Strange test results -- very high combined chlorine (CC)

[PoolDoc]

If you can, take pictures and post them or send them to me. I haven't seen a yellow CC result with DPD-FAS testing.

And yes, I meant, let the pool water + OTO sample stand for 10 minutes before trying to read it.

You can probably resolve some of the DPD-FAS testing confusion by buying a gallon of distilled water from Walmart and mixing 1/2 cup of pool water with 1/2 cup of distilled water, and then testing THAT, for FC, CC, and pH. Multiply the FC & CC results x2; take the pH result as is.

[Themadczar]

I sent the photo in a reply email to the forum notification... Not sure if you will get that. If not,let me know how to send it.

I am seriously considering the in-pool drain/refill. After 3 tsp of bleach into the bucket test, I am still at about 3ppm (immediate... It's dark yellow or borderline orange after 10 min) with the oto test. (Do I move on to the next step now, or add another tsp bleach so that immediate results are orange?) So 60ppm just for step 1 so far.
I tested the water supply today. 0 chlorine (filtered out and no bypass available), no ch, 320 ta, 7.0 ph. So if I refill the pool, a tarp is $65, the water will cost about $50, and I already have dichlor, bleach, & borax. Refilling should eliminate all of the problems I'm having except ta (ammonia, hardness, who knows what else is in the water). If I go this route, would you recommend 100% refill, or would something like 75% be enough?

[Themadczar]

Ok, i didn't have distilled water, but I did it with RO filtered water (0 chlorine and ph of 7.0) and I got 15 fc (7.5 x 2) and 10 cc (5.0 x 2). Ph was below 7 though... How is that possible? Argh!

[Themadczar]

When testing for cc in my bucket test, I got a yellow result last night AND this morning immediately after adding the r-0003 reagent. I suspect this indicates that my cc is off-the-charts high. So I experimented a little this morning... I went ahead and started adding r-0871. Each drop swirled pink before the sample turned yellow again... This happened until about drop 40 when the sample finally stayed pink. I kept adding reagent until i hit drop 80, but the sample was still pink. So, either my bucket test has cc over 40 ppm, or something else is going on here. FC was 6.0 btw.

[Themadczar]

Well, I decided to start the in-pool drain or as I like to call it, the membrane divided refill (mdr for short). I will attach a picture if I can get it to work. I'm using a 30x50 tarp from menards... On sale today for $50! I'm filling with 2 hoses at 8.6 gpm (it's all running through my softener/carbon filter since I have no easy way to bypass it... The softener tells me the flow rate.) I pumped to waste as far down as I could (no bottom drain) and I'm running a small submersible pump in the deepest part of the pool. I believe that with 2hoses, my input rate will exceed my output rate, so I will be adding a syphon later today when I get another hose (we live on the edge of a ravine). Also, I lowered the vacuum head/pole to the bottom of the pool (tied a string around the pole so I can retrieve it easily)... This way, in a pinch, I can start the pump back up with the vacuum hose in the skimmer and pull water from the bottom of the pool. I will keep my progress posted here. Let me know if I'm missing anything. One question... At what point should I add dichlor, bleach, or both to the fresh water? And how much to get things rolling nicely?

And this is a pic of my cc test turning yellow after adding the r-0003 reagent...

[Themadczar]

8 hours in and things are progressing nicely. I have a hose syphoning to the ravine and another pumpin water. With 2fill hoses, I figure that water is still going in faster than it's coming out, but the difference in rates should be pretty small and easy to correct. At about the 1/3 mark, i added 1# of pre-dissolved dichlor. i plan on another at about 2/3, and another at the end. Then I'll test the water completely tomorrow night and adjust everything as needed. With high alkilinity fill water, I'm aerating as I go by letting the hoses splash into the pool... Hopefully this will bring the PH up within acceptable range for restarting the pump/filter. Again, let me know if there is anything else I can be doing.

[PoolDoc]

Get some polyquat as quickly as you can, and add it. You have no circulation in the water on the cover; it will turn green quickly if you don't treat it. www.poolsolutions.com/polyquat.html

Meanwhile add 1/4 - 1/2 gallon doses of bleach each evening. Or, if you have some dichlor, you can use that. Do NOT use trichlor or cal hypo -- either could burn through the tarp, which usually not very chemical resistant.

