Quote Originally Posted by FormerBromineUser View Post
The kit MAY be good still. CarlD came up with this way to test the strength of his bleach. If you know your bleach is fresh (check the code on the bottle. Code will read something like 15173. That would be the 173rd day of 2015), You could try a sort of reverse of his test. I quote, "So, if you
I found a number printed on the side saying "14 302 19:10 A4 K1", which I guess means it was from last October (in the early evening).

pour 1.88ml of bleach/liquid shock/liquid chlorine into 5 gallons of fresh water, you should get the same FC reading as if you dump 1 gallon into 10,000 gallons of water." You could give that a try. Hope that makes sense.
Wow, 5 gallons, eh? Can those figures be scaled? Does this mean if I got an eye dropper and added 0.5mL of bleach to 1.33 gallons of fresh water, that I could perform the same test?
Also, what counts as "fresh water"? My water comes from a well and through a softener.
What about the reagents for pH and alkalinity? How viable do you think they are? My pool was tested at 7.8pH and moderate alkalinity.

Secondly, your FC/CC test is very different than a FAS-DPD. The FAS-DPD can test up to 50ppm FC. Yours only goes to 5ppm.

A CYA test is critical to pool management. You must know the CYA level of your water in order to determine the amount of FC necessary to keep your pool sanitary and algae-free. See: http://poolsolutions.com/gd/best-gue...ine-chart.html

Another option is to go get a cheap OTO kit (not refills, you need the kit with the comparator tube). Then you will be able to test FC/CC with fresh reagents although still only to 5ppm. You can use this to at least help go a bit higher: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-t...rev%252001.jpg

Finally, I would strongly encourage you to save up for the K-2006C.
Thing about that is, last summer my pool was highly algae-free, so since I'm trying to save money, I'm going w/the if-it-ain't-broke philosophy. Unless there's a way to make the K-2006C last several years, it'll have to wait.