aciam - Nightmare conversion from baquacil to chlorine

[waterbear]

I would do it like this:
sprinkle it on the surface of the water and let it sit for 48 hours, stirring every so often. Then add 1/4 teaspoon 6% bleach (this should raise the FC by approx 20 ppm), stir, and test with OTO, it should be dark yellow orange to brown if the chloirne is holding (percarbonate destroys chlorine and vice versa but after 48 hours I would think it was all used up) . IF it is still very pale yellow or clear add another 1/4 teaspoon bleach. When the bucket is holding chlorine. test with FAS-DPD and see if the CC problem has been solved (HIgh FC, little or not CC). Let it sit an hour or two and test again to make sure CC has not climbed like it has been.

If your test results are better than before the percarbonate it is probably worth a try. Like I said before it might take two or three applications. so If the first time is a no go repeat the percarbonate on the same bucket of water and see if two ( or even three applications) do the trick (wait for the chlorine to drop low first...a few hours of sunlight should do it). If so just add your dose to the pool every 48 hours with pump off, skim, and fitler for 48 hours then shock with chloirne and test.

Chen geek might have another way to do this.

[chem geek]

I think what waterbear described is a good approach.

[aciam]

Hi guys - so I read Reesie's thread and was excited about her positive results. I started my bucket test at 3pm yesterday 6/21 and decided to follow her protocol. The water tested at FC=4 CC=20 ( I had put in 2 gallons of shock over the day trying to get my FC up but as you can see all it did was raise my CC) prior to adding 1/8 tsp of sodium percarbonate

6/21 : 8 hours later I tested the bucket ( 11pm) FC=0 CC= 6 repeat test 8
6/22: this morning 830 am (17 1/2hours in bucket) FC=0 CC 6
930 pm ( 30 1/2 hours in bucket) FC=0 CC 8

of note: I forgot to rinse the vial after this mornings test and when I arrived home from work the liquid had turned a deep purple
Also, I am finding that the water is only turning a light pink once the second reagent is added ( for the CC) but is very very resistant to being titrated to clear - and upon sitting after the test is done, starts to turn pink again.
Any ideas as to what this means?

Since I feel like I have hit a wall, I decided to add another 1/8 tsp of the percarbonate to my bucket to see if it will oxidize out the CC for I feel like I can't go further with this experiment and add bleach if I can't even get the CC to go away. Was that OK? any other advice? aciam

[chem geek]

Yes, I think it's OK for you to hit with more sodium percarbonate to see if that lowers the CC further. At least going from 20 to 8 was a good positive step and you did the right thing not to add the bleach yet since you were still measuring CC. Your situation may be more extreme than Reesie's. Keep us posted.

[waterbear]

Like I said before, it may take two or three "treatments" with percarbonate before you oxidize all the 'goo' in the water.

[aciam]

Hi guys - so my news is disappointing this morning. My test on the bucket water was FC=0 CC=35 but I have to tell you the titrating is really weird so I'm not sure how accurate the cc is - like I said yesterday the water turns a very light pink upon adding the CC reagent (0003 I think) - ( usually on my pool water it turns very dark pink because the CC is so high) but when I add the titrating reagent the light pink is totally resistant to turning clear. This morning it took 70 drops to get it clear - and once it sat for a minute, turned pink again, and continued to turn darker.

I have no idea what is going on. I decided to test my pool water this morning too - just to make sure I wasn't screwing up the procedure of testing and I got good numbers; FC = 3.5 ( last test was 4 2 days ago with no new bleach) and CC down to 4.5 ( last test was 20 2 days ago)
The water responded appropriately to the titrating agent.

I don't know what to do now. Add more percarbonate to the bucket? Add more bleach to my pool? Start draining???????? aciam

[chem geek]

Mmmm... that's interesting. Maybe the very light pink that persists is some other interference either from some strange CC or from the hydrogen peroxide. Tell you what...why don't you add chlorine to the bucket until you measure a consistent FC level and then we'll see if the CC still has this weirdness. I don't think the CC is actually very high at all -- it's just got some strange test interference.

By the way, at least the CC seems to be dropping in the pool itself. That is consistent with another report where it took about 2 months for the CC to go away. So with the percarbonate approach we're really looking at seeing if it can accelerate the process. Let us know what happens in the bucket after you add the chlorine to it.

[aciam]

Thank you chem geek - I knew it seemed weird. Well, my husband and I decided to drain the pool since it is almost july and we will be lucky to have 8 more weeks of swimming here in massachusetts. we are draining as we speak and have water being delivered tomorrow. I just don't want to wait another month to swim and essentially miss out on the summer. but if I have time, I will add bleach to my bucket just for kicks to see what might happen and report the results to you. I have 6 pounds of the percarbonate that I will have to find some other use for! Maybe I should send it to reesie! Hope she had a good day with her pool!

i will need instruction as to how to start up the new water with chlorine. Can someone give me the cliff note version? or is there a page on the forum that will guide me?

Thanks to all for the help. aciam

[Watermom]

Posters:

Aciam has started a new thread asking for helping getting her new water balanced. So, please do not add it here in this thread. Thanks.

[chem geek]

aciam,

Sorry we couldn't help you out faster, but I understand you're wanting to just drain/refill and enjoy the summer swimming. At least we're getting info to hopefully help the next people who might have a similar problem and hopefully have a better solution for them. If you do finish off the bucket test, just post here with the results as that will be helpful.

Ricahrd