Fiberglass poll algae and alkalinity ???

[karenib]

Thanks everyone. I will be switching to liquid bleach.. I am going to Sam's club tomorrow and will see what deal they have there. Is there a difference between the chlorine in "clorox" and the chlorine they have at the pool store?

What test kit would you recommend and where is the best place to buy?

and finally, with CYA level so high, what should I keep my chlorine level at until CYA drops (I am hoping with all the rain in Aug that it will flush some out.)

once again thank for the advice

[CarlD]

OK,
With bleach, you look for the % on the label. Regular bleach is 5.25%, ultra is 6%. But now there are some "economy" types that are 3%--ultimately they cost more for the actual bleach than 6%.

Chlorox now has a added whitening agent which may or may not be good for pools--the jury's still out. In the meantime, generic bleach is better.

There are 3 test kits that will serve your purposes. All are basically the same and it doesn't matter really which you get. All use a chlorine test called FAS-DPD, which is NOT the same as the chlorine test called DPD.

1) Taylor brand K-2006 or K-2006C from Taylortechnologies.com
Taylor makes the chems that most of the better kits use. The C has more of each chem, but costs more.

2) Leslie's Pools Online (not their retail stores)--their FAS-DPD Chlorine Service Test Kit. Leslies test kits are ALL re-branded Taylor kits.

3) Troublefreepools.com. I don't know a lot about these kits other than they are similar in concept to the kits that used to be sold at our sister site Poolsolutions.com--the PS-234 (no longer available) What I do know about TFP kits is they use FAS-DPD for chlorine testing and have a complete suite of tests as the others do.

In a pinch, your local Wal-Mart may have an HTH 5-way Pool Test Kit that uses drop-testing, not strips. This will only measure chlorine via the OTO test to 5ppm, but diluting pool water with distilled water can extend the range. It's a lot cheaper but much more limited. Still, it's a bargain at $12 to $15 and far better than most of the other kits out there--and better than strips.

Search our site for the "Best Guess Table" -- it's stickied. It will show you the FULL range of CYA to FC levels. For a CYA of 100ppm, FC should normally be no lower than 8 and no higher than 15ppm. To shock, raise FC to 25ppm.

Dilution (such as rain) will help lower your CYA, but if you replace 25% of your water, you CYA will STILL be 75ppm.

[waterbear]

There are 3 test kits that will serve your purposes. All are basically the same and it doesn't matter really which you get. All use a chlorine test called FAS-DPD, which is NOT the same as the chlorine test called DPD.

1) Taylor brand K-2006 or K-2006C from Taylortechnologies.com
Taylor makes the chems that most of the better kits use. The C has more of each chem, but costs more.

2) Leslie's Pools Online (not their retail stores)--their FAS-DPD Chlorine Service Test Kit. Leslies test kits are ALL re-branded Taylor kits.

3) Troublefreepools.com. I don't know a lot about these kits other than they are similar in concept to the kits that used to be sold at our sister site Poolsolutions.com--the PS-234 (no longer available) What I do know about TFP kits is they use FAS-DPD for chlorine testing and have a complete suite of tests as the others do.

The Troublefree Pools test kit uses all Taylor reagents, does not include the acid and base demand tests of the Taylor K-2006 but does include a Taylor K-1000 OTO/pH tester for daily checks of pH and chlorine. It also includes more CYA reagent then the Taylor kit. It basically includes all the tests that were included in the PS-234 but the reagents are all Taylor reagents (I believe that some of the reagents in the PS-234 did not come from Taylor, but from another source.)