New Pool Owner Can't Get a Hold of Water Balance! Please help!

We are new owners of an in-ground pool with a cartridge filter and chlorine system. We've had the pool for 2 weeks and cannot get the water balanced correctly. Below are the most current test results:

Free chlorine: 0.0 ppm
Total chlorine: 0.0 ppm
Combined chlorine: 0.0 ppm
pH: 7.0
Hardness: 100 ppm
Alkalinity: 95 ppm
Cyanuric acid: 0 ppm
Volume of water: 23,640 gallons.

We have gotten so much conflicting information that we are very confused. We are constantly adding muriatic acid to get the pH up. We can't seem to get the chlorine right. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Jose

Hi Jose, and welcome to the Pool Forum.

First thing I notice about your post is that you are adding muriatic acid to increase pH. That is backwards! Muriatic acid decreases pH! Instead, use 20 Mule Team Borax (laundry aisle at Walmart) to increase pH. Buy several boxes. Start with adding a box slowly to the skimmer while the pump is runnng, breaking up any clumps. After 2 or 3 hours, retest pH and redose until you get somewhere between 7.2-7.8. (I like 7.4-7.6 best.) After the pH starts to move, you might want to add smaller additions of Borax at a time.

While at Walmart, buy a bunch of jugs of plain, unscented 6% bleach. I buy their generic bleach. Cheaper than Clorox and works great. Start by adding 4 gallons slowly into the skimmer while the pump is running or slowly in front of a return jet being careful not to splash it. That should take you up to about 10ppm.

Is this a vinyl or gunite pool? Do you have a test kit or did a pool store test for you? How does the water look?

More after you answer these questions.

Sorry, I typed that incorrectly! We did use muriatic acid to decrease the pH.

It is a gunite pool and we have a test at home and took it to the store. The results were the same. The water looks cloudy.

Thanks for the help...

Good. Glad to hear the muriatic acid was being used properly. By the way, what kind of kit do you have and what is the upper limit on its ability to test chlorine?

Since you have a kit at home, I want you to test morning and evening and if you are home, in the afternoon as well. Each time, add enough bleach to take the cl back up to around 10-12ppm. With gunite, you don't have to be as conservative since you don't have to worry about bleaching out a liner. Run the pump 24/7 and clean the cartridge as needed.

Your calcium hardness is on the low side. (You want it between 200-400.) Since the pool is cloudy, my advice is to just use bleach for now until the cloudiness clears up and then you can use some cal-hypo for awhile as your source of chlorine until the hardness reading comes up into range.

You will also need some CYA, sometimes called stabilizer. You many be able to buy this at Walmart, just make sure if you find it there that it isn't mixed with anything else. Sometimes Lowe's or Home Depot will have it and of course pool stores do. You want the ingredients to be cyanuric or isocyanuric acid. You're going to need about 8 lbs. You can either hang it in a sock in front of the return jet and leave the pump running 24/7 until it dissolves, giving it a squeeze every now and then to help it along. Or, you can add it to slowly to the skimmer to avoid clogging it up and let it dissolve in the filter. Then, leave the pump running 24/7 for at least 4 to 5 days to give it time to dissolve. (If your filter pressure is still rising a lot and you are having to do frequent cleanings, you might not want to add it to the skimmer or otherwise you will be losing it when you wash the cartridge.) That amount should take you to around 40ppm. CYA is kind of like sunscreen for your chlorine. It keeps your chlorine from being lost to the sun too quickly. A week after it is added, test for it and post the reading.

When you get to the point where you can go from sundown one day until sunup the next morning without losing more than 1ppm of cl, then we'll know you don't have any algae in the water.

Hope this helps. Ask if you have more questions.