Everything is good, but....

[Gretchen]

I'd found some of those threads but our case is different. We lost all our water over the winter when our old liner finally gave out, so this is fresh water as of 4 weeks ago. I added 4 lbs of CYA through the skimmer and ran two feeders of tri-chlor pucks to take the CYA up to 40 before I began on bleach. I'm testing in an hour and will again in the morning. What level should I look at keeping? Since the pool is in a garden we want to keep the chlorine low if possible. How low is too low, and what would be shock level for the rest of my readings?

[aylad]

Your CYA at 40 is fine-- you can take a look at the "best guess chart" link in my sig for chlorine levels that correspond to the CYA levels.

Janet

[Gretchen]

Found the chart and have it bookmarked! We're not losing chlorine at night. I tested night and morning for two days running to make sure. Yesterday was a cloudy cooler day and we only lost less than 2 ppm. We've been losing up to two when it is hot and sunny. I think that's going to be how it rolls this year and I'll keep a close watch. Thanks again!

[CarlD]

This seems to be a high-chlorine year for most people, me included.

I'd start by raising CYA to 50 and see if you do better on chlorine and daytime consumption. You'll probably want to keep your regular chlorine level around 5, not the lower limit of 3.

If pH is stable, don't mess with Total Alk. You have a vinyl pools so TA=170 isn't a problem, if pH is stable.

Carl