high PH+high chlorine

[PoolDoc]

My PH is 7.4(taylor test kit) and the other (cheapy Pentair one builder gave me)says its 8.2(as high as it reads). My FC levels are 10. Pool water looks great. Should I drop in 2 cups of acid and see what happens? What should I do? Is it safe to run a higher PH with high FC levels?

Taylor phenol red is partially stabilized against interference from chlorine -- up to about 15 ppm. I'm guessing that the phenol red in your 'cheapie' kit is not.

But, that doesn't mean that your Taylor reading is accurate, either. Unless you are using an FAS-DPD testkit (no pills, just powder) you do NOT know how high the chlorine is. With test strips, levels between 7 ppm and 30 ppm usually give exactly the same results on the strip!

Ben
"PoolDoc"

[p.p.h.]

Taylor phenol red is partially stabilized against interference from chlorine -- up to about 15 ppm. I'm guessing that the phenol red in your 'cheapie' kit is not.

But, that doesn't mean that your Taylor reading is accurate, either. Unless you are using an FAS-DPD testkit (no pills, just powder) you do NOT know how high the chlorine is. With test strips, levels between 7 ppm and 30 ppm usually give exactly the same results on the strip!

Ben
"PoolDoc"

Thats correct. The cheapy kit wants you to add chlorine neutralizer before adding the "red ph stuff". It says add 2 drops for chlorine levels above 3.0 for the cheapy kit. The Taylor kit you just drop 5 drops and swirl. im thinking my chlorine levels are alot higher than im reading.
So the solution to my problem is to get an accurate reading of chlorine with a kit that can read chlorine up to 20ppm 1st then maybe use the cheapy kit and put in maybe 4 drops of the chlorine neutralizer?? TA=130 CH=300 if that helps

[PoolDoc]

You can't just keep adding the chlorine neutralizer: doing so affects the pH test. Taylor has played around with it, and they tell me that they've stabilized the phenol red as much as they can, without screwing up the pH test.

PoolDoc