Bought a pool today now help!

[aylad]

It shouldn't change your equipment. The Baquacil system is a chemical that is advertised as an alternative to chlorine. The Baq people want you to think that dried out hair and irritated eyes are caused by Chlorine, and Baq is a way to avoid that. (The real deal is that dried hair and irritated eyes are usually from improperly chlorinated pools and/or those with improperly balanced pH, and green hair comes from copper additives, not chlorine.) The problem is that while baq can be used to maintain a clear pool, it is very, very, very, very expensive to do, and most people just don't have the time, patience, and money to properly care for it. Do yourself a favor, and go to the Baq part of this forum and read through the posts there, especially the ones during conversions.

You can start up your own water...you need a drop-based test kit (WalMart sells a 5-way for $15 that will do to get you started, most of us use the PS-234 that Ben sells on this site--you can go to Poolsolutions.com to see and order it), several gallons of plain, unscented bleach, a box of arm and hammer baking soda, a box of 20-Mule Team Borax (found in the laundry aisle at any grocery store or WalMart), and a container of cyanuric acid (also called balancer, conditioner, stabilizer--check the ingredient label, and cyanuric or isocyanuric acid will be the active ingredient. This can be found at WalMart, too). Armed with those things, we can help you balance your water and keep it clear and sparkling, while the Baqua users battle constantly cloudy water.

Janet

[GA Mark]

Janet, I first want to thank you for your generous time helping me with this. How many gallons of bleach bo you think I will need to get started?

[aylad]

I don't know how many gallons your pool holds, but you're going to need to keep your Cl level at 1-3 ppm until you get some stabilizer in the water, which is going to be at least a week. Without stabilizer, you're going to have to add the bleach daily. Here's a link to the bleach calculator a lot of us use (credit to forum member mwsmith for the calculator) to figure how much bleach to add. http://home.earthlink.net/~mwsmith70...achCalc262.exe

Change the settings to imperial, then enter your pool volume in gallons, put 6% in for strength, put 1 in for ppm desired, and hit calculate--it'll tell you how much bleach to put in to raise your ppm by 1, and you need to keep 1-3. It also performs other calculations that you can use to help balance your water.

I would probably buy 5 or 6 gallons of bleach off the bat, and then you can always get more when needed. Use the plain, unscented, generic kind. If you use Clorox brand, make sure it's not the new stuff with the added whitening ingredient.

Janet

[matt4x4]

For a 24 foot pool, you're good to go with 1 gallon of 5.25% bleach (no name walmart brand for about $1.00). If you're questionable on the water source and feel the water should be brought to shock level immediately then add 3 bottles.
For your size pool, get 1 container (approximately) 2 lbs of CYA - that's cyanuric acid, also known as stabilizer or conditioner. Place about 2/3rd into a sock and tie to the stairs, don't leave it near the liner, it's relatively corrosive.
Measure your CYA level using the kit described above after it has dissolved (about 2 days) and add more if needed. Keep CYA level between 35-50ppm, do not add too much since this is something you can only deplete by removing and replacing water, and too much of it makes your chlorine less effective forcing you to run higher chlorine levels.
For everything else, read the post under the appropriate chemical sections of teh forum, it will show you how to apply the BBB method of pool maintenance, the best method hands down.

[aylad]

I only disagree with Matt's advice on one point--I would wait at least 4-6 days before retesting for CYA and adding more. It takes a very long time to dissolve and, as he pointed out, the only way to remove it is drain/refill. I many cases, waiting 2 days isn't long enough.

Janet

[GA Mark]

OK I have determined that my pool is 15,200 gallons. So when I use the chart the you gave the link to I need to add 1 quart to raise the PPM 1. You said i need to keep it at 1-3 so i fiquire when the pool is full I will dump in 3 quarts. Correct? I am guessing that I dump it in the skimmer. Then I am confused. Janet said a week for stabalzer If I understood me correctly. And Matt said right away.

[aylad]

Add the stabilizer right away, because until you get dissolved stabilizer showing up in the water, you're going to have to add bleach daily to maintain at least 1 ppm.

It takes a long time for the stabilizer to fully dissolve. Matt said to retest for it after 2 days. I'm saying you need to wait longer than that, because in my experience it takes more like 5 days or sometimes longer to fully dissolve. If you re-test too early, you'll add more, and then when it all finishes dissolving you're likely to find that you've added too much. Since the only way to lower it is to drain water and refill, you're much better off to sneak up on the target number (I'd say 20-40 ppm) than to try to hit it all at once and overshoot. It's your call, it's your pool...my advice is to be a little conservative.

And you can either put the 3 quarts in the skimmer, or pour it slowly in front of a return--either way works fine. Just be careful not to splash it on you or the pool edge.

Janet