Please help me avoid last year's mistakes

Okay, my husband finally drained & cleaned our pool. It is an aboveground round Intex pool. (There is more info in my signature line.) He is replacing the rope around the bottom of it and then will soon be refilling it. We are starting with fresh tap water. I'll run some stats on the chemistry of our tap water with our Taylor test kit & post them in a reply to this post later today. Or should we fill the pool & then draw the test sample from what's actually in the pool? We don't want to make the mistake we made last year of using pool chemicals & wasting so much time trying to "balance" that we ignore chlorine & end up with a green pool right at the start.

What is the best way to add stabilizer? We do have some of the "pucks" but I understand they aren't best. Should we plan to just buy some stabilizer by itself? If so, how will we know how much to add? At what point should we start adding bleach?

Any help in getting off on the right foot would be appreciated!

Okay, so we moved the pool back on the newly releveled space. We're going to have to put some kind of barrier around the sand on that one side to prevent it from washing away again this year. DH is in the process of replacing the rope around the bottom of the pool. For now, our next plan will be to fill up the pool & run all the numbers except stabilizer & post them here for advice. Does this sound good?

I would go ahead and run a complete set of numbers (except cya) onyour fill water, so you'll know exactly what to get. Then fill up your pool and we'll go from there. You'll need to go ahead and add bleach from the beginning, so we'll need your pool volume. Also, you'll need to get a small container of CYA . I get mine in the spa section at wal mart. It's labeled conditioner, but the main ingredient is cyanuric acid.

Good seeing you back this year!!!

Janet

Okay, starting numbers from our tap water this afternoon:

FC 0.5 ppm
CC 0.0 ppm
pH 8.0
TA 120 ppm

We also did the acid demand test which took 4 drops to get something that was about 7.5 pH. However, won't the pH go down once the water starts circulating?

Pool volume about 5000 gallons when full.

Looks like you'll need CYA, muriatic or dry acid ( dry acid is easier to deal with, but more expensive and less effective than muriatic), and bleach. The pH wont go down because the water is circulating--if anything it will go up.

Add bleach to getthe water to around 3-5 ppm, and you cango ahead and add your cya. Follow label dose for a target of 20 ppm, but only add about 2/3 of the dose. Dont backwash or test for it for about a week, and keep in mind uou'll have to bleach daily until cya is in the pool.

Janet

Thank you!
What is in dry acid?
Where can we find muriatic acid?
Not sure what backwashing is, but pretty sure our filter/pump doesn't do that.

Okay, we still have 4 bags of aquachem "shock plus" from last year. It has sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione 58.2%, Other Ingredients 41.8%. We bought it at Walmart. From what I have been reading, it is mildly acidic and also contains some CYA. Could we use this in any way? I hate to waste it. We have zero CYA currently. We have four 1Lb packages of this.

We also have about 3 lbs of "pH down" (sodium bisulfite 93.2%). Is this the same thing as dry acid? The label says for 10,000 gallons with pH of 7.9-8.0 to add 12 oz. So could we add 6 oz (by weight) of this to our filled pool & then check the pH? How long would we want to give after adding it to check the pH?

Also, regarding pH, the highest our Taylor kit would measure is 8.0, but our hot pink was a bit brighter than the 8.0, so DH suspects our pH may have been a bit above 8.0. The "pH down" says for 10,000 gallons at pH 8.1-8.4 to use 20 oz. of pH down. The package says after adding the pH down, to allow the pool to recirculate the water for 2 hours before checking pH.

Is there any reason to keep the kids from playing in the water in the pool while we are filling it up? They are anxious to do so, as we let them do this last year. This is, of course, the same water they bathe in (just cold). We don't plan to add any chemicals until the pool is completely filled.

Thanks so much for all your help! :)

The "shock plus is dichlor, which will add chlorine, slightly lower ph, and begin to raise cya, so this is an ideal time to use it. The pH down is dry acid, and you could dose it the way you describe, except I would only add 4 oz or so, since the dichlor may already drop the ph. You don't want it to get below 7.0, because that can damage your liner. I would wait 2-3 hours after dosing to check results. Remember that it's better to sneak up on your target nimber than to overshoot it. Your filter is probably a cartridge and cant be backwashed so you can spray it off with a hose.

Janet

I agree with Janet. Using dichlor right now is a good idea as it will add chlorine, cya and help lower pH. If, after a bit of time using dichlor, if your pH is still too high, then you can use acid or pH-down to lower it, but for now, I'd just try the dichlor and see how much it affects your pH. Glad to see you back here on the forum this year!