New pool owner needs help.

[Watermom]

Either pour it slowly into the skimmer while the pump is running (this is what I do) or pour it slowly in front of a return jet while the pump is running. Either way is fine.

[shoogles]

Ok, so I went to Walmart and they didn't have the HTH tester... only strips. So I took a sample to the pool store and got the numbers from them.... and now I think I completely wasted my time doing so.

The numbers I got from the pool store are:
FC: 0
CC: 0
pH: 8.4
CYA: 18
TA: 134


My drop test (which has everything but CYA) numbers are:
FC: too low to be measured
CC: too low to be measured
pH: 7.8
TA: 260

So now I don't know whats right? Should I shock according to their CYA level? Should I take it to another pool store and get another opinion?

[shoogles]

Also, I forgot to mention that I didn't get to put in the bleach last night... the sun went down and then a storm moved in. Our pump is a little tempermental right now, so I didn't want to run it when there were leaves and other fun stuff like that blowing into the pool.

[aylad]

Have you put any CYA into the pool? It would have had to be in the form of CYA granules, or using dichlor powder or trichlor pucks to chlorinate. If you haven't added any of that, then shock based on 0 CYA, which is what you have. CYA has to be added in order to be present in your pool water. If you haven't added any CYA, then you need to shock based on a 0 level. Bring your water up to 10 (bringing it up to 12-15 actually wouldn't hurt) by putting the 2 1/2 gallons of bleach in (or 3 1/2 gallons if you want to go up to 15) . Test the water as often as possible and add more bleach to get back up to the 10-15 range as often as possible, as I described in the above thread. If you haven't added any CYA up to now, you can go ahead and add it either via skimmer, where it will sit and dissolve on your filter (but you can't clean your filter until it dissolves, probably 3-4 days) or put it in an old sock and hang it in front of a return to help it dissolve. You want to target around 30-40 ppm of CYA, but only put in about 2/3 of what you think you'll need at first, because it's easier to add more later than it is to add too much and overshoot, requiring higher chlorine levels or drain/refill to compensate.

And as for your other question, I would trust my drop-based test results over any pool store, any time!!!

Janet

[shoogles]

We do have those tablet things that have CYA in them that we were attempting to chlorinate with, so there's why we have a little bit of CYA in there because of those.

So I guess I'll base my chlorine amount on the CYA level from the pool store to shock.

I will not, however, add acid to my pool if I don't need it. Is 7.8 too high? Should I shock first and worry about the pH later?

[Watermom]

Your pH is ok at 7.8. Anywhere between 7.2-7.8 is fine.

[shoogles]

Thanks Janet and Watermom. Husband is out brushing and adding bleach as we speak.

[shoogles]

So, we attempted the CarlD Shotglass method of testing our water, but it didn't seem to work. No matter how much we diluted (1 to 2, 1 to 3, 1 to 4, etc.) it always read at .2. Can't figure out why.

So now we have no idea if we have enough bleach in the pool to have reached shock level or not... and I'm not exactly sure what we'll do tomorrow when we need to test the water again and add more bleach. Yikes.