Clear, but no chlorine???

[mary jo]

OK- I will do that.
I want to turn the heater back up- I usually keep the water temp at 84-86 for swimmers. Will I have to compensate for that by adding more CL?

[Watermom]

No. Shouldn't make any difference.

[CarlD]

Yeah, colder water doesn't start to inhibit algae growth till it gets down to about 60 degrees F. Heat CAN break down chlorine, but that's got to be hot tub temps first.

[FormerBromineUser]

.
Hope your party went perfectly except for the cool weather. Bummer!

I just re-read about the Tuesday pool party - perhaps you should wait until after the party to shock.

Just a thought here. If you decide to take your pool to shock level and follow the overnight test procedure, you may want to do one more thing.

If you have underwater lights (which I think you may), and haven't yet cleaned them, consider doing this:

While FC is high, unscrew and release the lights. The screws SHOULD be only lightly hand-tightened for ease of removal. Scrub the cords, screws, in the niche itself, everything. Leave the lights off for a while and let the high-chlorine water really get into the light niche(s). While you're doing this, you can soak the light housing(s) above the pool in a bucket of chlorine-saturated pool water.

Water sits behind those lights with very little circulation and can harbor all sorts of nasty stuff that can contribute to chlorine demand. Cleaning behind lights is one of those occasional maintenance items that often doesn't get done or done often enough. Shock levels are the perfect time to do this.

[mary jo]

Timing is everything…I ended up in the ER with my mom all day Tuesday, so the pool party was moved to Wednesday- which ended up being a much warmer day. In the end, all went well. FC level went from 13 to 8 over the evening, so no worries about un-sanitized water.

Today, however I ran out of the FAS-DPD chlorine testing liquid. I called all pool stores in the area and they, too are out of stock. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime- a big bottle will be delivered on Monday. I do have the another Taylor chlorine testing kit (K-1004), and I can dilute the pool water with distilled to get a reading up to 5 and multiply from that point, but not sure I should do this when shocking all the way to 30 due to accuracy. Should I wait and continue maintaining a FC level of 15 until my supply comes in and shock to 30 on Monday night?

Cleaning the lights sounds daunting to me! Once again the pool installers told me I wouldn't have to worry about cleaning/changing lights for years. But I will check into it. Thanks

[FormerBromineUser]

Let's see if an expert chimes in here about accuracy and stuff.
If they think it's necessary for you to start right away with the more accurate testing, I have an extra 2oz of R-0871 that you could use and refill for me when you get your big bottle Just a thought. I tried to send you an email (I don't have yahoo im) with my contact info.

[BigDave]

... FC level went from 13 to 8 over the evening ...

During the party?


I hope your mom's OK.

Are using the 25ml sample for FAS-DPD testing? You can save alot of reagent by using a 10ml sample and multiplying drop count by 0.5ppm. If one scoop turns the sample pink, you don't need two.

Not that I'm an expert, but... You can use the patented CarlD shot glass dilution metod of chlorine testing to get a start this weekend. Mix 5 shot glasses of distilled water with one shot glass of pool water then test the mix for chlorine and multiply by 6. Not accurate enough to know when your done but good enough to start the shock process.

[mary jo]

Thanks, BigDave. My Mom lives with us so I'm keeping an eye on her and the pool now.

At 3:00 yesterday the FC=15. At 10:00 the FC=8 (using the FAS test). It lost about 3/4-1" of water - lots of splashing...

Considering this is the last weekend before school starts, I wanted to hold off on shocking the pool to 30 so the kids can swim more. Do you think my pool will be OK if I maintain 15FC level over the weekend?

[BigDave]

Sure, it's your pool and family. Realize that if there is something growing you may be spending all this bleach without making any headway. Since there's no smell or visible algae and we really don't know the cause of the chlorine demand, keep FC above 8ppm, preferably 15ppm. It is probably beter to clear ir up before you close.

[mary jo]

Yup- I hear you. I want this solved even if it means investigating the lights. I will define keep FC level up to 15 and shock to 30 on Sunday evening, keep it at 30 for at least 24 hours and go from there.

We don't close our pool until late September so I have about 6 weeks to clear things up.