Drained and Filled - now what?

[rdinocco]

Hi All,

I've learned a lot over the past month reading through the archives - thank you!

My pump crapped out last fall, and I had to deal with a green pool this spring. I installed all new equipment, got the water back to blue, and discovered I have almost 200ppm of CYA. Considering I had a lot of staining from the algae, I just drained and did an acid wash. Now I have new water, but I'm gun shy about adding chemicals without someone double checking. I'm using a Taylor k-2006c kit, and I'm pretty confident in my results.

NEW WATER
* all I've done thus far is breakdown and cleaned the filter, powered it up, and added DE.
* here is my first run of test results:
PH: 8.0
TA: 120
CH: 130
CYA: 0
FC: 1.0
CC: 1.0
TC: 2.0

I have a 14,800 gallon IG plaster pool. The pool calculator is suggesting these additions:

PH: 24oz 31.5% muriatic acid
TA: nothing
CH: 285oz by weight of calcium chloride (where do I get this?)
CYA: 79 oz stabilizer
FC: 92 oz 6% bleach

A couple of quick questions:

1. does anything stand out as unusual with my test results and recommended chems?
2. nearly 18 lbs. of calcium chloride? Is that right? How the heck do I add that much? Where can I buy it - home depot?
3. 79oz of stabilizer? Again, this seems like a lot but maybe it's right to achieve 40ppm of CYA. I've read some controversy about the sock method on this forum, so how should I go about adding that much CYA at once considering how slow it dissolves? I do have some skimmer socks handy, but I have a hard time thinking a skimmer basket full of CYA for a week is a good idea.
4. I'm going to adjust PH tonight, add about 2ppm's of chlorine (suggested amount is 61oz 6% bleach), and add half the suggested CYA. Tomorrow night I'll attempt to get my FC up to 4ppm. Once I get a reading of 20ppm CYA, I'll add the remaining CYA to hit my goal of 40ppm. Please let me know if that sounds like a reasonable plan.
5. My family would love to swim in the pool this weekend - are we dreaming or is this possible?

I appreciate any assistance or feedback. Thank you in advance!


Ron

[PoolDoc]

Calcium chloride is sold as "calcium hardness increaser" or another similar name. It's sometimes available at agricultural distributors in 50# bags, rather inexpensively.

Another alternative: if you can find a source for granular calcium hypochlorite, that will work nicely in your pool right now. Leslie's sells it

And, if you have access to a Sams Club, they sell undiluted "PoolBrand" dichlor in a 24 pack of 1lb bags and a 50# bucket for about $2.10lb.

A 50lb bucket of cal hypo + 24 lbs of dichlor would get your calcium and stabilizer in range AND chlorinate your pool.

Finally: yes, you can swim. Read the best guess page in my signature, and maintain chlorine levels appropriate to your current CYA level.

[rdinocco]

Thanks so much, Ben! After all my reading the past month, I guess I was pretty set on the BBB method. I hadn't really considered those other alternatives. Thanks again!

[Watermom]

BBB doesn't necessarily mean you have to chlorinate with bleach. Sometimes other forms of chlorine are a better choice depending on the situation. Cal-hypo will add needed calcium and dichlor will add needed CYA. If you want to use bleach, you can, but you'll just have to add calcium and CYA via another route which is ok, if that is what you want to do.