Drain and refill 33,000 gallon gunite pool

[bugsy0329]

We just drained, cleaned, and are in the process of refilling our pool. I am lost as to what to do once it's filled (other than taking a water sample to the pool store). I don't know how much bleach, stabilizer, etc. to put in the pool once I get the readings back.

[CarlD]

You are going to need to measure and watch the following things:
FC (Free Chlorine)
CC (Combined Chloramines)
TC (Total Chlorine)
pH
TA or T/A (Total Alkalinity)
CH (Calcium Hardness)
CYA (Cyanuric Acid, also called Stabilizer, Balancer or Conditioner)

1 gallon of 6% bleach will add about 1.8ppm of FC to your pool.

You'll want a test BEFORE you add anything, but the most important steps are:
0) Get a good test kit before you start. We recommend the Taylor K-2006 and you can link to it on the signatures of PoolDoc, Watermom, aylad, and (I believe) Poconos. Also get a simple OTO/pH kit for now. These are the most valuable investments you can make.
1) Getting you pH in the range of 7.2 to 7.8 Use 20 Mule Team Borax to raise pH, Muriatic Acid or Dry Acid to lower it.
2) Getting an initial shock level of chlorine into your pool--6 gallons of 6% bleach ought to do it.
3) Getting a minimal level of CYA to keep your chlorine from disappearing. Start by aiming for 30ppm, and no more. It's better to get to 15 or 20ppm and need to add more than put in too much and get to 40 or 50 too soon. It can take a week for the CYA reading to show. Get this stuff at a pool store or the pool section of WalMart, K-Mart, etc. Use about half of what the container says will get your pool to 30ppm. You can always add more much easier than reducing it.

Don't worry about Total Alkalinity or Calcium Hardness just yet. When you do, you'll use simple baking soda to raise TA and Calcium (from a pool store) to get to the 200-400ppm level of calcium.

We'll guide you through it.

DO NOT ADD ALGAECIDES,CLARIFIERS, BLUING, PHOSPHATE REMOVERS OR ANYTHING ELSE! The pool store will push all this stuff on you...for now, only buy stabilizer and, if you don't want to deal with Muriatic Acid, then buy Dry Acid as well. You can always get Calcium from them later.

Do NOT waste your money on their "Total Alkalinity Raise" or any pH raiser, like "pH Up!" or "Balance Pak 200" etc. Total Alkalinity Raiser is Baking Soda, at 3 or 4 times the price. If they tell you it's not baking soda, they are wrong. Period. Pool chem companies use another name for Sodium Bicarbonate that makes it sound "different" but it's still just bicarb.
pH raisers are comprised of Washing Soda, which is $.80/lb in the supermarket and $3-$6/lb in the pool store. Same chemical.
Bleach and Liquid Chlorine are the same stuff. Some LC is 6%, same as bleach, some is 12.5%, about twice bleach. Usually bleach is cheaper.



Finally go to PoolSolutions.com and read the tips and stuff there.

Carl

[Watermom]

Good advice from Carl. Just a couple of thoughts from me.

You won't have any CYA in fill water, so don't waste the reagents testing for it until a full week after you have added some as it slow dissolving. No reason to waste reagents.

Also, you may not need muriatic acid. No reason to buy it and store it if you don't need it. If it were me, I'd wait before buying that to see if your pH is high and you need it. I never need it in my pool. Just my $0.02.

Regarding the test kit Carl recommended ---- YES! Buy it! You'll be so glad you did. But, when you click on the Amazon link in my signature, only buy if the seller is Amato Industries. Some other sellers are substituting the K-2005 which you do NOT want. Occasionally, today being one of them, you get another seller shown when you click on the link which means they are currently out of stock. (They do have the 2006C kit however, which is the same kit as the 2006 but has larger quantities of some of the most used reagents.) At any rate, they usually are re-stocked really fast -- like within a day or so if you prefer the K-2006 kit.

Welcome to the forum! (We've had quite a few new members from LA this year which is where one of our mods (Aylad aka Janet) is from.

[bugsy0329]

One more question (for now)...It is raining cats and dogs here and the pool is not yet full. Should I add a gallon of bleach to keep the pool from turning green?

[Watermom]

Sorry so long replying to your post. I wouldn't fool with it tonight since it is already pretty late, but maybe in the morning go ahead and add some. In a 33k gallon pool, each gallon of 6% bleach will add about 1.8ppm of chlorine to the water. So, depending on how full the pool is, maybe add enough bleach to take the cl up to about 5 or 6. You'll lose most of that during the day tomorrow since you won't yet have any CYA in there so you'll need to do it again tomorrow in the evening and maybe even in the afternoon if you are home. Stir the water around with a clean broom or something to mix it in until the pump is up and running. Let us know when the pool is full and then we'll help you go from there.

[bugsy0329]

Pool is full. My husband wants to change the sand. I don't. Sand is at least 6 years old, though. Filter is old (made by PacFab), and I can't read anything stamped on it. I can, however, read that it calls for pea gravel and sand. Should I just wait until next year to change sand and buy a new filter and start from scratch?