Baquacil to Chlorine Conversion - Start to Finish

[mwsmith2]

Posting pix is easy, go to www.tinypic.com and upload your pic there. Post the url back to it here (or in another thread so we don't clutter up this fellow's thread).

Michael

[VOLDADDY]

Posting pix is easy, go to www.tinypic.com and upload your pic there. Post the url back to it here (or in another thread so we don't clutter up this fellow's thread).

Michael

That was it. Thanks, I will post my pictures.

[brungardfdc]

Newbie here....

Okay so this year we're switching our 24' ag from baquacil to chlorine. ( At least that's our goal )

We're in PA and although for us it's very early to have the pool open we've already taken the cover off and have been just letting the pool sit in hopes that maybe the levels will go to "0" from doing just that, sitting. (Crazy thought???)

Currently our testing strips from Baquacil read:

Sanitzer and Algistat is 15 (low)
pH is 6.8 (low)
Total Alkalinity is 80 which according to bottle is O.K.

Should we be even using these testing strips for our readings still? And/or is there another water testing kit we should be purchasing?

And of course the water temp is today 58 degrees, we've had the pool open for a little more then a week. The water is crystal clear and the pool looks absolutely gorgeous. DO YOU THINK WE COULD ACCOMPLISH THAT ALL LAST SEASON WHEN WE WANTED IT???? NOOOOOO.

Last season was our first season with the pool and furthermore we only had about a month of use at the end of the season.

The pool company we purchased from came down gave us a VERY brief 5 minute over view of do this do that, and BAM he was gone. So we're trying to figure out everything on our own pretty much.

We've hated the Baquacil from day 1.

(UNTIL NOW!!!) - the water has never been crystal clear and call me crazy I guess I just like the fact that with chlorine you smell it and it smells and feels clean.

From what I think I've read our first step to switching to chlorine is to start dumping unscented bleach in to get and keep pool at 15ppm. And I will apologize right now, right off the bat. I"M SORRY. Because I KNOW I'm going to be asking many dump questions.

15ppm of what? the sanitizer and algistat level???

What and how should we be keeping the ph level at and with?

And the alkalinity?

And my husband is flipping because he sees these ads for chlorine pumps, chlorinators, blah, blah, blah... does this mean that there's some other type of equipment we need to purchase to be doing chlorine?

Told ya I was going to be asking a lot of dump questions.

I'll stop here for right now because i know I've massively overloaded someone's brain and typing skills somewhere.

Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Tracey

P.S. I must say just love this pool forum since I've found it! I have found a lot of great info on it.

[mwsmith2]

Well, before you go ahead and do anything, you are going to need a good (drops-based) test kit. The one Ben sells here is the best i've found, it will do everything you need and do it well. If you can't wait for the kit, you'll need a Phenol red/OTO test kit.

The 15 ppm that you've heard is 15 ppm of chlorine (Cl). That's what's needed to chew up all that baqua-goop. However, high Cl levels are hard to measure with OTO, so you'll need to either:

a. dilute your sample, then multipy your results by the number of dilutions
b. buy a DPD-FAS Cl test kit, which will allow you to accurately read your Cl levels directly.

I strongly reccomend getting the DPD-FAS kit. It's considerably easier to read than the OTO test.

What i'd reccomend now is starting your own thread (instead of tagging on someone else's) that way we can keep you separate from the rest of the folks.


Michael

[aylad]

brungardfdc,
I'll echo what Michael said--get a good drop-based kit to start your conversion with, and please start a new thread so that you can get the most views and advice.

And no, don't worry about chorinators, generators, and the like for right now....chlorine pools can be (and are by most of the posters here) run with just plain bleach.

Janet

[CarlD]

What Michael and Janet said:

DPD-FAS kits (different from DPD tablets) are mostly a Taylor product. Ben uses the DPD-FAS test for chlorine in his kit. So does the Taylor 2006 kit, and Leslie's sells a DPD-FAS kit under its own brand that's the Taylor kit.

DPD-FAS measures Free Chlorine (FC--the good stuff) and Combined Chloramines(CC-the used up stuff that smells like chlorine)

Total Chlorine (TC) is the sum of FC and CC.

Best is when CC=0.

The pH test from any of these, or even from the little $7 OTO/pH test kits is FINE and will do the job.

Don't rely on test strips--they are inaccurate.

Good luck!