Startup Question

[Searcher]

Water is still gray cloudy with some dark stuff on the bottom. I think I will wait for evening and brush, vacuum to waste. Pull out the sock with the CYA and keep in a bucket while I do the vacuum. I don't do patience well, but I think I have to wait for the CYA to hit 30 before I can try to maintain FC all day and open the pool.

Have you back washed your filter? You may be shocked at the filth that will come flying out by watching your sight glass. These initial start ups can get a filter really mucked up fast with dead algae.

Last bloom I had made me have to backwash once an hour for like 8 hours and then less and less as the muck cleared up. Three days later and my water was pristine.

[jimk0512]

Have you back washed your filter?

I have been back washing the filter. I fell behind once and the flow of water from the return practically stopped. Oops! Another backwash fixed that problem.

The sock full of stabilizer hanging in the return stream worked well. All of the stabilizer in the sock dissolved. Current numbers:

pH=7.5, FC=5.5, CC=0.5, TA=140, CYA=35.

I didn't bother with testing CH (above ground pool with vinyl liner). I'm out of powdered stabilizer, but I have three more Tri Chlor tablets. I plan to use them up to raise the CYA a bit more. I plan to ignore the TA, since I haven't thought of a way to aerate my pool (no fountain or anything like that). The pH has been dropping and I am using borax to keep it at 7.5. The FC has been holding well enough, it dropped from 7.5 last night. We have started swimming - life is good!

[CarlD]

Beware!

The tri-chlor tabs will drop your pH even more! If you are fighting a falling pH, you don't want to use Tri-Chlor.

Unless you are in an environment that uses excessive chlorine, a CYA level of 35 should be fine. Still, if you want more CYA, given your pH situation, don't use Tri-chlor.