opening pool for summer from forest green swamp

[rweber12]

Hayward s200 sand filter and I believe a 3/4 HP pump

Also I just came out this morning and it appeared like my pump didn't have any water in it. Im kinda concerned. I filled the basket area thinking that would get it kick started again but it just drained it right away. I'm filling the pipe it comes in from but I feel that there might be a clog or something since the skimmers were empty this morning too. Any ideas?

[Watermom]

I'm gonna ask Ben to see what he thinks about your pump issue. Not my area of expertise.

[rweber12]

I believe I didn't get the top back on secured tightly enough and it just drained itself due to the lack of suction.. I but the garden hose down the pipe it pulls from the pool and let it run for a while and put the top back on and sealed it tight and it has been running well for a few hours now.

I've run out of the liquid chlorine again. I plan on running to the store to buy some more but I have some giant 3" chlorinating tablets that I purchased from Menards. The active ingredient is 99.3% trichloro-s-triazinetrione with 89.0% available chlorine. Could I use these? The previous owners swore by these and just said to drop 3 in the skimmer baskets once a week and I'd be golden.

[Watermom]

With a CYA over 100 and who knows how high it actually is, you should not use those trichlor tabs. They have CYA in them and you don't want yours any higher! They also are very acidic and will drive your pH down.

Did you try the dilution method to see if you can get a more accurate CYA reading? Take a look at this chart. It explains the connection between CYA and chlorine. (Copy link and log out, then paste in browser window.) http://pool9.net/cl-cya/

Glad you got your pump issue solved.

[rweber12]

I haven't had a chance to run to the store yet to purchase the distilled water.. I did dump a box of borax in this morning and tested it just now and I believe my pH is about 7.5.. Cya is basically 100 it was a couple millimeters away from the 100 point when the dot disappeared.. I also found some 50% calcium hypochlorite one time shock treatment packets that are a pound apiece and dumped 5 of them in around 1.. With my last test about 3 hrs later my free chlorine ppm was 36 I believe. Would that be right?

[Watermom]

I don't know how high those packs will take your chlorine. If it were my pool, I'd just stick with bleach. If it is 36ppm, that should definitely put a dent into killing the algae.

A pH of 7.5ppm is good.

[rweber12]

My pump again seemed like it wasn't pushing any water through to the jets this morning when I woke up. I backwashed and rinsed and put it back to filter and it seemed fine again pushing water through to the jets but this seems to be happening almost multiple times a day.

Any suggestions?