Just set up swimming pool - how to treat water?

Question

I just set up a swimming pool - 4' deep 15' diam. roung. I finished filling it with tap water. Should I shock it immediately or what other initial treatment should I do?

Answer 1

Take a pint of water down to your local pool store and have them run a full spectrum analysis on it. Make sure they test for the following:
Total chlorine
Free chlorine
Combined chlorine
pH
Alkalinity
Hardness
Cyanuric acid
Total dissolved solids
Metals
Phosphates

Don't purchase anything from the pool store at this time. Bring the results back and post them here or send them to me at [e-mail] and I'll help you analyze them and we'll come up with a proper maintenance schedule for your exact pool needs and chemistry.

You will need to maintain chlorine levels of 3-5ppm in the pool for sanitation and oxidation purposes. You can add in 3/4 gallon of household bleach (non scented) at this point in time to get initial chlorine levels in the pool. This will turn the water yellow for the first 24 hours but will dissipate after that.

Alkalinity can be increased with plain old baking soda (it's the exact same thing as the alkalinity increaser the pool store sells).

pH can be increased using 20 Mule Team borax (found in the detergent isle of your local grocery store) and works far superior to Soda Ash that the pool store sells for increasing the pH

Don't even worry about increasing the hardness level of your water. Vinyl lined pools do not need to maintain hardness levels no matter how loudly the pool store screams about it.

Get the results, come on back and we'll get you started off right to an inexpensive and trouble free pool season.

Answer 2

To save yourself a lot of headaches, go to a pool store and get a test kit and ask questions about maintaining the water. Most stores are eager to give the info and most have it printed out.

Answer 3

just add a half gallon of clorine to start with then check the chemicals after using on regular test kit clorine reading should be about a 3 and p.h. should be between 7.4-7.6 if higher add a little bit of acid.

Answer 4

hi!!