I should have also mentioned that they just finished plaster on Thursday of last week... so the pool has only been filled with water for 3 days.

Mrs Mack -

They definitely should have been added individually, and with some time between. Generally, you should adust PH first (PH minus = Muriatic Acid / PH Plus = Borax). Alkalinity Up = Baking Soda. I would suggest brushing the pool (you probably need to do that anyway since I'm guessing you are in the first 2 weeks.) Regardless, I highly suggest that you spend some time on troublefreepool.com to learn about the chemistry and PLEASE get a good test kit (TF-100 or Taylor k-2006). The test strips that your PB gave you are not very helpful....also, the testing that your PB does at their HQ location in Mount Ephraim is not very good. As for ruining your plaster, so long as you didn't bring your PH down too low for an extended period of time, you should be OK.

First of all, it's unlikely you've damaged anything, so don't concern yourself about that. If your pool is plaster then it is perfectly normal to see a tremendous amount of plaster dust forming for the first 2 weeks (really heavy the first week). It's likely that what you're seeing is the normal plaster dust accumulation rather than anything that resulted from adding the chemicals.

To reiterate what Smuggs said, hopefully you were instructed to brush your pool down twice daily. It's less important if you have a pebble finish, but if you have plaster you should be brushing twice a day for at least 2 weeks. You should also be running your pump on high speed 24 hours a day for the 1st 2 weeks to get the plaster dust out of the water, and cleaning your filter every 3 or 4 days during that time. Sweep the sides down first, then sweep the bottom from the edges to the drain. Push all the dust into the drain. Repeat about 8 to 10 hours later. You'll be amazed to see that the dust seems to have magically reappeared!

It sounds like your PB did a poor job of instructing you on pool startup, they should have given you a test kit so you could test (at a bare minimum) the PH, chlorine and total alkalinity yourself each day. They also should have instructed you on what the normal range is and what to do if you test outside of the normal range. The most important thing in the early days is PH, you want to keep your PH either at the bottom end of normal or even slightly below normal as this helps you in brushing away the cream. In the first week we had to add muriatic acid nearly daily to keep the PH down. New plaster tends to drive the pool PH up.

mrs mack - i understand how you feel....i didn't know anything about pool chemistry at first, and i know from experience with your PB that pool chemistry is not their thing. Read through "pool school" on troublefreepool.com and you'll get up to speed quickly. as for damage, tresw is absolutely on the mark....you'll be fine, just keep on brushing and focus on the PH first. as for your FC level, I'm assuming you are using tri-chlor pucks right now. Since your CYA level is probably about nil, you will have a tough time keeping any FC. I would be careful about increasing the FC level too quickly however, but you could consider adding some bleach to bring the level up to one or two. to better understand the amounts of each chemical to use, there is another resource, poolcalculator.com that is great. lastly, order that test kit ASAP...the TF-100 can be found at tftestkits.com. This is a customized version of the taylor k-2006 that gives more appropriate volumes of titrants.

never, EVER mix multiple pool chemicals together before adding them to the pool. If you would have added that PH minus to Chlorine I might be typing to a corpse right now. Also Always add chemicals to water. Not water to chemicals.

If your PH is off the charts it's imperative that you get it down ASAP. High PH is going to make it tough for you to get the cream off your plaster and you could end up with some unsightly streaking and/ or blotchiness. If you go to the site that Smuggs mentioned (poolcalculator.com) you can plug in your pool size, current PH and target PH and it'll show how much muriatic acid you need to add. Don't dump it all in at once though. Put a couple of pints in with the pump running. Retest in about 8 hours and add more as needed. Good luck!

I should have stated this more clearly, pour the muriatic acid into the pool water (like Tagprod said, always add the chemicals to the pool water). Handle it with care, it is acid! Don't breathe the vapors and don't get it on you. Make sure you don't have good clothes on, I learned that the hard way :-) A couple of drops splashed from the pool onto the cuff of my slacks as I was pouring and made a nice yellow stain. I keep a dedicated glass measuring cup with the acid that I only use for pouring the acid into the pool. The acid will sink, so it's also not a bad idea to brush that area to mix it into the water.

