BBB homeschooling 101 ...

I've had an inground pool before and never had a ton of problems but I was taken to the pool store woodshed on a number of occasions. Being much older and wiser now, I plan to learn as much as possible before the new AGP is installed. I am a forum noob so forgive me if I missed it (I did a search) ... I've read the BBB primer and want to know is there anything special I need to know for the following: opening a new pool, BBB and SWCG, determining the right products to buy (non pool store) to have on hand when pool is installed? As stated in my last post, I have ordered the pool, etc. and am about to order the Foutain/Light shimmydo, Taylor K-2006 and a Salt test kit. How much liquid bleach, borax, baking soda should I initially buy? Do different brands matter, etc?

Thanks to all!!

Hi, and welcome!!

I would recommend that you go ahead and get your test kits, and run a set of tests on your fill water andpost them here. That will help determine what you'll need in the way of chems. We know you'll need bleach and muriatic acid (the latter because you'll have a swcg). The rest will depend on your water. The bleach canbe plain, generic-- lots of us use generic ultra from wal-mart. As for the equipment questions, I'll leave that up to the others.

Janet

Congratulations on the new pool!

Your pool builder will probably get the water ready for you that first time as part of the building process. He'll likely add several bags of dichlor for initial chlorination and to supply some stabilizer, and he may want to add an algaecide. If the algaecide has "polyquat 60" in its long list of chemicals, okay. If not, I'd probably ask him to not put any in.

You should have several bottles of bleach on hand, to use until your SWCG is fully up and running. You'll need enough bags of salt to bring the concentration to the manufacturer's suggested level. Also stabilizer flakes or liquid stabilizer (CYA), baking soda, 20 Mule Team borax. How much of any of that depends on the volume of your pool and the kind of fill water being put in.

You'll want to become familiar with the Pool Calculator which will help you figure how much of which chemical to add to your specific volume.

I wouldn't worry too much about the baking soda or borax for now--the Borax is used to raise pH, which usually doesn't need to be done with a SWCG, unless the initial pH is too low. Same goes for the baking soda--no reason to add it unless your TA is way, way low.

I agree with AnnaK that you'll need salt and CYA, but you really need test results from your fill water before you spend a lot on baking soda and Borax--not every pool needs those.

Janet

Also remember that dichlor is stabilized meaning it has cya in it. If dichlor is used as start up shock (and that wouldn't be a bad idea) just remember to monitor your cya level before throwing a bunch of cya in separately.

That's the info I was looking for ... thanks! Taylor K-2006 and Salt test kit on the way. Will pick up bleach and salt then wait until initial test (posted here) and see where to go from there. I don't think the installer will be hanging around to wait for the pool to fill, etc. Being that they are not local then I imagine that I will get a quick overview and be on my own ... no problem as I doubt that he is a BBB believer and I have y'all for help :D

Well, we'll definitely be here! :)

Janet

Good luck- let us know where we can help!