Please help me avoid last year's mistakes

[blessedbeingmom]

Okay, my husband finally drained & cleaned our pool. It is an aboveground round Intex pool. (There is more info in my signature line.) He is replacing the rope around the bottom of it and then will soon be refilling it. We are starting with fresh tap water. I'll run some stats on the chemistry of our tap water with our Taylor test kit & post them in a reply to this post later today. Or should we fill the pool & then draw the test sample from what's actually in the pool? We don't want to make the mistake we made last year of using pool chemicals & wasting so much time trying to "balance" that we ignore chlorine & end up with a green pool right at the start.

What is the best way to add stabilizer? We do have some of the "pucks" but I understand they aren't best. Should we plan to just buy some stabilizer by itself? If so, how will we know how much to add? At what point should we start adding bleach?

Any help in getting off on the right foot would be appreciated!

[blessedbeingmom]

Okay, so we moved the pool back on the newly releveled space. We're going to have to put some kind of barrier around the sand on that one side to prevent it from washing away again this year. DH is in the process of replacing the rope around the bottom of the pool. For now, our next plan will be to fill up the pool & run all the numbers except stabilizer & post them here for advice. Does this sound good?

[aylad]

I would go ahead and run a complete set of numbers (except cya) onyour fill water, so you'll know exactly what to get. Then fill up your pool and we'll go from there. You'll need to go ahead and add bleach from the beginning, so we'll need your pool volume. Also, you'll need to get a small container of CYA . I get mine in the spa section at wal mart. It's labeled conditioner, but the main ingredient is cyanuric acid.

Good seeing you back this year!!!

Janet

[blessedbeingmom]

Okay, starting numbers from our tap water this afternoon:

FC 0.5 ppm
CC 0.0 ppm
pH 8.0
TA 120 ppm

We also did the acid demand test which took 4 drops to get something that was about 7.5 pH. However, won't the pH go down once the water starts circulating?

[blessedbeingmom]

Pool volume about 5000 gallons when full.

[aylad]

Looks like you'll need CYA, muriatic or dry acid ( dry acid is easier to deal with, but more expensive and less effective than muriatic), and bleach. The pH wont go down because the water is circulating--if anything it will go up.

Add bleach to getthe water to around 3-5 ppm, and you cango ahead and add your cya. Follow label dose for a target of 20 ppm, but only add about 2/3 of the dose. Dont backwash or test for it for about a week, and keep in mind uou'll have to bleach daily until cya is in the pool.

Janet

[blessedbeingmom]

Thank you!
What is in dry acid?
Where can we find muriatic acid?
Not sure what backwashing is, but pretty sure our filter/pump doesn't do that.