how can I adjust the water balance?

[AnnaK]

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

1. You need to get some sanitizer in your pool as quickly as possible. The easiest and least expensive product is regular, unscented 6% household bleach. 1 gallon of 6% bleach (128 oz) add 6 ppm of chlorine per 10, 000 gallons of pool volume. Until we've helped you fully balance your water please add 96 oz of bleach each evening.

2. Your pool also needs stabilizer. Please purchase 4 pounds of 100% CYA (also known as cyanuric acid, stabilizer, balancer). Make sure that's what it says on the label. Put 1/2 of that amount in an old sock and tie it so it's suspended in front of the return jet that goes into the pool so that the water flowing over the sock helps to dissolve the granules. Squeeze the sock a few times during the day to help the product dissolve. It may take a day or so to dissolve. Once the sock is empty, add the other half of the product. The best place to buy this is at a pool store.

Another way to get stabilizer AND sanitizer (chlorine) in your water is with di-chlor. If you have access to a Sam's Club, buy their 24lb pack of 1# bags of 100% dichlor shock. Each bag will add about 7 ppm of chlorine, and about 6 ppm of stabilizer, per 10K gallons of water. Otherwise, order dichlor from Amazon:

Kem-Tek Dichlor 22 lbs

We do NOT recommend buying dichlor locally, otherwise, at least until you are an EXPERT reader of chemical labels. The chlorinating pool chemicals sold at Walmart, Kmart, Costco, and most other local stores are diluted blends, sometimes with copper and other products with bad side-effects.

3. Pick up a couple boxes of 20 Mule Team borax in the laundry aisle of your grocery store or at Walmart. You may need to adjust your pH once all the CYA has been dissolved.

4. Purchase a test kit. You will need to test your water daily for chlorine and pH and test strips are not acceptable. Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). Test kit info page

A temporary alternative to the Taylor test kit is the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. These are available at some Walmart stores. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well.

5. It's much easier to answer your questions when we know something about your pool. We often spend the first few posts back and forth collecting information. So, please complete our Pool Chart form -- it takes about 30 seconds, but will save much more than that.

Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

We realize that all of this may seem a little overwhelming. It gets easier, really. Read as much as you can here and on our sister site Pool Solutions and you'll soon understand the relationship a few household products have to your pool and to each other.