Opened pool and problems...

[PoolDoc]

I'm gonna disagree with WaterMom a bit here.

As long as your chlorine is high AND substantially higher than your CC levels, don't worry about the CC levels -- they will go down. Also, the CC test sometimes shows stuff it really shouldn't, so don't pay to much attention to fine differences.

From my point of view, your chlorine is "stable", when it doesn't change from PM to AM, two days in a row AND when the FC is more than 5x the CC.

Regarding brushing, if you've brushed the WHOLE pool carefully, that's what's needed. But if you have any suspicion of there being piles of stuff on the floor, by all means vacuum it up.

Basically, if
+ your filter is working, and
+ you keep your pH between 7 and 8, and
+ you do NOT add pool store goop, and
+ you keep filtering, chlorinating, and cleaning, then
. . . you will get your pool clean, about as fast as anyone can, without replacing the water or bringing a battery of pumps and DE filters.

Ben

[Watermom]

I'm gonna disagree with WaterMom a bit here.
Ben

Uhhhh.... not me this time. I think you meant Aylad.

[chumpy36]

Ok, I'm getting a bit confused by the readings I'm getting from the k-2006 kit. This morning the FC level was 3.5ppm and the CC was 9ppm. I used the pool calculator here: http://www.thepoolcalculator.com/ to determine that if I wanted to raise the chlorine from 3.5 to 15ppm I need 4 jugs (182oz) chlorine to raise to 15ppm. I actually made a couple mistake with the concentration and size of my bottles and put in 6 jugs of the bleach. In any case. I just tested here and the FC is only 5ppm and the CC has gone up to 13ppm. I am totally confused. I would have thought the addition of that much chlorine would have upped the FC ALOT and the CC would have come down? I do believe I'm doing the test correctly... but lemme check...

I'm filling the large vial to the ten ml mark with the water to be tested. I add a heaping scoop of the 870 powder and swirl until the water turns pink. I also swirled until I saw that all the bits of the powder were dissolved. I then added 871 reagent dropwise until the sample turned clear. Then added the other reagent (r003 I think?) 5 drops until pink again then added 870 again dropwise until I got clear water again. For FC I got 10 drops for CC I got 26 drops until clear. 10x.5 = 5ppm for FC and 26x.5 = 13 ppm for CC. Correct?

Do I need to add even more chlorine today or wait until tonight? It's mostly cloudy here today...

Thanks

J

[CarlD]

"871" Brown bottle? Are you sure you added R-0003? Powder is 0870. testing reagent for FC is 0871. Did you add the R-0003 to the SAME sample that just went clear from the 0871? (that's the correct way) Or did you try to test CC with a new water sample (incorrect)
IF you did all that correctly, something's a bit odd. However, if you didn't follow the steps above then it would be user error. So I want to rule out user error first.

Carl

[chumpy36]

Yes, Sorry. I see a typo in the last bit. But to confirm. I added powder (870 ) til pink then 871(brown bottle) until clear then added r003 (clear bottle) to the same sample until it was pink again then 871 (brown bottle) until it was clear again.

I just did that test again and got 7ppm FC and 9ppm CC.

Since I don't think it hurts to have too much chlorine at this point I just added 3 more 182oz jugs (slightly more than the calculator called for to get to 15ppm) of bleach, this time through the skimmer in the hopes it would spread more? But I'm not sure that would make much of a difference.

I brushed the whole pool carefully again today and did see some debris kicked up so I put the polaris in the pool for a short time (didn't know what the high chlorine would do to it) and got a couple bags of debris up. Last go round the bag was mostly empty so I'm pretty sure there are no algae piles lying around.

I'll test again before I go out to dinner in 30 minutes or so and see what the FC chlorine is.

FYI, when I applied the bleach this time, there was a fair amount of foaming. This has happened sometimes and not others. I haven't been able to pinpoint why it foams sometimes and not others.

Hope this helps...

Jason

[chumpy36]

I did another test 2 hours after the application of the 3 jugs of bleach. This seems even weirder. FC is 7 and CC is 14. This is pretty much exactly opposite of what I would have thought would have happened?

Could the test kit chemicals be bad or what?

Confused.

Thanks

[CarlD]

"then added r003 (clear bottle) to the same sample until it was pink again"

You are only supposed to add 5 drops, not till it gets pink again. Usually, when I add 5 drops, it's not at all pink.

If that's what's happening it can explain a lot.

Carl

[chumpy36]

That's not what's happening. I was just trying to be brief. I only used 5 drops of the r-003.

Thanks

[chumpy36]

Ok, I just did a chlorine test again and got wildly different results from last night but they seem to be more in line with what I would expect though.

Free Chlorine was 22ppm
Combined Chlorine was Zero meaning it did not change to pink when I added the 5 drops of r-0013.

I can't explain the differences in the test results. I took the sample from the same place, in the same way. The only thing I can think is that the Chlorine was not dispersed well? But I don't see how that would be a problem, the pump is functioning fine and the return output is nice and strong.

But based on this latest test what should I do? Do I let the Chlorine fall now to maintenance levels? Or keep shock level?

Flummoxed.

Jason