Just getting started and have a chlorine demand problem

[bjoy1956]

Ran to Home Depot and got a better test kit. Cya on June 3 was - 100. After adding borax this morning to raise PH...as of 3:15 this afternoon the ph is staying at 7.2. Alk test is 170. When you say to raise to 20 and 1 quart of bleach will 1.ppm???? Sorry, all this is very elementary to me. So do I need to lower it by adding shock (bleach) and then wait 30 minutes and work on the ALKto lower to 120. Do have muratic acid. Do I lower it with it? If so how much? In the past week......when we first uncovered the pool we had to add almost 3 gallons of muractic acid (7 cups perday for 5 days)( per chem read out) Dumped $250 in one week then was told to draint he pool.....then I found your help. Is it safe to get in the pool. since i will not have chol tabs in the filter basket, do I just add beach ever so often. How do I maintain if out of town fora few days? Please excuse my ignorance. Hopefully all of this will click and it will get easier....Thank you for yor time. bjoy1956

[Watermom]

You have to get past the high chlorine demand part of this pool's opening. Test your chlorine level as many times a day as you can (minimum is 2, more times per day is even better). Each time you test and find out what your chlorine level is, you'll need to add enough bleach to take the chlorine level back up to 25ppm. Each quart of 6% bleach will add 1.2ppm of chlorine, so use that to figure out how much to add to get back to 25 each time you test. Run your pump 24/7. When you get to the point where you test at sundown and then again in the morning within 2 hours of sunrise and find that your chlorine level hasn't dropped by more than ppm overnight, then you should be in good shape. At that point, you should probably go ahead and keep the chlorine level at 25 for one more day for added insurance and then you can start keeping it between 8-15 after that.

PH at 7.2 is fine, but if it drops lower than 7.0, you'll need to add some Borax to get it back up above 7.0. Don't worry about alk right now. We'll help you tweak that after you get past needed such high chlorine numbers.

Hopefully you won't have be out of town while you are having to test and add bleach so often. Once you get past the high chlorine demand time period (which will hopefully on be for a few days) then we can talk about maintenance while out of town.

Hope this helps.