Getting ready to start season.

[tnt69]

This will be my 1st spring start-up, we put in our 21x43 agp last July. We had a mild winter in Southern Illinois, but when we tried to get the cover on the pool during November closing, we couldn't get it on with the deck that we built, so just a leaf net cover till around mid Dec. was it. We have no trees in our yard but neighbors on both sides have trees that are just off of our property so this spring we have had an abundance of tree 'junk' in the pool. We purchased an Aquabot Pool Rover vacuum and have used it several times. The water turned alittle green about a week ago but I put 5 qts of bleach in it and it looks fine again. We do use the BBB method.
I am setting up the pump and filter and heater today, and just tested the water. Here are the results:
FC = 3.5, TA = 100, PH = 7.6, CYA = 35 and temp is 65 degrees.
I'm trying to get as much bottom junk with the "Rover" before I turn everything on, but is there anything else I should know or do before start up?
When I do start up, I will raise temp to around 82 and keep the solar cover and leaf net on for a while longer when not in use. Thanks, love the help I have received on the forum, Tom

[aylad]

Hi tnt69,

Sounds like you're on the right track....I would scoop as much of the junk out of the pool as possible before shocking it so the chlorine will be more effective by working on your water, rather than the leaves. MIght find that it goes quicker if you'll just use a plan leaf net rather than depending on the Rover. Once you've gotten all you can off the bottom, I'd shock the pool, which for CYA of 35 (how did you get that result?) means taking your chlorine up to 15 ppm and holding it there until you're not losing more than 1 ppm of chlorine when measuring at night and again in the morning before the sun hits the pool. After you reach that point, you can let it drift back down to the 3-6 range and enjoy your pool!!