Guidance for a n00b

[vermont]

I don't have a skimmer (I'm not even really sure what a skimmer is) but I did some searching and found the suggestions in several places to use a tube sock to dispense cyanuric acid. I put 10 oz. of granules in a tube sock and hung it over the side in front of the jet, with a weight on the ground outside the pool to keep it from falling in. So far it's about halfway dispersed.

Is it really necessary to test the CYA level? If its function is to keep chlorine from dissipating as quickly, can I use the rate of chlorine depletion as a general guide and not worry about testing the CYA specifically? I ask because stand-alone CYA tests seem to be hard to find and I'm not excited about buying a whole other test kit in addition to the one I already have.

[aylad]

It is necessary to test your CYA level, because that's what will determine where your chlorine levels have to be in order to not get algae blooms. As your CYA rises, so must the minimum level of chlorine (see the "Best Guess chlorine chart" in the link in Watermom's sig). You don't necessarily have to buy a CYA test kit, the pool store can test it for you, but they're going to insist that you buy a bunch of stuff from them, most of which you don't need. So--if you can resist the pool store hype, they can do the CYA testing for you. If you can't....then you've been warned!

Next time you go to WalMart, take a look for the 5-way hTh kit--that one is less than $20 and includes the CYA test.

Janet

[vermont]

Okay well I don't have a CYA tester yet but I was able to borrow one. Here are my readings from today:

CYA 60 ppm (Too high?)
pH 7.5
Chlorine 0.5ish

If I'm understanding things correctly, I need to add chlorine (bleach) on a regular basis now. I have looked at the "best guess" chart for stabilizer/chlorine, so I think I know what I'm targeting, but what I still don't quite understand is how much to put in at a given time in order to get me there. Is there an easy way to figure out how much bleach to add every day? (And do I need to add it literally every day?)

[Watermom]

A CYA of 60 will work just fine, but you won't want to use any trichlor pucks or dichlor shock in this pool as they will both add more CYA. Just use bleach. You'll need to keep your chlorine between 5-10ppm all the time. If you dip below 5, you risk an algae bloom. Test each evening and then add enough bleach to get back to 10ppm. In a 2000 gallon pool, a cup of 6% bleach will add just under 2ppm of chlorine. Use this as a reference to decide how much bleach to add each evening. For the first week or two, test every evening and you'll soon learn how your pool is gonna behave. You many find out that you can add bleach every 2 or 3 days without it falling below 5ppm. Time will tell but to start with, test cl and pH every evening.