Re: Getting the hang of BBB
Originally Posted by
Fiveattripp
Well....I know this is a process:/ I guess you would say that I am opening after the winter...we did not put a cover over or officially close over the winter, but didn't add anything over the winter. The water was clear and we kept all of the leaves etc. out. It looked pretty good until I started adding chlorine.
Yesterday early am the FC was 2.5 and the CC was 2.5. I added the 6 gallons of 8.25% bleach and retested about 5 hours later. The FC was 7 and the CC was 1.5. At 7:30 PM the FC was 5 and the CC was 3.5 and PH was at 7 (I know that the shock affects PH so I left it alone for now) though the water looked AWFUL. It is brown looking in the deep end. Is that Metal? I know since I have been adding chlorine trying to get it higher the main drain has been gradually staining as well as the steps. Back to chemistry...This morning I tested and the FC was at 7 (first It turned clear at 5 drops but turned back to slight pink so I added 2 more drops until it stayed clear. Do you make sure it stays clear before proceeding?) The CC was 4 (another question about the cc step. When I am using the 10 ml sample how many drops of R0003 do you add. It seems like 5 would be too many with a 10 ml sample, but it doesn't say different) I will test again tonight and see how things look. Any clarity on the testing procedure would be greatly appreciated.
I guess I won't add anything today and see where it is tonight. Then add Chlorine and recheck in the AM to see if it lost any over night. What makes it not have or loose the FC that does the work? I do not see any signs of algae. The water is still very cold too. How should I address the metal...Get the metal out and put it in the water? The PH is low enough to add it, but it will come back when I add chlorine. REALLY FRUSTRATED.
Do you own a Speedstir? It makes doing the tests A LOT easier.
Adding one scoop or two doesn't matter. The point of adding the powder is to add enough of it so that the solution is saturated with the indicator dye (DPD) so it can react with all of the free chlorine in the water. Adding too little powder is way worse than adding too much. At normal FC levels, one scoop is often sufficient. At shock levels, typically two scoops is absolutely necessary to ensure full reaction with all the chlorine.
As for the color changing back to pink from clear, that typically happens when you add drops too slowly. Your reagent drop rate should be about 1 drop per second and you should count drops to the point where the solution goes clear the first time. If it goes back slightly pink after you stop adding drops, you don't count that. Then you add the R-0003 reagent to measure the CC's. For measuring CC's you use 5 drops of the FAS solution no matter if its a 10mL or 25mL sample. This should all be done in fairly short order. This is why I own a SpeedStir, it helps out immensely.
As for brown stains and metals, it depends. What is your fill water, well or municipal? Do you have high iron content where you are? Shock levels of chlorine can cause iron to form brown ferric chloride which stains. But you have to kill the algae so getting metal stains out is secondary in importance. Getting your water clean is much more important at this point.
Losing FC is caused by killing algae, oxidizing organic compounds (from all the dead algae), oxidizing gunk in your filter and, too a lesser extent when CYA is present, sunlight. This is why you do the overnight loss test with all pumps running and no salt water chlorine generator running. Since your CC's are still high I would say that your water is full of organics which the chlorine is oxidizing. That is the slowest part of the shock process, ie, chlorine reacting with organics. So, if you think you're done with the dead algae, vacuum and clean the pool as much as possible and then consider giving your filter a good clean in order to wash out all the gunk that may be in there. The cleaner you can make the pool and pool equipment, the faster the process will be.
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