1st pool opening

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E

esto

Active member
Jul 6, 2023
26
Wichita, KS
Pool Size
26000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Hello,

I’m doing my own pool opening this year. Water is greenish and I’ve brushed and vacuumed along with backwashing sand filter. My readings are as follows:
pH- 7.4
Alkalinity- 130
CYA- below 30 (water wasn’t cloudy at 30 mark on test)

Do I need to get my CYA level up to 50-70 before doing anything else by adding stabilizer? How much do I add to start with?
 
If you have zero fc & zero cya do the ammonia test before adding any cya.

Confirm that You Have an Ammonia Problem in Your Pool Water​

  1. Your CYA will be 0
  2. Add liquid chlorine for 10 ppm and test your free chlorine after 30-minutes. You likely have ammonia in your water if you lost 80%+ of FC in 30 minutes
  3. Your CC tests > 0.5
  4. Optional: An ammonia test indicates the presence of ammonia

Getting Rid of Ammonia in Pool Water​

  1. Dose the pool to SLAM level of 10 ppm
  2. Do not add any CYA until chlorine begins to hold
  3. Test chlorine every 30 minutes until chlorine begins to hold. Add chlorine as needed to get back to 10 ppm. FC will likely test close to 0 until you get to the next step
  4. You will know when the chlorine begins to hold when you begin seeing FC testing > 3 ppm after 30 minutes.
  5. When you see a significant jump in FC from the prior 30 minute test CYA can be added back into the pool. Limit the CYA to 30 ppm for the duration of the process
  6. Increase the FC target to 12 ppm and follow the steps in the SLAM Process until the criteria of “Done” are all met.
  7. Follow the SLAM Process FC test procedures. You no longer a need to test every 30 minutes at this stage.
You’ll need an fas/dpd kit to accomplish this & the slam.
 
Texas Splash said:
If the water is green, more than likely you have an algae bloom which would require the SLAM Process. What is your FC level? Can you post a pic of the water?
Click to expand...
FC- .5
CC- 3
I did add 2 gallons of liquid chlorine 4 hours ago but don’t want to do anything else until further advice. My pump has been running for 48 hours.
 
esto said:
I’m confused, I thought I needed to get my CYA level correct before adding chlorine?
Click to expand...
If you happen to have ammonia adding cya now will just create more ammonia so you must rule out/eliminate the ammonia before adding any cya.
 

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Should I just start SLAM now? Would this be effective if I don’t know what my CYA level is? When I checked earlier it was somewhere under 30.
 
esto said:
Should I just start SLAM now?
Click to expand...
You will shortly which is why having an adequate amount of liquid chlorine on-hand is so important. Before adding any stabilizer though, it's important to know your water can hold some FC without a major crash (ammonia). You may not even have ammonia, but regardless, we should go through the process to be safe. First, you add enough liquid chlorine to increase the FC to 10, then re-test in 10 minutes (no longer). If it holds between 6-10 that's good. If the FC crashes to 5 or below in 10 min, then add more chlorine (back to 10 ppm) and re-test in 10 minutes. DO that until the FC shows signs of holding.

Once the FC is holding for at least 10 minutes, it will then be safe to add some stabilizer. You want a CYA goal of 30 which would require a SLAM FC level of 12. But if you over-shoot the CYA slightly to 40, then your SLAM FC level would be 16.

Hope that all makes sense. If you have questions let us know.
 
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I appreciate all the help! Life got in the way this afternoon and wasn’t able to focus on this but I did get 20 gallons of liquid chlorine. My goal is to get this performed by next weekend when I have time. The good thing is, water temp is only 60 degrees. Should I continue running my VSP?
 
Texas Splash said:
You will shortly which is why having an adequate amount of liquid chlorine on-hand is so important. Before adding any stabilizer though, it's important to know your water can hold some FC without a major crash (ammonia). You may not even have ammonia, but regardless, we should go through the process to be safe. First, you add enough liquid chlorine to increase the FC to 10, then re-test in 10 minutes (no longer). If it holds between 6-10 that's good. If the FC crashes to 5 or below in 10 min, then add more chlorine (back to 10 ppm) and re-test in 10 minutes. DO that until the FC shows signs of holding.

Once the FC is holding for at least 10 minutes, it will then be safe to add some stabilizer. You want a CYA goal of 30 which would require a SLAM FC level of 12. But if you over-shoot the CYA slightly to 40, then your SLAM FC level would be 16.

Hope that all makes sense. If you have questions let us know.
Click to expand...
So I really need to wait to do this until I have some stabilizer on hand?
 
I don’t want to confuse the subject any further but I think for the sake of clarity it’s important to note that ammonia is an uncommon occurrence. Simply proceed with the SLAM process. There’s no reason to suspect ammonia is at play right now. If the SLAM seems like it’s not working (and you are following the process CLOSELY!) then we can reconsider.
 
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