Trying bleach and borax for the first time

[PoolDoc]

@ nottapooltech: The easiest way to add stabilizer is often to use dichlor for awhile:

24 lbs PoolBrand bagged shock @ Sams Club
Kem-Tek Dichlor 22 lbs @ Amazon

On your pool, you'll after 12 bags (or pounds) of dichlor, you'll have 50 - 60 ppm of stabilizer. You can also add stabilizer directly, but it dissolves VERY slowly, so you have to either put it on the filter or put it in a sock in the skimmer. We had been telling people that they could get it anywhere, but this year, some of the chemical companies have begun blending IT with goop too (they've been doing so with dichlor trichlor and cal hypo for the last few years), so until you are an expert label inspector, it may be better to use this link:

Kem-Tek Stabilizer 4lbs @ Amazon

[nottapooltech]

ohhh okay light bulb just came on i think, i can get stabilizer in my pool by adding shock (sams club stuff) which has chlorine in it, or by just adding stabilizer directly to it, which is the kem-tek stabilizer you speak of.

[Watermom]

You got it!

[Shifty]

nottapooltech,

You could temporarily use Trichlor pucks as your chlorine source. Trichlor also contains cyanuric acid (CYA) so this is an easy way to add CYA to your water. Be careful with the Trichlor because it also is acidic and will lower your pH. You willl need to regularly test your pH and adjust with Borax as necessary. Also, you'll need to test your CYA levels after maybe a week of use to see how much CYA has been added. Remember too much CYA (I keep mine around 50-70ppm) means you need to maintain higher chlorine levels. At CYA around 50ppm, you would need to maintain FC at 3-6ppm at all times. If you should have too much CYA, the way to lower it is to remove some of the water and add fresh water to dilute.

As others mentioned in the posts above, you could also just add CYA granules; however, for me the granules took a while to disolve and some even came out the returns. I found that temporarily using Trichlor to raise my CYA was easier as long as you test regularly and switch to an unstabilized form of chlorine (i.e. bleach) once you reach your desired CYA level.