Hi Dan,

The only thing I can help you on is the alk. I just got through aerating for weeks, and it wasn't until I posted to the forum that I found out my pH wasn't *quite* low enough. Once I got it low enough, the alk dropped fast--from 190 to 100 in 2 days.

I'm not sure what your test kit looks like and my pool is 33K gallons, so don't add the same amount of acid I did. I discovered that I needed to add a gallon to lower the pH from 7.4 to 7.2. Per everyone who responded to my post, the pH needs to be at about 7 for the alk to gas off via aeration. With my test kit, I got it to 7.2 (light orange), and then added another 1/2 gallon of muriatic to get it to a lighter orange, which I'm guessing was about 7. I never did get it into 6.8pH territory. Once I did that, the aeration went quickly.

Use the calculater to figure out the right amount of acid for the size of your pool. Something I learned, however, is that the calculator is based on I think 31% muriatic. I had to add WAY more than the calculator said to drop the pH, and got worried I was putting too much acid in. I finally read MY bottles of muriatic and found they were only 13% concentration...

The other thing I learned to speed things up is that more bubbles are better. I had two returns I could plug things into to make bubbles. Had a fountain in one and a piece of pvc pipe jammed in the other that made about a 4' arc into the water. Also, I was aerating 24/7.

I'm sorry I can't help with the calcium, CYA and chlorine levels (although with your CC level, you need to add more chlorine, just not sure how much). This forum is great, so I'm sure you'll get answers to everything.

Good luck!