Well you got the 1st lesson of pool ownership. 1) Becareful of the "pool store" and what they say. They don't always know what they are talking about.

Buy a test kit, learn how your pool is suppose to work. Do your own testing. Post your pool chemical test results here and we can tell you what to buy. Also, if I were you, I would attack one problem at a time. One change can effect other factors without ever having to add the second chemical.

And, don't worry, you have NOT ruined your pool. When you mix the chemicals together, it "can" basically make them "ineffective" at doing anything so when you end up adding what you have mixed up, the chemicals do nothing or less than what you bought them for in the first place if they react with themselves. So what you did was waste time and money and probably changed your pool chemistry less or not at all compared to if you had added them to the pool separately. The pool chemical company can sell you a bunch of chemicals to attack meaningless problems and many times they set themselves up for you creating additional problems so you can come back and buy more chemicals.

You need to know whats going on and go to the store with one chemical and process in mind to buy and ignore the temptation to ask them anything. ;)

This is the perfect example of what makes this site so great! It is wonderful how quickly you came to mrs_mack's rescue with great advice and reassurance. What a great forum this is.

Mrs_mack, Good luck getting everything in balance. I feel for you. When our pool is done I am not going to know what to put in when.

Mrs. Mack,

Don't worry, everything should be okay. Since they just filled your pool, the white film is just plaster dust. Sweep the sides and botton towards the bottom drain as others have suggested. New plaster pools always have a very high pH and tend to run high for several seasons. Forget the pH minus that the pool store is selling you. I had no luck with it. Find a store that sells muriatic acid and use that, just BE CAREFUL. The best thing you can do is buy yourself a taylor test kit. it will give you the most accurate results and comes with a small book that explains how to interpret the results and how much of each chemical you need to add correct the problem. It'll cost you about $60, but its worth every penny. Make sure you are running the filter when you add the chemicals so that they get distributed throughout the pool.

10-4 on the acid

My HD sells 2 gallons in a box for $7.69.

New pools go through lot.

Now finally I am done to about 1.5Q a week.

Thank you everyone for all the advise. One additional question regarding plaster dust. Before we added this chemical blend, the pool was crystal clear with little to no dust. The pool turned milky white post chemical and now I see the white powdery build up. Did the chemical blend cause the dust to form?

Adjusting alkalinity and hardness at the same time can cause cloudy water.

In future, adjust one thing at a time, always starting with pH.

When I was a service tech I used to tell my clients not to do what I did. They would see me adjusting multiple things in one visit but I was doing it with knowledge and experience. It's a lot easier for the pool owner to go out to the pool each day and add chemicals than for a tech to return every day.

I understand that people can be in a hurry to use their pools but a little patience can save a lot of trouble.

thank you again. What is the general feeling of draining about 6 inches of water and adding some new fresh water to the pool?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure you're hearing what everyone is telling you. Per the above posts what you need to do is get a good test kit, test the water and make adjustments as required to get the water properly balanced. No one suggested a partial drain and refill because it would be a waste of time. Don't try to guess about this, follow the above suggestions. And do it right away, if you don't get that PH down ASAP then you could end up with unsightly streaks.

Nothing to take wrong at all. I have heard and am taking the advise given. I've spent time learning the chemistry and have purchased a good test kit and am working on corrective actions. My questions was due to the fact that I knew the pool company was goign to recommend that I drain water from the pool and add new. When they finally did recommend that, I basically told them, as you said, that a drain and refill would be a waste of time and money. Thanks again for all the help.

Mrs. Mack -

Are you speaking with Chris at the PB or Lauren? I have found Chris to be reasonably helpful.....though, I've really learned about the chemistry from TFP.