Pool is a swamp

[PoolDoc]

Now need to find plain old bleach. I think the pool is 35,000 gallons, but will double check. My local pool store has a fee water testing service. I know they just will want to sell me chemicals, but if you think I need my own test kit I will get one. I read on your other site something about calcium not being necessary with vinyl lined pools. Did I read that right??

=> Walmart store brand 8% sodium hypochlorite bleach is fine, and available almost everywhere. Plus, it's fresh.

=> There are a few pool stores with accurate testing, but very few. They have no incentive: bad testing leads to increased chemical sales!

=> Test strips = inaccurate testing, always. The stabilizer (cyanuric acid) test is especially bad.

=> Calcium can be too high, in a vinyl pool, but normally not too low.

[docwagner]

Sounds like I need to do my own testing. Will get the test kit. The calcium questions goes to the credibility of my pool store. They have recommended adding lots of calcium over the years and we had done it. They also told me I shouldn't use bleach as a chlorine additive because it would hurt my pool. Just seeking the truth. I think I need to reevaluate my relationship.

[PoolDoc]

We've heard all those bogus claims before, but not as much recently. When I first started PoolSolutions in 1996, I got 'nastygrams' from dealers on a daily basis!

Your dealer may actually believe you need calcium. But, I suspect the bleach claim is a deliberate lie.

[zmanh]

If okay I wanted to jump in here and maybe we could help each other and benefit from good advice. My situation similar to yours. Mine is 25k gallon IG. I added 8 lbs. of shock, ran filter 24 hours. Fixed several leaks so I thought I would start vacuuming. Plenty of suction, but I getting dirty water going back into pool. Backwashed, then rinsed


but still dirty. Is that to be expected at this point. In other words should I continue as is, and after I have gotten up as much with vacuum as possible shock again? Or should I change the sand? By the way I estimate I removed several hundred lbs of leaves. And lots of frogs.

[BigDave]

zmanh:
If you're looking for advice ib your clean up effort, you'll get better answers by starting your own thread.