No free chlorine, trouble balancing

[Watermom]

When Janet says you are being "pool-stored" she's not kidding! No wonder you are confused. You are getting told to throw everything but the kitchen sink in there!

Just a correction on #4. The washing soda is not Borax washing soda. I think you'll find "Arm and Hammer Washing Soda."

You are going to need to be extremely diligent in your testing and dosing with bleach to clear this up. Like she said, 2 to 3 times a day (and even more than that is ok if you can manage to do it) you need to test your water and shock it back up to 15 with bleach.

A good test kit that we recommend, if your pool store doesn't have one, is the Taylor K-2006 or K-2006C. The "C" is basically the same thing with larger bottles of reagents. Here is a link to a place that seems to have good prices for their kits.

http://www.amatoind.com/taylor-k2006-test-p-555.html

http://www.amatoind.com/k2006c-taylor-test-p-263.html

Hang in there. We'll help you get this pool going. Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[aylad]

Just a correction on #4. The washing soda is not Borax washing soda. I think you'll find "Arm and Hammer Washing Soda."

Thanks for catching this--I had 3 children standing at my elbow with a LONG list of "Mom, can I's?" at the time and got in a hurry.....my bad!!

Janet

[CarlD]

Sapphire:

Listen to Jan and Lisa! As long as you keep going in to that pool store they are gonna keep selling you junk. Sometimes it will be useless, sometimes it will make things worse, and sometimes it will an expensive package of something you can get really cheap like the "Alkalinity Plus" for an insane price. The pool store lady was right--the "Alkalinity Plus" HAS something baking soda doesn't--a highway-robbery price.

Washing Soda raises pH and Total Alkalinity. If both are low, it's good stuff--and it's the same as the fancy pH increasers that pool store lady will sell you--far cheaper.

Pool maintenance is simple, and even clearing up pool problems usually is simple too. But letting you know that is NOT how pool stores make money.