START UP: Keeping CL up

[AnnaK]

That dang stabilizer!

Because you're doing a lot of backwash/rinse cycles when you're cleaning up a green swamp, and have to add water to make up for what you lose with the backwash/rinse, you dilute what stabilizer you may have added. That's what prompts the recommendation to deal with the algae first and worry about stabilizer later.

Another issue is the slow rate of dissolution. Some stabilizer, especially the granular stuff, can take a long time to dissolve. When it's put directly into the skimmer basket—which a lot of people do on the pool store's advice—it will get sucked into the filter and sit there for a few days before it dissolves. Well . . . if you're backwashing frequently, it gets washed away.

Hence the suggestion to put it inside an old sock and place that in the skimmer basket, or suspend it in front of a return in the water. The stabilizer I have is flakes and dissolves within just a few hours, or can be pre-dissolved and then poured into the skimmer.

The important part though is the dilution of CYA as a result of backwash/rinse/refill. So, it's probably best to just not add it until the shock process is finished.

[chem geek]

An inexpensive Taylor K-2006 is here:

http://www.amatoind.com/taylor-k2006-test-p-555.html

[jdolby]

I found good prices on Taylor kits on ebay if you want to save a few bucks.

[chuck9997]

thanks folks,.. for all the comments and good advice. I have a pretty nice test kit.. it's a TFTestkits TF-100.. I just ran out of R-0013. I continued to add bleach and keep the Chlorine level up through yesterday. Received my R-0013 a day or two ago.. and my CYA was pretty much nonexistant.. thats the reason for the "battle of the bleach"..

anyway: been bleaching, brushing and backwashing,.. pretty much all week.

As far as stabalizer.. I had a few chlorine pucks left over.. and tossed them in the skimmer basket, early in the week.. just because. Wednesday I bought 4 pounds of stabalizer crystals.. put about 2 pounds in a sock,.. stuck down in and old "duckie" floating thing I used to use for the pucks.. and left it in the pool.

today:
FC: 10ppm (and coming down)
CC: 0
PH: 7.8
CYA: still only a trace reading.

[chuck9997]

I may have to re-think the stabalizer in the sock,.. in the duckie. It might slow the disolving process.. since it's just floating around.

[Watermom]

Probably better to hang it in the sock in front of a return jet. I think it will dissolve faster with the constant stream of water going at it than having it just floating around the pool.

[chem geek]

Or to put the sock in the skimmer, but make sure your pump has alternate places to get flow so that the skimmer doesn't get clogged (my skimmer has an alternate port going into the pool, plus I also have floor drains).