Thanks for the tips so far - here are my results!

I decided to take back my pool from the pool supply dealers this year. I was tired of taking my water to them, have it analyzed, have them say I needed $100's of dollars in chemicals, follow their advice, and end up with a pool that was more cloudy than it was, and unswimmable too.

We opened our pool 7 days ago, the water was 64 and clear but there was a nice dark coating of algae, crud, whatever in the bottom. This 24 round above ground pool with vinyl liner was built in October 2003, and we wanted to change out the sand in the filter before bringing it up this year. Did that with no issues.

Filled pool up to the brim and vacuumed it all out to waste;had to refill it again just to get it back to top to finish it. Got it all out and tested it with an old 5-way test kit. The numbers were low PH and alkalinity of 220. We have had to always add Balance Pack 100 as our alkalinity has always been low so this didn't make much sense to me. We bought a new 5-way test kit and it was the same. I decided to test our tap water (out of a well) and it registered 40 (4 drops), so I set out to lower the alkalinity based on the tips here with muriatic acid and aeration. Within about 5 days, I had it lowered to 90 (overshot it, really wanted it around 120). Still scratching my head as to how our alkalinity level got so high!

My test kit readings indicated Alkalinity around 90 and PH around 7.8.

Got my readings from the pool store last night and here is what they said: (My test kit readings indicated Alkalinity around 90 and PH around 7.8.)

Temperature: 75
Saturation Index: -0.4
TDS: 800
CYA: 70
Tot Chlorine: 1.7 (I did add about 3 gallons of bleach to begin with and we do have a floater with 4 3inch tabs in it)
Free Cholorine: 0
ph: 7.8
Total Alkalinity: 103
Adjusted Alkalinity: 82
Total Hardness 94
Optimizer +: 12

They suggested 11 pounds of Balance Pak 100 and 1.75 pounds of Lo 'N Slo, 4.75 pounds of Balance Pak 300 (hardness), and 5 bags of Burn Out Extreme shock.

So, this morning, I added 9 pounds of Baking soda and almost 3 gallons (2 1.42 gallons of bleach to be exact). My Alkalinity appears to be around 130 with PH still around the 7.8 area. After putting in the bleach and checking, the color was almost immediately a bright yellow. Based on the forums, I'm not putting calcium hardness in the pool (my wife is having a difficult time understanding that one).

So, am I on the right track here?

Thanks for your help in advance!

HI, and welcome to the forum!!


Yyes, you are exactly on the right track!! So--how does your water look, and is the algae still present? If the algae is NOT still there, then you need to be keeping your chlorine between 5 and 10 ppm at all times, because your stabilizer is high at 70. If the algae is still there, then you need to bump your chlorine up to 20 ppm and hold it there, with pump running and brushing daily, until the algae is dead and the filter has a chance to clear it all out. I would remove your trichlor pucks from the floater, though, because your CYA is already high and is going to continue to rise as long as you're using them.

Your alkalinity actually is ok at 90, but in a vinyl pool will be okay at 130. Don't raise it any more, though.

And you're right not to put calcium in your pool. It is necessary for plaster/concrete pools to keep the water from leaching the calcium from the concrete, making it brittle--but in a vinyl pool there is no calcium to leach, so no need to add more calcium if there's any at all already in the pool.

And just one other quick comment--I would always, always trust my own drop-based testing over that of the pool store's. If you want them to test it to verify your readings, fine--but if they differ, I would always go with your own....

Janet

The water is sparkling clear with no algae present.

I just wanted to see how close I was and was why I had the local pool guy double check my work.

So you recommend taking out the trichlor tabs. Replace it with just bleach or cal-hypo? If bleach, how much and how often would you guess?

No more trichlor for this pool. Trichlor is stabilized and will continue to add CYA to your water which you don't want. It is already a little high at 70. Take a look at the Best Guess table in my signature for the correlation between CYA and needed chlorine levels. I'd just stick with bleach for your pool. In this size pool, each quart of 6% bleach will add about 1/2ppm of chlorine. You'll need to test and add bleach every evening or two. You'll soon learn how your pool behaves. Add enough bleach to take your cl level back up to 10. Tomorrow evening, test again and see what chlorine level you have. You want to make sure you keep it between 5-10 all the time. You may find that with a CYA of 70, you'll only need to add bleach every 2nd or 3rd day. You'll find your pools pattern after a few days of testing. Don't let it drop below 5pm or you risk an algae bloom.

You also probably want to lower your pH a bit. Add a cup of muriatic acid slowly in front of a return jet. Don't splash it on you or the liner and stay upwind of the fumes. Wear gloves and glasses. It is nasty stuff. Test pH several hours later and see how much that lowered the pH. Don't test pH when your chlorine is high, however or you'll get an inaccurate reading. Test it in the evening before you add more bleach. If it is still a little high, repeat the dose.