Vacation time what now?

[Digger]

Now, I am really confused, LOL! First of all before I do anything. When does a person shock their pool? Please bear with me, I am coming off of 14 plus years of Baq, and shocking it often with a separate chemical. How do I go about shocking it? I am guessing just putting in a high dose of chlorination? So maybe if I shock it before leaving and let the filter run 24/7, plus have someone put bleach in for me, that should be suffcient? Or do the other suggestions that others gave me. What are borates? Is that Borax? How do I regulate them? I have been running high on my PH and keep putting muriatic acid in to reduce it. Today it was about 7.8 again. Thanks again!

[Digger]

Sorry Carl, I posted and saw your post afterwards. Yeah, that is kind of what I was thinking may work best. I guess I need to get my PH under control, and if I could have some help on shocking? Do I chlorinate to get levels up to 15? THanks again.

[blessedbeingmom]

We just got back from vacation. We added a starting dose of Polyquat, then shocked (however, we didn't wait the 24 hours, as we didn't realize we should have until it was too late and we were about to leave). Mid week (4 days later) my DH's parents came by & put in about a gallon of bleach. Our pool is about 5000 gallons. We put a cover (with a vented area) over the pool, but it fell in while we were away. The purpose of the cover was supposed to help keep the chlorine from dissipating as fast. Nonetheless, we came home to a clear pool.

[Watermom]

Digger,
Shocking is just super-chlorinating. You can use bleach to shock. How high to shock to depends on your CYA level. Can you give us a current reading so we can verify how high you need to shock to? If you shock before you leave and have someone who can come and add some bleach every couple of days and run the pump for a few hours each day, you should be fine.

[waterbear]

What are borates? Is that Borax? How do I regulate them?

Borax is one way to get borates in your water (the least expensive but not the easieist but it's not that hard.) You only have to add them once since they are like CYA, they don't go away except by splashout or backwashing. They are also used in biguanide pools (bacqua and softswim) but at higher levels than in chlorine pools. For commercial borate products--Bioguard has Optimizer, Proteam has Supreme, Pool Life has Endure.
There are others but plain 20 mule team and muriatic acid work just as well.
LaMotte makes an excellent borate test strip that is accurate enough for what is needed.
If you want more info PM me after you get back from vacation and I will direct you to some threads that explain all about them and how to add them inexpensively with borax and acid so you can decide for yourself. It's really pretty easy.

[Digger]

Thanks everyone. I am going to have my CYA checked at the pool place today. It is reading about 30 for me, wondering if I should add more, actually, I did add just 1/2 a sock full two days ago, and I know it takes about a week to register, so afraid to add too much more. The one pool place last week told me it was low in the 20's ( but this was after I didn't need any other chemicals! ), so I was skeptical, when my readings were higher. Man, you are all right, what other business are you at their mercy like this, they can tell you anything, and you do it ( well DID it!!) I am going to shock it and try to bring the PH down, and have chlorine added when I am going, with the pump running 24/7 and the Kreepy in while I am gone. That should hold it good? I am unsure of the borax, etc. so will just go this route. Want to learn more about all of this though!

[Digger]

Water bear, I do have the 20 mule team on hand, I got that and lots of baking soda at the beginning of the season. I have not had a chance to use either because my PH has been running high. I have been using the Muriatic Acid to bump that down, but it creeps back up?

[waterbear]

Man, you are all right, what other business are you at their mercy like this, they can tell you anything, and you do it ( well DID it!!)

Hmmm, let me think...doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, contractors, accountants, stockbrokers (learned a hard lesson myself on a margin call about listening to brokers!)...I could go on!

Digger,
Most pools using bleach rarely need borax to raise pH nor baking soda to raise TA, given "normal' fill water conditions. The Chemicals used most often with bleach are Acid and CYA
However, adding 60 oz of borax by weight and 30 oz of muriatic acid by volume for every 1000 gallons of water will raise borates to 50 ppm. Here are some theads with further reading on the subject. I will warn you the content of these threads is advanced but addng borates is easy. Read these threads and if you are still interested I can give you full instructions in a cookbook fashion.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=5419

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=4712

[aylad]

I am going to shock it and try to bring the PH down, and have chlorine added when I am going, with the pump running 24/7 and the Kreepy in while I am gone.

That sounds like a good plan to me, as long as you don't have a danger of leaves plugging up your skimmer whle you're gone. If your sock of CYA is empty, go ahead and measure for CYA levels (and I'd trust yours over the pool store) and then we'll be able to help you figure out how much chlorine you need to get in the pool to get it up to shock.

Janet

[Digger]

Thanks again everyone for all your help. The other pool store said also it was real low in CYA, 10?? First one last week said 20? I will have to reread myself again later. Just got back from chlorine run and picked up CYA.
I would be interested in the borax theory, thanks everyone! Maybe I shouldn't run Kreepy when gone, more cause for error? My husband will be here and adding the cholrine, but doesn't know much about the pool. He can empty the skimmer basket though.