bbb advice

[AnnaK]

Okay, using 22,000 gallons:

To raise the free chlorine FC from 0 to 5 ppm add 27 oz by weight of dichlor. This will also add about 4 ppm of stabilizer (CYA) and drop your pH by about 0.2, meaning we'd get it down to ph=8 without having to do the muriatic acid thing.
To raise the alkalinity (TA) from 30 to 70 add 200 oz by weight of baking soda. Add 1/2 that amount, let it dissolve and circulate for an hour, test again, see where you're at. Add more as needed. This will affect the pH a very small amount upward.
To get 30 ppm of stabilizer you need to add 88 oz by weight. This takes a while to dissolve and about a week before you can test it. Put some in an old cotton tube sock and suspend it in front of a return. It'll be dissolved within a couple days, sometimes less, but will not show up on testing for a while. DO NOT backwash the filter for a week.
Have some bleach on hand. You can get regular unscented household bleach at 6% or you can see if your pool store sells the 5 gallon carboys of liquid chlorine which is about 12%.
If using 6%, 21 oz add 1 ppm FC to 10,000 gallons. Calculate that out for your volume. If using 12%, it comes to 11 oz for 10,000 gallons.

If you're going to follow the BBB method, which is easy and foolproof and inexpensive, di get your own test kit as recommended by Watermom. Then, daily test pH, FC, CC and adjust as needed. Weekly, test TA. Your target levels are pH 7.2 - 7.8, TA 60 - 80, FC 3-5 (see this link for chlorine: http://poolsolutions.com/gd/best-gue...e-chart.html#a, CYA 30 - 50.

[Watermom]

Put some (stabilizer) in an old cotton tube sock and suspend it in front of a return. It'll be dissolved within a couple days, sometimes less, but will not show up on testing for a while. DO NOT backwash the filter for a week.

Actually, Anna, if she puts the stabilizer in a stocking in front of the return jet, it doesn't matter if she backwashes. It is only necessary to avoid backwashing for a week or so if you add the stabilizer directly into the skimmer and let it dissolve in the filter. In that case, the reason you don't want to backwash is because you'll end up just throwing the undissolved CYA out.

[AnnaK]

You're probably right, Watermom. My understanding of cyanuric acid, an organic compound, is that it's not very soluble in water and while the granules or flakes do break down into something too small to be seen, they may still be of a size that gets trapped by the filter. The constant abrasion against the filter medium eventually does break those small particles down and pushes them back out into the pool, and that may take up to a week.

[WOODYRI]

ok, so I added stabilizer and bleach. my current readings r chlorine-2.0, ph-7.2, alkalinity-50. so regular baking soda will raise the alkalinity? guess i should do that next?

[AnnaK]

Yes. Arm&Hammer baking soda raises alkalinity. It'll also increase your pH just a very little bit and that's fine.

[WOODYRI]

Thanks for all the info. what i would like is measurements on raising ph, alkalinity, and chlorine by 1 for 20000 gallons.

[AnnaK]

www.poolcalculator.com is one source. There's also a bleach calculator in .exe format but I haven't used it since I don't run Windows. There are also a number of iPhone, iPad, and Android apps to help you calculate chemicals for your pool.

[aylad]

In 20K gallons, each 1/2 gallon of 6% bleach will raise chlorine by 1.5 ppm. In the same amount of water, each 4 oz of baking soda used should raise your TA by 1 ppm. Can't be that exact for pH though--the higher the alk level in the pool, the more borax or acid it will take to raise or lower the pH. The lower the alk level, the less of each chem it will take to move the pH.

Edit: Anna, your Post button is working faster than mine tonight!