New to BBB

[Watermom]

You have been given some good advice by Janet. To answer your question, it is fine to work on ph and shock at the same time.

You have a bit of a quandry. You don't really want cyanuric ACID laying on your lner. Typically, when people have broadcast it into the pool instead of into the skimmer or in a sock in front of a return jet as Janet mentioned, we advise them to vacuum it up and let it dissolve in the filter. But, since it dissolves so slowly (may take up to a week) you can't backwash or you just end up throwing the cya out. If you are fighting some algae, you'll most likely need to vacuum this week and thus the cya would be thrown out.

You'll have to decide if you want the cyanuric acid granules laying on your liner or do you want to end up maybe wasting it by backwashing the filter if you vac it up?

I also have a question about your testing numbers. You say that your water is cloudy, not green, yet you have a CC reading of 2. That is odd for a pool that isn't full of algae. I have a feeling that maybe your testing numbers are wrong. FC + CC = TC. FC is free chlorine which is chlorine that is available to sanitize water. CC is combined chlorine that has already been used sanitizing something organic in the pool. TC is total chlorine. Like I said, it is unusual for a pool to have a CC reading that high if there is not a big algae problem going on. Can you retest your numbers again and repost?

And, Jan is right. Your ph is priority!! Get that Borax in.

[rkelly]

AHHHHH!!!! I have been vacuuming and backwashing during this week......so I mostlikely have dumped it out. I also am using test strips and a Guardex kit (I think)(for TC and PH).

[aylad]

Ok, that's why you don't have any CYA. Hopefully you've vac'd up all the stuff that was laying on your liner too. So...I know that 4 lbs of CYA granules takes my 29K gallon pool up to about 20 ppm, so I would only put one 2 lb bottle into yours--but look at the label because you want to target around 20 and then tweak it from there. In your case, where you're going to be vacuuming/backwashing to fight the algae bloom, I would pour the stuff in an old tube sock or knee-hi hose and hang it in front of a return. That way you can backwash and not wash all of it out. Once you see the amount diminishing in the sock, you can test for it again and expect it to register, although keep in mind that cloudy water will usually alter the test result.

I very strongly recommend that you buy a drop-based test kit. WalMart used to carry one for about $15 that tested for TC, pH, CYA, TA, and CH that would work in a pinch, but I will be the first to tell you that one of the good kits, even if it's in the 70-100 dollar range, will save you that much money tens of times over in useless time, chems, trouble, and pool down-time that you'll save by having control over your pool.Taylor makes a K-2006 kit that has everything in it that you would need. You will find that test strips are inaccurate when it comes to the measurements that you're going to need. They're ok for ballpark "snapshots" of you water when things are going well, but pretty much useless when it comes to clearing up a problem.

Janet

[rkelly]

I added the Borax, now will wait to check PH.....

[Watermom]

Yeah -- wait at least 3 or 4 hours.

[rkelly]

PH is now 7.4

[Watermom]

PH of 7.4 is perfect! Did you get a testkit that uses drops yet and if so, can you run a full set of complete testing numbers and post them here for us to take a look. How does the pool look today?