New to BBB

[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?

[rkelly]

Still can't see the bottom in the deep end. I did not get a new test kit yet, but will try to get by after work.

[aylad]

You're going to need a chlorine test that will give you results up to at least 20 ppm--look for a DPD-FAS chlorine test--uses a tablet or powder that goes into your water sample with drops you drop in and count. It's possible to do this with the smaller test block using a dilution method, but we'll be wildly guessing at accuracy, and since you're gonna need it later anyway, it's best to go ahead and get it now if you can. Knowing exact measurements will hel you get it cleared up much quicker.

Janet