How to add or adjust chemical levels

After reviewing a few posts I can see what my levels should be and how to adjust them. My question is, is there an order to how things need adjusted? Does adding one thing lower something else? I have very bad algae now and have been fighting it for weeks. Do I balance my ph before flooding with bleach? Will it affect my outcome by adding acid and bleach at the same time? What about stabilizer when does that need balanced before or after getting rid of the algae? I know it's a lot of questions but knowing he order to add things will make my life much easier. Thanks in advance.

Hi justlane,

If your pH is between 7.2 and 8.0, don't worry about it until after all the algae is dead. When you shock the pool, the increased levels of chlorine will make the pH test read falsely high, so you don't want to adjust that based on false results, anyway. Don't worry about that. I also wouldn't worry about adding any stabilizer right not--you need all your chlorine available to fight the algae. That being said, you need to know what your CYA level is in order to know how high your chlorine has to be to clear up the pool--if you've been fighting it for weeks, then you're not raising your chlorine high enough, or not sustaining it for long enough. What you need to do is determine your CYA level, using that determine your shock level (see the "best guess chlorine chart" linked in my sig), and then shock the pool to that level and hold it there by testing and adding more chlorine as necessary to maintain that level until the pool clears. It may take several days, depending on how bad the outbreak is, but the more consistently you hold the shock level, the faster the pool will clear.

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Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for responding so quick. I did fill out the entry form, hopefully that give you a better understanding of my situation. The cheap test strips that came with the pool are saying that the CYA is zero but I also have read how unreliable they are. I'm working on getting the recommended test kit but have one of the cheap Wal Mart Chlorine/Ph test kits. I am trying to keep the chlorine at 15 ppm like the chart says although i am just guessing that the CYA IS 0. Just bought 16 gallons of bleach to try and keep levels up for a few days hopefully that will work until I can get a better test kit. So just to be sure it's kill the algae, then adjust Ph, then adjust CYA all the while keeping chlorine levels between 1 and 3 ppm? Or can all the levels be adjusted at the same time, after the algae is gone of course.

Kill the algae before adding CYA. As long as your pH is somewhere between 7.2-7.8 you don't have to do anything. If it drops lower, raise it with some 20 Mule Team Borax. If it goes above 7.8, lower it with some muriatic acid. (Read the using muriatic acid link in Janet's signature.) Don't test your pH when your chlorine is above 5ppm or you'll get a false reading. After the algae is dead and the pool is cleared up, keeping the chlorine between 1-3 will work as long as your CYA is less than 10. However, as your CYA level rises, so does the needed chlorine level. (See the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in Jan's signature above.) You won't want to keep your CYA at less than 10, however, or else you're gonna have a hard time keeping chlorine in the pool especially on a hot sunny day. We suggest a CYA level of 40-50 for most pools.

Until you can get the good kit (and you should), you won't be able to test chlorine readings higher than 5ppm. But, you can force your kit to read higher by using a dilution method explained here: Testing Without a Good Kit

Hope this helps.