Thanks Carl.

I totally agree with you in that we should rarely add the full amount of a compound initially. That's why I said "we can always add more later" in my first post.

I'm learning as I go along and I appreciate your input. It had always been my understanding that you can't achieve a neutral pH in an acidic solution unless you add an alkaline buffer. I'm not necessarily basing my evaluation of this pool being acidic solely on the test strip pH but also on the calculations of the effect of adding 1.5 pounds of CYA to 5000 gallons of water. That alone would drop the pH by 0.6-something. Even if the fill water pH was at a neutral 7.5 it would go to 6.9—and that was kind of verified by the test strip pH.

I've been reading Richard's and Evan's posts; the China Shop is one of my favorite hangouts. Somehow I completely missed that TA isn't relevant in a vinyl pool. I knew we didn't need to be overly concerned with calcium but always thought we needed some alkalinity to buffer the water.

Live and learn. Thanks for setting me straight.