Start-up with chorine after 2yrs of Baqua-yuck

[csupp]

First, I want to thank you folks for providing the inspiration and knowledge I needed last summer to finally end a 2-year nightmare with Baquacil. At a certain point, I calculated we were spending over $100 per week just trying to get the water clear enough to see the drain at the bottom. My local pool store/service replaced the sand in my filter 3 times last summer. I let this nonsense go on for far too long, before deciding I had to become better educated.

Here is where I'm at right now...

Pool just opened last Thursday (May 19). 27500 gallon IG with vinyl liner. We are located in East Central Illinois. We are starting up with something close to the BBB method, but I'm afraid mistakes have probably already been made. Step One is incomplete because I've ordered my test kit from Amazon, but it won't arrive for several days. Thus, I'm still on the pool store teat, simply for their testing service (they are only a few blocks from the house).

Upon opening the pool on Thursday, we shocked the pool with 3lbs (3 bags) of HTH "Shock 'n' Swim" (granulated cal hypo). Premixed in bucket and poured in front of skimmers. And then lots of brushing. Over the weekend we did 3 backwashes of the sand filter, timed so we weren't flushing the chlorine. I took water sample to pool store Sunday morning - I will post numbers below. The chorine levels were very low, obviously, so Sunday we did another shock with 3lbs of the cal hypo in the morning and another 3lbs in the evening. We also dropped a HTH tri-chlor tablet in each skimmer, but unfortunately it's the "dual-action" with the copper (which I now read to be a no-no).

I will say that the water looks good. Certainly better than it did at any point with the Baquacil. But obviously without the test kit at this time, I'm throwing darts with my eyes closed. I'm assuming I'm still in start-up/shock mode, so I will keep juicing the chlorine levels until the kit arrives and I can get more specific with the chemistry. Any advice in the meantime is welcome. Thanks in advance.

The levels from the pool store test...

FC - 0.3
TC - 0.6
CC - 0.3
TA - 127
pH - 7.8
Calcium - 152
CYA - 0

The advice of my local pool store was to Add 20# of Calcium over 3 days (which I understand to be completely unnecessary for a vinyl liner pool). And they advised I add 1 gallon of muriatic acid over 2 days to lower the pH (which I didn't think was elevated).

[PoolDoc]

Glad the forum helped!

You might want to add the acid, or at least some of it. Your pH is on the high end of what most testers can measure, which means your pH is not "7.8 exactly", but "7.8 or higher". High pH is hard on liners, though 7.8 is OK if it really *is* 7.8.

Otherwise, add some CYA -- 0 is too low. ;-)

And, keep your chlorine up. Current levels are OK, with no CYA, but follow the best guess chart as your CYA rises.

Best wishes,
Ben

[csupp]

Quick follow up question...

I'm shocking with cal hypo (HTH Super Shock N Swim) to get my chlorine up, but I'm also putting trichlor tabs in the skimmers to raise both chlorine and assist with CYA. I probably should have asked here before doing this... But is there any problem with using both types of chlorine at once? (I'm pre-dissolving the cal hypo in 5 gal bucket before distributing in deep end.)

I added half a gallon of muriatic acid to bring down the pH. And I slow poured 4# of stablizer in the skimmer last night to dose the CYA.

I bought a cheap HTH 5-way test kit to hold me over until the Taylor K2006 arrives. I will post numbers later today.

[madwil]

if you added stabilizer, I wouldn't use the trichlor any more for a week maybe and get a good CYA test; trichlor adds CYA, and to much can complicate your pool! It will also drop your pH over time...
The cal-hypo adds CH, your fine now if vinyl or need a little more for concrete, but eventually you'll want to use bleach for Chlorine so you don't overdo the CH

[csupp]

I have ditched the trichor tabs because I found out they were the "dual action" w/ the copper. Hopefully I got them out before my pool became too polluted with copper. Green cast to the water this morning, but by afternoon it has cleared up for the most part.

Still trying to figure out the home HTH kit. First test I did showed pH around 7.0 range and chlorine was inaccurate because I shocked the pool with 3lbs of cal hypo again this morning. I did get another pool store test reading (somewhat limited because their printer was down).

CL - 1.5
PH - 7.2
TA - 145
CH - 182

The CYA isn't showing up on the test yet, since I just put stabilizer in the filter last night.

Pool store doesn't like that I'm using the cal hypo to shock and chlorinate because of "inert materials that will clog up the sand filter".

[madwil]

you mean the inert materials that dissolve in the water and pass through the filter? lol
Pool stores- they don't understand their own products, much less someone doing it different!