Newbie...been reading..need specific advice

[Watermom]

Hi Charles,
You won't be sorry if you go the BBB route. Your pool maintenance will be easy if you follow these methods. Also, ordering the kit will be a key piece of making things easy. Let us know how things are going for you!

[coj79]

Things are going well...test kit should be in tommorow. Took pool water to pool store, said it all looked good, with 0 CL and 0 TC....CYA were dead on....I came home added 1.5 gal of 6% bleach to get the levels up...I have a 18,500 Gallon AG pool.....How much should I put in? This Texas heat is HOT, HOT, HOT! Thanks in advance!

Charles

[Watermom]

Hi Charles,
If your pool store said all your levels looked good when you had O Cl and 0 TC, then I'd be finding a new pool store! A pool with no chlorine is an open invitation to an algae nightmare! We can't suggest an appropriate dose of bleach without knowing your CYA level. When you get that new kit today, run a full set of numbers and post them and then we can better advise you. You're gonna love that kit!

[aylad]

In your size pool, each 2.5 quarts of 6% bleach will raise your FC by 2 ppm. As Watermom said, once you run a set of numbers, especially CYA, we can help you figure out how much chlorine you need to put in the pool. Do you know what chems the pool company put in the pool?

Janet

[coj79]

CYA was at 40 yesterday afternoon....On Monday, a full 5 days ago it was at 60......

[PoolDoc]

The difference between 40 and 60 ppm is within the testing error of most CYA tests, although strip tests aren't that accurate.

[Watermom]

Take a look at the Best Guess chart in my signature below. With a CYA of 40, you'll want to maintain your chlorine levels between 3-6 ALL the time. If you drop below 3ppm, you risk an algae bloom. So, each evening, add enough bleach to get back to around 6. If you find at the next evening's testing that you have dropped below 3, maybe go just a little higher for the evening dose. (Maybe try 7.)

[coj79]

Gotcha...I will keep you in the loop on this.....Algea scares me...