about a cup (8 fluid oz.) of muriatic acid or a pound of dry acid, retest the pH a couple of hours later, and repeat until the pH is in the proper range. Test this as often as you test the chlorine which should be every day. (Your high alakalinity will come down some as you lower the pH but you'll probably have to deal with your veryhigh alkalinity eventually; don't worry about it too much right now.)

After that read the "Sticky" threads at the top of the Using Chlorine and Chlorinating Chemical forum and the Testing and Adjusting Pool Water Chemistry forum.

Find and download BleachCalc. A link to it is in the signature line of every post by mwsmith2. That program will help you figure out how much of the various chemicals you need to add to achieve the desired results.

Think about getting a better test kit. The kit that Ben sells through the Poolsolutions.com website is the best and most cost effective. The K2006 from Taylor is also good. Both of those use an FAS-DPD chlorine test, which is the gold standard.

Hope this helps get you started.