Postby Buggsw » Sat 02 Jun, 2007 14:51
How's your water look and smell?
If you are using Chlorine in your pool, you don't need to worry about Bromine.
People use one or the other - do not ever just blindly switch from using Bromine to Chlorine and vice versa.
One thing you forgot to post was your pool water volume in gallons and what type of pool (ie vinyl, plaster, fiberglass).
I don't know ingredients by brand name - what are the ingredients of the Shock Extra Blue? Usually it's trichlor or dichlor or Cal Hypo.
Don't freak out, the worst thing you have going is you don't have nearly enough chlorine. Your TA is extremely high, but let's get your chlorine up.
I'm going to base this as if you had 10,000 gallong pool - adjust accordingly.
Run your pump when adding most chemicals, unless told otherwise.
Use regular laundry bleach or pool store chlorine to bring it up to 5 ppm for now. If you use regular laundry bleach use 1 gallon per 10000 gallons of water. If you use pool store chlorine (12.5% strength) - 1/2 gallon will do. Keep your chlorine level around 3 - 4 daily, so add a little bleach when it's gets down to 3.
You need to add Cyanuric Acid - get it at the pool store. You will need 3 lbs for 10000 gallons of water - put it in a sock and hang it near a return - it takes a long time to dissolve.
Don't use anything like Cal Hypo which will add calcium to your water. You are already at the high end with hardness.
You pH is actually okay, but it's your TA that is high. In order to lower TA, you need to lower your pH. This is a lengthy process, but it does work. Since you already have pH down, you might as well use that, assuming it is Sodium Bisulfate. Follow the directions to lower you pH down to 7.0. If you have a vinyl pool, absolutely don't let your pH go below 7.0 or you may damage your vinyl.
Now you need to raise your pH without raising your TA. You do that by aerating your pool. Anything that will make bubbles or droplets in your pool, turn the jets upwards to create turbulence, turn on a waterfall, built in aerator or one of those floating fountains and keep them going until your pH rises back up to 8. Repeat the lowering with your pH down to 7.0 and then aerate until your pH is back up to 8. You should start to see your TA going down about 5 to 10 ppm with each application.
I know that sounds lengthy, but you really need to do it, else you will constantly have wild swings in your pH. TA buffers pH - too little causes swings and too much causes swings.
Run your pump 24/7 until you get your water back in balance.
Test your readings once per day, at least. Don't test for at least 4 - 6 hours after adding chemicals - your water won't have circulated nearly enough.
