2 year rental with a large, quick to algae-bloom pool, but I am learning!

[poolawan]

Moved in 2 months ago to a beauty of a pool with a problem (I learned here)

previous tenants horrible regimen was shock and tabs. I inherited a 30k gallon pool with out of control CYA. It was prob 250+

Drained 2/3 of it and refilled so now its under 100, but just so. Looks like 80. I understand the BBBs now so only have a couple questions until my Taylor complete gets here. In the meantime i have a Taylor basic phenol red kit with CL and PH.

1) Chlorinating. Home Depot and Walmart nearby have 8.25 cal hypo bleach in 121oz container, but Home Depot has a Kem-Tek liquid CL box (2 gallons for $6) that is a slightly better deal. It reads 10% Cal Hypo and 90% 'other'. Anyone use this? Would love to be damn sure there was no CYA in it. Read everywhere, even their online docs, no mention of it. I Have read that 'liquid chlorine has no stabilizer' but it's surprisingly hard to get an exact list of ingredients on anything.

2) Read the best-guess chart about where to take the CL level to for both shocking and maintaining so since I have a bit of green still after the refill, with CYA there should I take it up to 20 asap? I am aware it might take awile for it to come down...

3) PH is 8, should I take that down a bit before raising the CL?

Thanks in advance, Rob

[Watermom]

Bleach is sodium hypochlorite and not cal hypo. I have a feeling the Kem-Tek is also sodium hypo as I've never heard of liquid cal-hypo before. Both sodium hypo and cal-hypo neither one have CYA in them.

Keep your chlorine at shock level based on the Best Guess chart. (How did you get your CYA reading of 80?)

If you measured pH while your chlorine was above 5ppm (above 10ppm with the Taylor K2006 kit), you'll get falsely high pH readings. Either test it when the chlorine is low or dilute the sample (half pool water and half distilled water) and then test pH as normal.

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[poolawan]

You are correct, it's sodium hypo, that was a typo on my part and I couldn't edit the post yet.

That CYA reading is from the pool store test, I am waiting for my taylor complete test kit to get here.

I'll grab a gallon of distilled water and re-test the PH. While I am at it, since this basic test kit does not 'read' CL levels over 10 do you do the same when trying to get your CL level to 15 (if a half distilled sample read 6 then it's 12 kind of thing) ?

Thanks again, Rob

[Watermom]

Yes. You can dilute the sample. Is it an OTO (yellow drops) chlorine test? Or a DPD (pink) color matching test?

[poolawan]

It's a taylor basic kit, DPD
Phenol red for PH.

used 5 gallons 'Great Value' sodium hypo (8.25%) last night put me at 10ppm this morning (was 2 at a 1 to 5 ratio) so I figure I'll try half as much tonight to get it to 15 (I test again at dusk to see if I lost much, with this high CYA i don't think i will).

gonna grab some distilled water today for a better PH reading

[BigDave]

You need to use distilled water when diluting for chlorine testing because most tap water has chlorine or monochloramine in it.

[poolawan]

yeah I picked some up. So the pool is sparkling clear all week now. I had taken the CL up to 15 via sodium hypo (wal-mart 'great value' bleach) and after it came down to about 6 i've been keeping it there.
PH seems to like being at 7.6 ~ 7.8.

my question now, what i'm gonna go search the forum for, is just on maintaining the levels. what folks are doing.