bbb advice

You're probably right, Watermom. My understanding of cyanuric acid, an organic compound, is that it's not very soluble in water and while the granules or flakes do break down into something too small to be seen, they may still be of a size that gets trapped by the filter. The constant abrasion against the filter medium eventually does break those small particles down and pushes them back out into the pool, and that may take up to a week.

ok, so I added stabilizer and bleach. my current readings r chlorine-2.0, ph-7.2, alkalinity-50. so regular baking soda will raise the alkalinity? guess i should do that next?

Yes. Arm&Hammer baking soda raises alkalinity. It'll also increase your pH just a very little bit and that's fine.

Thanks for all the info. what i would like is measurements on raising ph, alkalinity, and chlorine by 1 for 20000 gallons.

www.poolcalculator.com is one source. There's also a bleach calculator in .exe format but I haven't used it since I don't run Windows. There are also a number of iPhone, iPad, and Android apps to help you calculate chemicals for your pool.

In 20K gallons, each 1/2 gallon of 6% bleach will raise chlorine by 1.5 ppm. In the same amount of water, each 4 oz of baking soda used should raise your TA by 1 ppm. Can't be that exact for pH though--the higher the alk level in the pool, the more borax or acid it will take to raise or lower the pH. The lower the alk level, the less of each chem it will take to move the pH.

Edit: Anna, your Post button is working faster than mine tonight! :)

Thanks again, once i get used to this system, i think it will work out well. I have always just thrown stuff in but want to get it down right. just checked everything and my levels r perfect and the pool is crystal clear. Anna, I tried that pool calculator and didnt care for it. I think im on the right path now.

Here is a different calculator. See what you think. (I like it better than the other one.)

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...18-bleach-calc