START UP: Keeping CL up

[Watermom]

Don't add stabilizer right now. Just keep hitting it with bleach. Better to get the pool clear first.

[AnnaK]

In your original post you said you guessed your stabilizer is low because you normally start the season with low CYA. Let's therefore say it's under 30 ppm, assuming you haven't used trichlor pucks or added any stabilizer compound.

Any chlorine you put in the water will be subject to degradation by UV light in the absence of stabilizer. It still works to kill algae but you'll need more chlorine because much of it is being consumed by sunlight before it can do its job.

If it were my pool I would take a sample to the pool store and have them test for CYA. I would buy a small bucket of stabilizer and add one half the amount needed to get to the CYA level I like to maintain. Use the Pool Calculator at http://www.poolcalculator.com/ to figure out how much you need. I would also get some R-0013 or, as I said earlier, a CYA test so I can keep tracking those numbers. Leslie's sells a product called Blue Devil, a CYA testing kit.

You can clear up your pool without stabilizer but it'll take more bleach and more time without stabilizer in the water.

ETA: I had tried to post this earlier but the forum was down. Watermom's approach and mine differ slightly; choose whichever feels right to you. In any case, make an effort to get a refill for your CYA test. I bought a pint from www.amantoind.com which will last me a couple of seasons. Unless you have a pool store nearby and trust their testing you cannot get by without knowing your CYA level.

[CarlD]

Chuck, while you are doing this, go on-line and order yourself an FAS-DPD test kit. Poconos left a reference to a really inexpensive one somewhere, but you can go to TaylorTechnology.com and buy their K-2006 or K-2006C kit. Or you can go to Leslie's on-line and buy their FAS-DPD Service Test Kit. You'll have it before you finish fighting algae and be able to test your FC, CC, and CYA without a pool store's help.

Meanwhile, while AnnaK is right that you need stabilizer, right now you need to kill your algae first and you are probably adding chlorine 3x/day to do it. Once it's dead, you can go about getting everything right. Since you should be backwashing every day, you'll wash most of the CYA right out.

However, it's not going to louse you up if you decide to go AnnaK's way and add stabilizer now. But do it by hanging it in a sock or stocking, so you get it distributed best.

[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.