Starting resurfaced pool

[Kidney]

Tonight I added ~2 lbs of Baking Soda to try raising total alkalinity by 10ppm to 80ppm.

I will retest tomorrow morning with the Taylor kit I ordered through Ben's store. I hope to be doing the right thing by raising TA before trying to lower pH. Just hope pre-diluled muriatic acid will do the trick for lowering pH tomorrow without killing TA.

Once this is in order, I am supposed to add chlorine then CYA and I surely hope delaying the chlorine does not result in some algae.

Kidney

[Watermom]

If you don't have any chlorine in there, I wouldn't wait to add some or you may end up with a green pool to deal with!

[Kidney]

Thanks Watermom!

Yes no chlorine yet. I thought of adding 9 cups of undiluted bleach (the max recommended by NPC right now) but knowing my pH is high at 8.0+ and seeing the little book that came with my K2006C says bleach is high pH, I thought I might add to my high pH/low TA issue and decided to add Baking Soda to address my lowish TA of 70.

This (rainy) morning:
Ph 8.0+ (max on K2006C)
TA 90
CH 160
Water temp: 82°F
FC 0
CYA 0
(Non SWCG pool.)

Should I wait for dusk to add my 9 cups of liquid 8.25% bleach or do it during the day today? When can I and should I add diluted muriatic acid to lower pH?

[Kidney]

Revisiting pebble tech's warranty card, it reads "Do not chlorinate your pool until water is filtered and pH and alkalinity are acceptable. Chlorine is highly reactive and can cause metals or minerals to precipitate (cloud water, scale and/or stain)." As I know chlorine would dissipate quite fast added mid day, I first added 22.4 fl oz of muriatic acid to lower pH, which I assume will also lower TA.

I hope when I retest in late afternoon that TA will be no lower than 80 and pH at most 7.6: I can then add chlorine (using 8.25% bleach) at dusk. Tomorrow I can add cyanuric acid to the 25ppm that my installer recommended.

I will update. Hopefully I do not have to keep adjusting TA then pH for too long. I suspect running my filtration system continuously at full speed (as per installer's directions) aerates the water and increases pH: this should stop once I reach 7 days after fill up this Wednesday and drastically lower the speed of my variable speed pump.

Advice welcome!

[Kidney]

Ok, 5 hours after adding muriatic acid:

pH = 7.5
TA = 90
CH = 160
Water temp = 83F
SI ~ -0.17

I realize these will likely change but for now I should be ready to add chlorine at dusk today and CYA tomorrow morning. Still not sure I should simply use 8.25% bleach or another type of chlorine (as bleach is high pH and I don't want pH to shoot back up).

Since I am planning to use the BBB method and will adjust daily, I don't think I need that much CYA. I was going to follow the 25ppm recommended by my installer however I have no idea how much CYA to add except for Leslie's recommending 3.5 pounds for my 14K-gallon pool: should I use a different dose the first time?

[Kidney]

I forgot I have 4 trichlor chlorine tabs I could use in my old floater to get things started with chlorine and CYA at dusk. Should I bother to use them or should I just start using bleach and CYA?

[Watermom]

Sorry to be slow to reply. I've been out running errands all day. (Even Watermom has a life outside of this forum! )

Bleach is not going to affect your pH much. However, since you need chlorine, are fighting high pH and need CYA, a good choice for you would be to use dichlor. It will add the needed things and the acidity of it will lower your pH some. You actually might benefit from using our Super Simple Startup Recipe since this a new fill. Info about that can be found at this link: http://pool9.net/ssr/ (It is appropriate for any freshly filled pool -- not just Intex.)

I think you are going to find that a CYA of 25 is too low. It is simply too hard to keep chlorine in a pool at that level especially on hot sunny days and in Texas, you're going to have plenty of them. I would suggest at least 40-50 as a target.

If you decide that you don't want to use the 'recipe' but instead are going to use bleach and add CYA separately, every pound of stabilizer will add 10ppm of CYA. Also, in your pool, each quart of 8.25% bleach will add about 1.5ppm of chlorine and each 121-oz jug will add about 5.6ppm. Use those as a reference as you are figuring out how much to add.

Hope this helps.