I have to be doing something wrong in this testing....

[Jacob99]

Just got my pool filled this morning. Have the Taylor 2006c kit. I filled with pool water to 25ml line, added 2 dippers of R-0870 powder, swirled, shook for over a minute, no pink color whatsoever. From my previous tap water testing I was told no pink = no chlorine present, but I have a hard time believing that. I manually put in a gallon of 12.5% liquid chlorine this morning while it was being filled, plus I would imagine the the 3 truck loads of water would contain some chlorine also. We had some sun today but not a lot, and the temps were only around 55 degrees or so. What gives?

I have some Trichlor pucks, should I put one in a floater since I most likely don't have any CYA in there now? I plan do go BBB but is the Trichlor a good way to get my initial readings up?

[Jacob99]

Okay, as a little test for myself - I poured some straight bleach into the 25ml tube. When I did that the sample immediately turned a bright pink, but then went clear. After stirring no pink. I prob put 1/2 teaspoon of bleach into 25ml of my pool water. Is my powder a dud or something? Or am I the dud?

[kelemvor]

Perhaps continue and run the combined chlorine test, and also run the CYA test. There could have been something in the trucked in water that consumed all the chlorine.

According to my calculation, a gallon of 12.5% is only just over 5ppm FC. With no CYA it would only take 30 minutes or so for that to be all gone in sunlight; actually I don't think the concentration matters a lot when you have unstabilized chlorinated water exposed to direct sunlight. Here's some more details on how that works: http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?7053-CYA-and-Lifetime-of-Chlorine

[Jacob99]

I just got a new sample in the time you responded to this. My filter/pump has been running a couple hours now where it wasn't before maybe that's the difference. I'm getting some pink now...it's pale but it's pink. 2 drops of R0871 turn it back to clear so that would put my FC level at 0.4? Then 5 drops of R003 to get it pink again, then 3 drops of R0871 back to clear. So 0.6CC?

Does this sound right?

[kelemvor]

It sounds plausible to me. Try dosing back up to about 10ppm (shock level for zero CYA) tonight while it's dark, then test again in the morning before the sun comes up. That will allow you to determine if the chlorine is being consumed by sunlight vs fighting something. If you're around 9ppm then it was just the sunlight. If not, you need to get some CYA in there and keep your chlorine at shock level as best you can until you can complete that night time test without losing much chlorine.

http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/best-guess-swimming-pool-chlorine-chart.html#a

What are the rest of your test results?

[BigDave]

Okay, as a little test for myself - I poured some straight bleach into the 25ml tube. When I did that the sample immediately turned a bright pink, but then went clear. After stirring no pink. I prob put 1/2 teaspoon of bleach into 25ml of my pool water. Is my powder a dud or something? Or am I the dud?When your test flashed pink then clear, it was likely because the amount of bleach you used in your test was way too much and bleached out your DPD. Your DPD is trustworthy, it flashed pink before being bleached out.

[TheGoose]

Also I find it helpful to have a regular OTO kit so you're not wasting DPD-FAS reagents.

If you're not showing any chlorine with the DPD get the OTO test and don't use the DPD again until you see the OTO test yellow for chlorine. then use your DPD-FAS.