It looks like I still haven't completed my registration. It's been a week now. I'm not going to complain as this is a great resource.

I do have a few questions. I've had my 16' round intex pool (about 5000 gal) set up for just over 2 weeks and I think everything is going well. I read up on the BBB method after I already bought some dichlor granules. I started off adding 8.25% bleach and tested it with test strips and a 5-way drop test, while I waited for the Taylor k-2006 kit. I also added some CYA to get up to about 50 ppm. I ran out of bleach and started throwing in the dichor, to keep what I thought was about 3 ppm FC. When I got the kit, the FC was at 7.5 ppm, which is a bit higher than the best guess chart recommends. The CYA was also a bit higher (55 ppm) than I planned, due to the dichlor I presume. I am now just using bleach.

I also added baking soda to reach 70 ppm alkilinity, and borax to get the pH up to 7.6 or 7.8.

My latest measurements are:

FC: 4.0
CC: 0.0
ALK: 70
pH: 7.6
CYA: 55

I'm adding 2-4 cups of 8.25% bleach each day to keep the FC levels between 3 and 6 ppm. It has been pretty sunny, so maybe that's expected, but it's more than I thought I'd need.

Here are my questions:

At what levels of chlorine is it safe to swim with CYA at 55 ppm? I haven't needed to yet, but I'm concerned how long we'll have to wait to swim after shocking the pool.

With the DPD chlorine test, some of the powder never dissolves, is that ok? And, how full should the scoops of powder be, is it very sensitive to the amount of powder?

I'll have more questions, but I don't want to overload this thread, or abuse this privilege.

Thanks,
-Ron