By the way, I'd be grateful if you can get a series of pictures of the whole process -- many people have a hard time getting a clear idea of what we mean, when we describe this.

[Themadczar]

The process will be complete this afternoon... It was a 24-26 hour process at my flow rate so the pump will go back on this evening. And since I have already added 2# of dichlor [fc of the new water was 14.5 this morning and cc was 0!!! :-)] I think I can skip the polyquat (I'll be all done and the pool circulating & chlorinated before I could even get the polyquat). I have a few pics... How can I get them to you?

[Watermom]

You can either post the pics with flicker, picassa, etc. or email them to poolforum@gmail.com and reference the url of this thread.

[Themadczar]

Huge success! Wish I had done this a month ago! Here's an overview of the MDR process...

What you will need:
Tarp or plastic sheeting at least 15' larger than your pool dimensions in both directions.
Bottom drain and/or submersible pump
Garden hoses
Clean 5 gal bucket
Enough dichlor to get your pool to shock level (and eventually bring cya to desired level)
Poly quat (if your pool will take several days to fill)
Borax (and whatever other chemicals your tesing reveals you will need)
Taylor 2006 test kit (of course)
Something to keep the tarp from your vac ports/drain (I used a large plasic leaf rake... It worked to guard the sidewall vac port I used for part of the time. But you might need something different...)
Heavy objects to weigh down the edges of the tarp

Prep work (this is what I did for my setup... Yours might need to be different. Plan ahead and give yourself multiple options to add water and remove water):
1. First of all, I tested my fill water so I knew how I would need to treat it.
2. I tied a string to my pole and lowered the whole thing with the vac head attached to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool. I tied the other end of the string to the hose right abobe the skimmer so I could pull the pole and vac back up when I was done. I have no bottom drain so this was my backup method of water removal if the pump should fail or I needed to dump water quickly by vacuuming to waste)
3. I placed the submersible pump at the deepeat part of the pool.
4. Also, I put a garden hose in the pool after filling with water from a jet... This would be my syphon hose (we live on a ravine so gravity woul be my friend)
5. For my fill water, I connected hoses to both outside spigots... This doubled the rate of filling. If you have 3, use them all.
6. Finally I positioned the tarp over the pool with my daughter's help.

Process:
This part was pretty easy... After getting the hoses started filling water on top of the tarp and the submersible pump & syphon pulling water from under the tarp, i also pulled water through the side vac port with the pool pump (to waste). I used the pool pump until the water was just above the side port (about 12" below normal) then I shut off the pump. At this point, the fill was just barely faster than the pump and syphon, so it was fine to leave it awhile. As the water level got too high I would use the pool pump to remove water to just above the port again. This is where the rake came in... I placed it upside down under the tarp with the handle on the bottom of the pool and the tines resting on the side just above the port. It was at about a 45 degree angle. This seemed to keep the tarp far enough from the port to prevent it from cutting off the flow to the pump (at least until it was about 2/3 done).
The difference in flow rates was small enough that I could go 6-8 hours between using the pool pump to lower the water level again. this would be much harder if the outflow was faster than inflow... My submersible pump is very small and might be about the same flow rate as the water supply... Syphoning however was not nearly as fast as the supply.
When it was about 1/3 complete I pre-dissolved 1 lb of dichlor in a clean 5 gallon bucket (for my pool it would take 3 lbs of dichlor to get me to 15ppm of chlorine upon completion, so 1 at 1/3, 1 at 2/3, and 1 at completion.). I then poured this around the pool. Also, my fill water has very high alkalinity so I tried to keep the fill hoses elevated so that they aerated the water some as they filled the pool plus this provided some movement of the water since there is no other dcirculation during this process.
Almost all 13000 gallons had been replaced in about 24 hours from starting the hoses. Removing the tarp was a little tricky... My daughter was eager to get in despite the 71 degree water, so she helped from the inside. (it is worthy to note that the heat transfer from the old water to new was higher than expected. I thought I would be starting with 60 or 65 degree water, so 71 was great.) the trick is to get the tarp fully submerged on one end then slowly drag it to to other end of the pool where it is pretty east to remove once you get the hang of it. Once the tarp was out, we jumped in. Water was great (if a little chilly).