Here's my numbers

[KurtV]

OK, back again! Here's my second set of numbers (about 5 days later):

CL 2.0 (was 2.0 before)
TC 2.0 (2.0 before)
PH 8.2 (7.6 before - YIKES!)
TA 120 (80 before - PB added baking soda to raise)
CYA 40 (30 before - time to get rid of the sticks!)

What could have made my PH go up? I was under the impression that baking soda would raise TA without raising PH. When I did the acid demand test, 1 drop was needed to bring the color back down to the 7.6 color. According to the chart in the test kit, I need to add 1 pint of muriatic acid.
The pH in many pools just seems to consistently rise or fall without any known reason. Testing regularly (like daily for chlorine and pH and at least monthly for CYA, CH, and alkalinity) will give you a feel for the trends in your pool.

Is it OK to wait until tomorrow to do this? I'm having people over swimming today, and I'm a little leary of adding acid to the water my child is going to be swimming in a few hours from now.
You can probably wait until tomorrow but there's really no need to. Keep you filter pump running and distribute the acid around the pool in small amounts and it will almost instantly be diluted to safe levels. You can also pre-dilute that acid in a bucket (always add acid to water) to speed up the dilution (though I think that's probably overkill).

Also re: PH, yesterday we had about 2.5 inches of rain. My understanding was that our rain was slightly acidic. The pump ran all night, so I feel like the rain water would be mixed in well by now. I'm wondering what my PH would have been without the rain!
That's a bit of a puzzler. Rain does generally (maybe even always?) have a low pH (something in the neighborhood of 5, I believe). But, like I said above, many pools just tend to have a rising pH. If you're using bleach it does tend to cause pH to rise, but I don't think it would account for all of your increase. It may be a combination of things, including that.

It's great that you're paying attention to the trends and thinking about how outside factors such as rain will influence your water chemistry. If you keep testing and keeping an eye on it, you'll probably solve the puzzle eventually.

Other than taking out the sticks, stocking up on bleach, and adding the muriatic acid, is there anything else I should be doing?
Nothing I can think of.

I'm going to try to get my CL level up to 3 to 6 ppm. How long after I add bleach should I wait to test?
At least a couple of hours.

Also, I'm going out of town for a week next weekend, so I guess it will be alright to put the sticks back in for that?
If you're only going to be gone a couple of days you can probably just run your chlorine up to 8 or so ppm with bleach and be OK. If it's going to be much longer you may have to use the sticks. If you do, monitor the CYA level diligently.

Judy

Keep up the good work.

[brent.roberts]

Kurt has been giving you good advice.

One or two comments. First, the risk of adding the acid a few hours before use is almost zero. In fact I would encourage you to do this.( from the time of your post this morning I am guessing however that the kids are in the water already. )

I think the higher PH might cause them a bit more eye irritation and outweigh the concern about the acid.

Many poolstore educated folks have been taught to shock once a week to the point that it now borders on an urban myth. My guess is that it came about because folks would not "keep ahead of thier water" and maintain good levels of chlorine and see the tell-tale rise in CC. So the safe thing to tell everyone was to shock once a week. I shocked mine only once last summer when I had neglected it a bit. My pool is a bit smaller than yours but treating it because almost automatic after a few weeks. Half a gallon of bleach every other day. A pint of muriatic once a week. Done deal. Just test the PH and CH levels every day and you'll get the hang of it soon enough From you postings you've got the right attitude.

CYA, TA, and Cal don't need anything like daily testing.

One more thing. Almost every chlrine tab or stick feeder cannot be turned completely off. I think Ben recommends one on his poolsolutions.com site ( Rainbow if I recall correctly) that is the only one that can be shut off completely. Watch you sticks when it's set to off and I think you'll see that they keep disappearing very slowly.

Cal Hypo granules will almost always sink to the bottom before they dissolve. There they can damage a vinyl liner. PB is right. Add it to the skimmer or pre-dissolve it in a pail and pore in the solution. By the way make sure the auto chlorinator is off before adding to the skimmer !!!

Good luck.