1: Find another pool store--if they can't check chlorine levels up to 50ppm they don't have the right equipment. But they are right--it will come down on its own. That doesn't mean that's the best thing to happen--it may, but we need more info.Originally Posted by slowtan
2: You have a small pool. 4 tabs is FAR too much. It will drive up your stabilizer levels to levels that will make chlorine ineffective. It will lower your pH to levels that will damage your liner.
3: All your strip is telling you is chlorine is higher than 10ppm. That may be good, may be bad--you need the CYA (stabilizer) level. With Ben's kit, or the Taylor or Leslie FAS-DPD test kit, you can measure FREE Chlorine up to 50-100ppm (FC--the good stuff), Combined Chloramines (CC--the bad stuff) and compute Total Chlorine (TC= FC + CC). The BEST CC score is zero.
4: Meanwhile, you want the pool store to test for you:
pH (just like HS chemistry--7.3-7.8 is the best range),
Total Alkalinity (90-125 is the normal range, but if you are below 180, with a vinyl pool, that's "normal" too--if it's low add some Arm & Hammer baking soda--that's all the pool store Total Alkalinity Raiser is).
CYA (stabilizer--best to be 30-50, but it's probably much higher--pull those pucks out).
Calcium (Ca or CH--in a vinyl pool, anything from 0 to 500ppm is FINE--do NOT be talked into adding calcium to a vinyl pool EVER--calcium is for plaster and concrete pools)
5: If you cannot get Ben's kit, try to get the DPD-FAS kit from Taylor or Leslie's (made by Taylor). Leslie's also has a nice kit that does all the other tests, plus the useless "acid demand" and "base demand" tests. I never bother with those.
6: Some WalMart stores may still have the HTH 5-way drop test kit--a super-bargain at $15.
7: Whatever kit you get, be sure you can test chlorine to at least 5ppm--unless you can get the FAS-DPD kit or Ben's kit. If the highest you can go is 5ppm, use my Shotglass method to measure higher--use ONLY distilled water to dilute your pool water: Take one shot of pool water and two shots of distilled water, mix and test in your kit. If it reads "4ppm", you have 12ppm of chlorine. If it reads "5ppm" you have 15 or more ppm. You are tripling the score.
If you only use one shot of distilled water, you double the score. If you use 3 shots of distilled, you quadruple the score (and can measure to 20ppm).
HOWEVER this gets more inaccurate the more you dilute--it simply allows you to go higher than 5ppm
CAVEAT--do NOT use the diluted pool water in any test BUT the chlorine test.
Hope all this helps.
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