Watermom, Carl and all others,

Once again “many thanks” for your response & guidance – it has helped tremendously with the conversion process! The following provides a re-cap of yesterday’s, and the over night test results from this a.m. (I hope they are ‘not scrambled’ due to end-of-line, tabulation, or other space / character wrapping?).

Summary of our tests results, chlorine added, etc., completed on Monday May 30, 2011 (Day 5) through Tuesday May 31st – starting at 6:00 a.m. (5/30 6 a.m. results posted prior).

Reading 6:00 8:10 10:10 12:15 2:15 4:30 6:45 8:30 p.m. 3/31 6:00 a.m.
Water Temp 70 75 76 77 78 78 79 78 76
CF (ppm) 5.0 14.5 6.0 9.0 7.5 10.0 11.0 11.0 13.0
CC (ppm) 1.5 1.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75
pH 7.2 7.8 7.3 7.3 7.3 7.3 7.4+ 7.4 7.4+
Chlor. Add 7.1 - 4.3 4.3 2.9 2.9 - - -
(bleach 6%, in gallons)

A rather busy pool day overall – but the results look promising (at least to me!). In addition to the above tests, in between each sample I would typically brush the pool sides & bottom, clean the skimmer basket sock (which really helped to clean up a lot of the floating debris), and back flush / rinse the filter (2X) – dropping the pressure from ~ 25lbs down to ~19lbs.

The overall appearance and the water clarity has continued to improve, along with having the skimmer basket sock in place – clearly seeing the main floor drain. I also noticed that the pH tends to increase along with higher levels of FC level? And, it is pretty amazing just how much reaction the direct sun / UV rays has on the FC level – now I better realize why the Baquacil never had a fighting chance, especially with 5+ year old water! I’m so glad we are making the conversion to chlorine!

So…‘where are we in the conversion process’ – my guess is that it is either complete or very close? The fact that the CC never went completely to zero (0) is a little concerning – but may be in the manor as to ‘how full or level’ the R0870 dipper is for the prior FC testing? The CC = 0.75 ppm reading represents 1 drop of R0871 – and there is still a very, very slight amount of pink color in the sample. My guess is that I need to read the Taylor handbook as to how to measure CC (separate from FC) using a 25ml water sample!

As always many "many Thanks” for your time to read and to respond to my posting on the PoolForum!
Gene
PS - My near term plan is to keep the FC level elevated until I receive some feedback from the PoolForum.