First time poster - excited to use BBB method but have a question!

[CarlD]

Hi:
Chlorine is chlorine whether you use bleach or the tablets. But only Bleach/LC doesn't anything else or unbalance the pH of the water.

However, if the tablets are Tri-chlor (the most common 3" tablets) then they add two more ingredients: CYA/Stabilizer, and Acid (as in pH lowering). For every 10ppm of FC they add, I believe they add 6ppm of CYA.

Since your CYA is already at 70, you probably do NOT want it any higher. And, since you just fought to get your pH back to 7.5 from 6.2 (!) you really do NOT want to be adding acid either!

Further, check your tablet bucket. If it has any other ingredient, or says "Double Acting!" it probably is adding copper as an algae inhibitor. We do NOT recommend that because copper creates too many problems.

Since you have a vinyl pool, you're main worry about alkalinity is that it doesn't go over 200ppm (I prefer a limit of 180ppm). HOWEVER, if you find your pH keeps rising and you have to keep adding acid to bring it down, you'll need to lower TA, to something like 80.

The fancy Bioguard equivalent is merely Soda Ash, aka Sodium Carbonate, aka Washing Soda. Since Washing Soda was about $$1.04/lb last time I checked (last week) consider the pricing.

Note Tuesday evening: Wow! I must have been half-asleep when I wrote the above. I've edited some of the worst errors in grammar and spelling out...Sorry!