First post! A few testing questions...

[Henrys514]

Hi everyone! I have the Aqua Chem drops test kit. I know I should be testing my water for pH and Chlorine everyday, but what about the other parameters (TA, Calcium, CYA)? Once per week, or after a lot of rain?

Also, the instructions on the kit say that the color of the chlorine test after 10 seconds is Free Chlorine, and the color after 2 minutes is TC. Is that total BS?

I'm not sure if this is the right place for a CYA question, but I'll ask it anyway. We have a 12,000 gallon IG exposed(no pool enclosure=lots of junk in the pool) concrete pool. We live in Central FL, so it's pretty hot in the summer and gets sun all day. What's a good CYA level for us to have? I'm thinking maybe 60ppm? That would be a minimum level of 5ppm FC, right? What's a "safe" chlorine level to swim in (ie, what won't discolor clothes, etc?)

Looking forward to learning a lot here!

[waterbear]

Hi everyone! I have the Aqua Chem drops test kit. I know I should be testing my water for pH and Chlorine everyday, but what about the other parameters (TA, Calcium, CYA)? Once per week, or after a lot of rain?
Monitor CL and pH every few days (ideally daily, but most people including myself don't do that!)

Also, the instructions on the kit say that the color of the chlorine test after 10 seconds is Free Chlorine, and the color after 2 minutes is TC. Is that total BS?
Pretty much. The OTO test will only accurately test TC! If you want to test FC you need to use a DPD or FAS-DPD test.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for a CYA question, but I'll ask it anyway. We have a 12,000 gallon IG exposed(no pool enclosure=lots of junk in the pool) concrete pool. We live in Central FL, so it's pretty hot in the summer and gets sun all day. What's a good CYA level for us to have? I'm thinking maybe 60ppm? That would be a minimum level of 5ppm FC, right? What's a "safe" chlorine level to swim in (ie, what won't discolor clothes, etc?)
30 to 50 ppm should be fine and keep you CL at 3-6 ppm. "Safe" levels really depend on your CYA. If the CYA is high then more of the chlorine combines with it and is not as active so you need more in the water to have enough active reserve.
Looking forward to learning a lot here!

Hope this is helpful!

[Henrys514]

It was helpful, thank you! Couple more questions...

Is the evening the best time for testing and adding chemicals?

If I'm only testing TC, I guess it's hard to know when I need to shock the pool since I won't know the CC value? Pool store tests for FC only, but their test only goes up to 5ppm, and they never dilute...they just report 5 . I might have to get me one of the DPD or FAS-DPD tests.

That's what I thought about the CYA/Chlorine interaction...if you have a higher CYA, you can get away with a higher Chlorine because you need it.

[waterbear]

best time for testing is when you can do it at pretty much the same time each time.
Ditto for adding chems.
Evening is good but you really need to do the tests under natural light but not direct sun.