Hopefully...minor clarity issue

[Watermom]

You probably shouldn't close the cover with cl level that high. The fumes may damage your cover.

Hope you are in the home stretch. Keep an eye on your filter pressure, backwash as needed. You might want to try using some skimmer socks.

I assume you are now just using bleach and no more cal-hypo?

[buki5]

Home for lunch opened pool, checked chlorine holding around 25. Filter holding at 19. Water seems to be clearing though can't see the return at the bottom...again lighting makes it hard to tell.

[buki5]

Couple more things.
Have had skimmer socks on for a week or so now. Really like them. Also, just saw the bottom. Barely, but it's there.

I haven't added anything since the 3 gal of bleach but the plan is yes to continue with bleach. I have a little Cal-hypo left so may try to use it up at some point.

[buki5]

Water is clearing, can see the bottom even after sweeping. However, the best I can describe it the water looks "thick".

Was out of town this evening so wife tested and chlorine had dropped. added 1.5 gal of 6%. Chlorine back up. pressure in filter slightly above 20.

At this point I think I'm going to go easy on additional chlorine and let it fall to around 10 then try to maintain and watch the water. Let me know if you have any additional thoughts. Will also clean the socks tomorrow.

[buki5]

This morning's update

Skimmer socks cleaned
Filter pressure 21
Vacuumed the floor and walls
Pool open
Raining

Numbers
FC-25
TC-25
CC-0
Ph-7.4
TA-210
CH-140

Numbers seem to be climbing a little? Why?

Questions
1) Best way to stay ahead of Chlorine draw?
2) How best to clean crud from within the skimmer walls (they're black, sticky and oily).
3) How best to go about the various adjustments for my numbers:
a) Lower TA by about half
b) Lower CYA by about half
c) Lower Chlorine by a little over half
I've read the forum and understand the aeration/low ph process for TA, the drain and fill for CYA, seems to be keep the pool open for Cl. However, looking for a systematic process to work through all these without sending everything amuck....

[aylad]

If you're going to drain and refill to lower the CYA, do that first--it does not do much good to adjust all your other numbers to where you want them, and then mess them all up again when you refill. Do your draining first, then we can go from there to adjust the other stuff.

The sun and refilling will take care of lowering the chlorine, you don't have to do anything for that.

There are vinyl cleaners you can use for the skimmer walls--some people have had success with Magic Erasers, but I've just used a kitchen pot scrubber with a baking soda/water paste and it works fine for me.

And the best way to stay ahead of the chlorine draw is to add most of your chlorine at night--that way it spends all night working on the stuff in the water, and hopefully will reduce the chlorine load during the day.

Janet

[buki5]

Thank you all again for the help. Water is looking great! Tested with some additional help on the forum and CL is down to 10. keeping the pool open tomorrow to see how much it drops. Targeting a maintenance level of 8-10ppm due to the high CYA (well over 100) until I drain and fill. Would like to get some swim time in first.

[Watermom]

You are very welcome, Brian. Let us know if we can help again! Go swim and have fun!

[buki5]

Correction to my last post on the test readings.

Question at the bottom...
Tested CL tonight and I get 4.5, down from last nights 11. Here are all of the numbers.

FC- 4.5
CC- 0
TC- 4.5
PH- 7.4
TA- 190
CH- 140
CYA-150+

Sunny hot day, cover off. No swimmers, the dog did make it in and right out a couple of times but no duration of time in the water (He's also primarily an indoor dog).

As a reminder the numbers above have been pretty steady outside of the Chlorine. Last night CL measured 11

Question?
Does this drop in Chlorine, 6.5 points, seem reasonable? I tested once FAS-DPD then twice at varying multiples using DPD and the number seems correct.

If so, my plan is to add 2.5 gal of 6% bleach to get it back to a little over 10ppm.

Suggestions?

[Watermom]

Yes, on a really hot sunny day, you can easily lose that much chlorine. CYA of 150+? Wow. So, you decided not to do a partial drain but just live with it? You're gonna have a hard time keeping algae at bay, I'm afraid. Just look at today's levels. You're down to 4.5. Dropping that low is an invitation to algae. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid you're gonna have a tough summer keeping cl levels up high enough to avoid an algae bloom. I think you better plan on taking the cl level up to 15 tonight instead of just 10 so maybe by evening tomorrow, you won't have dropped below 8.