My levels, are they okay?

[Watermom]

I agree with Jan. Numbers look good. I wouldn't even bother with dropping the pH any. 7.6 is fine as is everything else. Good job, Digger! Now, time to enjoy that pool with those grandbabies!

[Digger]

Thanks everyone for the input. I am so HAPPY with our pool this year, thanks to everyone on here!! I don't remember the last time I could say that, honestly!! I hestitate to brag anymore, lest something bad happen, LOL! I will have to recheck the Alka. I didn't really stop as far as color changes? Will redo that later today! I want to recheck the CYA too, second guessing myself. I, just for the fun of it took a water sample in yesterday to one of my pool places ( who should have a special steel plate on their door with our name on it, for all of our donations, !), anyhow the CYA showed for her that it was between 20-25. I would trust my testing first, because she just used a strip, but I want to make sure, maybe it does need more stablizer! I just want to make sure as it is not easy to undo that mix! I had been letting some of my levels go down with the cholrine prior to sand change, than bringing back up to a 3. Today it is 6.5., the highest it has been for awhile. I am wondering if I should do a good shock for safety with all the dabbling before? There were even times it read .5-1, being the lowest readings. I will have to get on here and read what to do when I go on vacation in a week also. I will be leaving for about a week on the 1st of August.

[aylad]

Since you're testing with a drop-based kit, go with YOUR numbers and not the pool store's!! Just redo your alk test, and keep adding drops until the last drop you added produces no color change--then count all the drops except that one and multiply by 10 for your alk reading.

As far as shocking your pool goes, you can always shock it, it will never hurt it, but it's really unnecessary unless 1)you have a sustained CC level higher than 0.5, 2) your water is getting cloudy, or 3) you're losing more than 1 ppm of chlorine overnight from sundown to sunup. (I also shock mine sometimes if I've had a few days of really heavy kid bather loads, just 'cuz ).

When you get ready to go on vacation, post back here with a complete set of test numbers, and we can go from there!

Janet