Optimum Levels?
Reply With QuoteI searched my computer and found a word doc where I had saved some of the info that I pulled off of here last year, I am including it in this post, maybe it will help someone!
At Walmart or Kmart, get a cheap OTO/phenol red testkit, 4 or 5 gallons of household bleach, a trichlor floater of some kind, a small container (10 - 25 lbs) of trichlor tabs or sticks, a couple of boxes of borax, and a small container (2 - 3 lbs) of stabilizer (conditioner/cyanuric acid).
Do NOT get anything else, at this time -- no shocks, clarifiers, miracle treatments, etc.
After it's filled, turn the pump on, and leave it on. The first evening, after filling, add a gallon of bleach. The next morning, clean the filter, then SLOWLY put the stabilizer, through the skimmer. Don't do it so fast that you choke the skimmer. Do NOT backwash for 3 days (it takes that long to dissolve, and you'll lose it otherwise).
That evening, test your chlorine and pH levels. If the pH is below 7.4, add 1/2 box of borax slowly to the skimmer. If the chlorine is low, put one puck in the floater, and put the floater in the pool.
The next evening, test again. If the pH is still below 7.4, add the rest of the open box of borax. If the chlorine is low, add 1/2 gallon of bleach, and add one more puck to the floater.
My PS233 kit will help, but you probably won't need it right away, if you keep things simple: pH between 7.4 & 8.0; chlorine between 2 and 5 ppm. Do NOT use test strips!! If you get the urge to do some serious testing right away, go ahead and order. Stay away from dealers as much as you can. Many of them will have you adding a bunch of things that will only complicate your life. By the time you can tell the good ones from the bad ones, you'll pretty much be able to do it yourself, anyhow.
Run your pump continuously till the water is clear; do not clean it excessively; add 1/2 gallon of chlorine one evening each week as shock or insurance against algae or other pool problems; adjust your floater by adding/subtracting tabs and opening the slots; use the floater to maintain a low constant level of chlorine. (If you take tabs out, store them in a plastic container OUTDOORS, and do NOT close any lid tightly.)
If the pool doesn't clear in a week, buy a quart of Super Blue from a pool dealer, and add the label dose -- but NO MORE!!.
Learning your pool is like learning to drive: it takes a while to become proficient, but with time -- if you learn to do it right -- it will become very easy. Read here and at PoolSolutions; repost as you have questions.
One thing to remember, though: low calcium doesn't hurt pool liners, but low pH does. To be safe, make sure you keep the pH in your vinyl pool above 7.2!
It turns out that the easiest and cheapest way deal with algae is to simply raise your chlorine level . . . and keep it there. Also, if your stabilizer is too high, you can drain your pool -- the conventional recommendation -- or you can just begin operating at higher chlorine levels. If your stabilizer is at 100 ppm, maintaining chlorine levels of 7 - 12 ppm works fine, and is both cheap and easy. (You'll also need to make sure your pH stays above 7.4) Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible with regular testkits. The problem is that these kits can't distinguish 10 ppm, which is fatal to most algae, but fine for people, from 30 ppm which is uncomfortable for people and not so good for vinyl liners, either.
The copper PS251 kit allows reasonable accurate measurements of low copper levels. There may be a better kit out there, but I haven't found it, and I have looked. Many of the copper kits I've seen do not discriminate copper levels in the ranges usually recommended (200 - 500 pp b). If you use copper algaecides, Nature2, "Frog's", ionizers, Pristine Blue, or whatever, and do not have a current, fresh copper kit and accurate kit, you need this kit. Excess copper levels can cause serious pool damage that is expensive to correct.
Timing is Everything -- If You Want an Easy Swimming Pool!
Adding chlorine to your swimming pool in the evening, instead of the morning can reduce cut your chemical costs in half.
Why? At night, chlorine is used up doing useful work in your pool, like oxidizing all that sweat and sun-tan lotion from your pool party. During the day, it mostly is wasted -- lost to UV in the sunlight.
Depending on stabilizer levels, and sunshine, you can lose half of the chlorine in the pool in as little as 30 minutes! Even when your swimming pool is stabilized, you can lose half the sanitizer in your pool in 4 hours. But, at night, all of the chlorine used up, was used up doing something useful to your pool water!
How Monsanto Cyanuric Acid Stabilizes Chlorine in Swimming Pools . . . And Helps Reduce Disinfection Costs , pgs. 7 - 9, Monsanto Technical Bulletin I-291, n.d.
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