Start-up with Quartzscape

[zz28zz]

Picked-up 4 boxes of borax, 3 gallons of bleach and a couple 4lb containers of CYA. Added 1 gallon of bleach and swept the pool. Tried to dilute the CYA in a 5 gallon buck, but apparently I bought the wrong kind. It's been in a bucket of water for over an hr and doesn't look like it has dissolved at all. Guess it will have to go in the skimmer once the pump is going.
Tomorrow, after work, I'll plan on adding 2 boxes of borax (by diluting in bucket), then half dose as you guys mentioned. I want to hold off restarting the pump till the pH was at 7 or more. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow night. I'll also try and pick-up the Cal-Hypo powder at the pool store on the way home.
I'm assuming that if the CYA goes in the skimmer I shouldn't put borax in the skimmer too.

[BigDave]

CYA dissolves very slowly. I wouldn't put it in a DE filter, maybe it's OK but those grids look pretty fragile to me. You can put in in an old sock and hang that in front of a return. It'll take a few days to a week to dissolve completely.

Borax is one of the only chems you can safely add with others - but to be safe it's usually a bad idea to let dry chems touch each other. It will dissolve much more quickly than CYA as long as you prevent it from clumping - if it forms rocks they take a while to dissolve.

[CarlD]

There is a liquid CYA product sold that gets into the water far quicker, but it's very expensive. And I don't know how well it works.

[zz28zz]

Started pump today and immediately put in 2 boxes of borax, 1lb of cal-hypo, and 1 gal of bleach. Borax and cal-hypo diluted in bucket (separately) and slowly poured in skimmer.
Swept pool and scooped out a few leaves. 2 hrs later got the following readings:
FC= 0
CC=2
pH= off scale and very yellow
Alkalinity= 10
Calcium hardness= 210

Put in 1 more box of borax and 1 more gallon of bleach. Will take another set of readings tomorrow.

Can't believe the FC is still zero. Could the low pH be causing a false FC reading??
Should I be worried abt the alkalinity? Maybe pick-up some baking soda?

[BigDave]

TA will come up as pH comes up. Keep at it with a couple boxes of borax at a time (wait an hour between doses, pump running) until pH gets into 7-8 range then start halving the doses. I think that the CH increase is the result of the acid bath. Keep adding bleach.

[zz28zz]

Checked FC and pH after work. FC=0 and pH is still offscale (<7)..
Added 1 more box of borax and 2 gallons of bleach into the skimmer. Swept pool. Filled a couple of old sport socks with 4 lbs (total) of dry CYA and hung in front of an outlet.
2 hrs later: FC=5 and pH almost on scale now. Added 1/2 box of borax and went inside. Still running pump 24 hrs.

High temps here are abt 102 degs and very sunny. Not expecting to see much FC by tomorrow evening.

I have a chlorine dispenser that holds ~7 pucks. Should I be using that? The installer said the pucks can be hard on new plaster but wasn't sure abt Quartzscape.

[zz28zz]

Finally got my pH up to 7.2, but keeping FC levels up has been tough. Dumped a gallon of bleach in this morn so we could go for a swim. By the afternoon, FC was back to zero. The solid CYA in the sock trick works well. It was dissolved in abt 48 hrs. Need to get more. I loaded up the chlorine dispenser with some pucks to try an keep some FC (and a little more CYA) in the pool during the week. Thx for all the help.

[Watermom]

Trichlor pucks are very acidic and will drive your pH down. Counter the effects with Borax.