Need help getting pool in shape so I can close it....

[chem geek]

Yes, your 10 gallons of 6% bleach should increase your chlorine by 20 ppm in your 30,000 gallon pool. If your pool is exposed to sunlight in the day, then you could lose up to half the chlorine during the day, though this time of year I would suppose that you might only lose about one-third (or if the day is overcast you might not lose much at all). I doubt that you will need to add 10 gallons each day -- I would guess 3-5 gallons or so depending on how much algae you still have. You will lose more than that if you still have algae that is getting killed and oxidized. Just try and keep the chlorine level up and check it as often as you can, especially during the day (if possible -- at least morning and night). Because you have a vinyl pool, you can't just throw in extra chlorine to be too high in the morning because you could risk fading your liner, but try and keep the FC close to 20 as much as you can.

The amount of pH rise that Borax causes is dependent on the starting pH and the TA level (and CYA level). 10 pounds of Borax in your 30,000 gallon pool will raise the pH from 7.0 to 7.29, but if you start with a pH of 7.5 it will raise the pH to 8.14 so you can see how the starting pH makes a big difference as to the effect of the Borax (this same effect happens with other choices of base such as Soda Ash or Caustic Soda as well). When adding acid or base, it is usually a good idea to add about half of what you might expect you need and then measure to see what really happened. Sorry that it's not simpler than that. The "guidelines" that come on bottles of pool products of acid or base are just applicable near a typical pH not far from 7.5 and with a TA in the normal 80-120 range.

If your pool chlorine test kit has you look at the color of the liquid compared to a standard, then if this color is shades of yellow then this is an OTO test kit; if it's shades of magenta then this is a DPD test; if instead of looking at the color you add drops until a magenta color disappears and count the drops, then this is a FAS-DPD test. The OTO is least accurate, but can measure high chlorine levels, the DPD test is more accurate, but can't measure chlorine above around 10 ppm, and the FAS-DPD is the best since it is the most accurate and can measure high chlorine levels (up to 50 ppm). If you don't have a FAS-DPD test, you can measure the higher levels of chlorine by diluting it with distilled water, but this isn't terribly accurate (but is better than not measuring it at all) -- so diluting by mixing 1 part pool water with 4 parts water is 5:1 dilution so if you measure 4 ppm then that's 4*5=20 ppm in your pool.

Gee, I have no idea how to keep the chipmunks away. Didn't know the critters longed to be swimmers. Perhaps someone else has a suggestion for that one.

Richard