The fight is almost over... or so I think.

[nthach]

Yea, I'll be back today or tomorrow with a better test kit - a 6 way test kit to measure CYA and CH numbers and I got more shock as well as skimmer tablets, just in case.

[nthach]

Just taken a few moments ago:
Cl: 5 ppm using HTH OTO reagent (which looks like the Taylor bottles)
pH: 7.2
TA: 110 ppm
CH: 350 ppm
CYA: 60 ppm

I'm thinking it's a good time to tweak the CH levels, but the CYA could come down a little bit - the owner and I used trichlor until I enlightened myself. Earlier this week we dumped in 2 lbs of trichlor shock along with Green to Clean which I think is responisble for the CYA.

/edit - I didn't test the CH right - I retested it and while the instructions on the test kit say the water should turn red when there's hardness, it was actually purple-red. I then added the titrate until it turned visibly blue, which was 35 drops.

[aylad]

You definitely don't want to use trichlor tabs or any more dichlor to shock--you don't need your CYA levels coming up any higher than that for now. My understanding is that ideal CH for plaster pool is 200-400, so I think you're right on the money where you are. If it were my pool, I'd go with bleach, or even better, liquid chlorine if you have it available to you (it's the same as bleach but 10% concentration and sold in bulk). With a CYA of 60 it will take a good bit of bleach at the beginning to get to your base target, but the upside is that it will last longer so you probably won't have to add it everyday. You're going to have to maintain your Cl no lower than 5, and up to 10. It will take a few days of testing morning and night to see what your Cl consumption is, but I'm betting that you only will have to add every 2nd or maybe even every 3rd day, if you maintain it on the higher end of that range.

Janet

[nthach]

I have pool bleach readily available from the hardware stores, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and the pool store - Home Depot being the cheapest and ironically, Wal-Mart and the pool shop being the most expensive.

Right now, I got 1 HTH skimmer tab steeping in the skimmer and added 1.5 lbs of HTH shock in the pool last night. There's a little trichlor still in the pool but I'll yank those today. I'll also retest as well today.

/edit - except for CYA which jumped up 10ppm, everything seems the same - but I need a DPD test kit to figure out FC and Cl consumption.