New Intex Owner, needs assistance

[dmeritt]

Hello! We bought a 15x42 Intex pool this summer and are having a hard time with the levels, specifically the chlorine and alkalinity. We'd been taking samples each week to the pool supply store in town and buying the chemicals they suggested until a friend said her parents use baking soda. After some googling, I found this site and the BBB method. Can anybody help me get started with how much of each to use? I want to make sure I start it off right.
Current levels:
CYA: 45
Tot. chlorine: 0.2
Free chlorine: 0
pH: 7.5
Tot. alkalinity: 258
Aj. Total alkalinity: 244
Total hardness: 333
We keep chlorine tablets floating in the pool, unless we are in it, and we just shocked it yesterday (both suggestions from the pool store) but it doesn't seem to be affecting chlorine levels. The water is a little cloudy, but no slime. Any help getting started would be great! Thank you!

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[PoolDoc]

1. Stop taking water samples to the store -- the goal of pool store testing is to sell chemicals, not solve problems.

2. Go to Walmart and get a cheapo OTO/phenol red drops kit PLUS 6 gallons of PLAIN 8% bleach.

3. Go to Lowes, Home Depot, etc and get a gallon of PLAIN 31% muriatic acid + some blue / purple nitrile gloves. If you don't have sunglasses, get some safety glasses, too.

4. Add 4 cups of bleach this evening, after making sure the pump is on. Wait 30 minutes, then add approximately (eyeball it) 1 - 2 cups of muriatic acid. But first read http://pool9.net/ma/ and WATCH the video!

5. In the morning, your chlorine should be up, your pH will probably be down. However, after the first session with kids in the pool, your pH will rise back up.

6. Tomorrow, read the SS Recipe (even though you can NOT follow it at this point) for info on operating Intex pools. And, read the alkalinity page.
http://pool9.net/ssr/ -- http://pool9.net/alk-step/

7. Once you've read those, you should understand why you need new cartridges, and also that you've begun lowering your alkalinity.

8. BUT . . . you need to ask yourself, Why? Without a heater, and without a salt water system, the ONLY reason you need to lower your TA is either (a) because your pH is unstable and constantly going up OR (b) because you also have high calcium and the combination of high TA + high CH is causing your cloudiness.

Good luck!

[PoolDoc]

Just looking at your numbers again. Did the pool store sell you alkalinity increaser OR calcium hardness increaser for your pool?

If they did, they CREATED this problem.

If they did not, and if you haven't used calcium hypochlorite shock, the water you filled with is probably hard.

But with a TA of 250 and a CH of 330, you definitely could be having some problems with calcium cloudiness. It would be a good idea to wash off your cartridge before you add acid, since you may have already filtered some calcium carbonate. The acid could dissolve it, and put it back into your pool.