What went wrong

[Parrot head]

Hi there. I've got a 12500 gal vinyl lined pool I thought I was balancing good until I shocked it last week with 2 lbs cal hypo. Now they are calling me to put in 12 lbs sodium bicarbonate and 2 cup muriatic acid an hour later. It doesn't sound right to me

Free available: 9.25
Total : 9.47
Combined: .22
Ph: 7.2
Total ak: 33
Ch: 185
Cyanuric acid: 80

[PoolDoc]

If anything, I'd guess the pool store just had a weird test result. It may -- or may not -- have had something to do with how you handled the sample between the pool and the store.

But you have to remember that pool stores BENEFIT from bad test results! They not only have NO incentive to test accurately, they COST themselves money if they do test accurately! It's important to them that their tests SEEM accurate . . . which is why their results say 9.25 ppm chlorine, even though their test method probably can't tell the difference between 9.3 and 9.3 at best. If they are using test strips, their reader can't actually distinguish water with 9 ppm of chlorine from water with 10 ppm of chlorine!

SO . . .

1. Buy an HTH 6-way drops kit at Walmart, or if they don't have, a cheap OTO/drops kit.

2. Order a Taylor K2006 from Amazon => http://pool9.net/tk/

3. Post results from what ever you get ASAP.

4. While you wait on the K2006, keep your chlorine levels in the DARK yellow range (off scale) of the OTO test, and your pH between 7 and 8. Don't worry about the rest, for now.


. . . membership updated.