What kind of test equipment are you using?
Janet
Hi,
Hubby opened the pool yesterday (15 x 24 above ground)....water nice, just a bit cloudy. I did see him scrubbing the ring around the liner with the squeeze bottle/scrubber remover..and he also used an algecide.....then he shocked it with liquid chlorine....took a read out and showed "0" level of chlorine....so he put the powder chlorine in and same "0" reading...
I saw in one of the "hint" pages this..
Try to avoid using a bunch of foamy algaecides or foamy tile line cleaners. These can create a chlorine demand in your pool that won't quit. This means you'll add chlorine, and add chlorine, and nothing will seem to happen. This is NOT A GOOD THING. [/SIZE][/SIZE]
How do we adjust so that we can build up the chlorine level...don't remember this happening last year!! )
What kind of test equipment are you using?
Janet
We just use those test strips in the bottle...we have used them for 5 years and never had a problem. (I know some people like the more "professional" testing method, but we are pretty much sticking with the strips).
How much chlorine should we be adding at a time now to build the chlorine level...do we still use the regular 'shock" some say "super shock" envelope packages to dump in or is that too much at a time?
How much chlorine you need to put in to get to the shock level depends on your current CYA, which you haven't posted yet. And I know that you like the strips, but just understand that they've been known to be pretty inaccurate, especially with high chlorine levels.
Depending on the other parameters of your water (pH, alk, CYA, CH), you could use bleach, shock, "super shock", or the chlorine method of your choice. Trichlor and dichlor are going to lower your pH and raise your CYA. Cal-hypo won't affect your pH or CYA but will increase your CH levels. Bleach won't affect anything directly except your Cl levels. Whatever form you use, add enough to get to "shock" level based on your CYA (see Ben's Best Guess Chart as a guideline).
Janet
Janet actually test strips are being proven to be more and more accurate and sometimes actually they are considered more accurate than the drops since there is no level of human error involved. Some health departments are actually allowing strips to be used in commercial applications as well.
gregugadawg, that's a pretty broad statement. I'd like to see the “proof” you are referring to. Health departments also “allow” a lot of other things and make recommendations that are entirely out of date so I wouldn’t be too trustworthy of their allowances . I have and still do buy test strips and must admit they seem to be getting better however, accurate? I think not. Unless you believe a color match for PH between 7.2 & 7.8 is good enough or TA between 40 and 120 is an accurate enough reading or CYA between 50 and 100 will get the job done. Maybe you’ve hit on something, they remove the human error by being extremely vague. Seems to me it would be hard to truly manage your water with such imprecision. Now I know there are new strips with tighter scales but more accurate, I still wonder.Originally Posted by gregugadawg
What Janet is saying about the strips being inaccurate with high chlorine levels is absolutely the truth. They will bleach out and it has happened when people shock their pools, test with strips and believe they need more shock when actually they are outside the range for the strips they are using. This may very well be what karenk is experiencing here. Drop based test kits, good ones, are far less intimidating than they appear (my kids are testing regularly) and their accuracy is unprecedented, especially DPD testing of chlorine. They take slightly more time to do a test but isn’t it worth it? I’d hate to keep adding chlorine to karenk’s vinyl lined pool then keep searching for the chlorine that will probably never show up until the liner starts turning white. Either way, the decision is entirely up to karenk. The one thing I have yet to hear is regret that someone spent the money on a good drop based test kit.
Note:I see the test strip "issue" has already been addressed by Waterbear, a far more chemistry minded one than I, in the Princess and the Algae post. I digress...
Last edited by DavidD; 05-29-2006 at 08:13 PM.
I have two of the best kinds of test strips you can get as a pool owner, and they are fresh this season.
I also have PoolDoc's PS232 and PS233 kits. I have the WalMart HTH 5-way kit, and Leslie's FAS-DPD test kit (made by Taylor) AND Leslie's full test kit for all the other tests (again, made by Taylor).
I can flat-out state categorically, that there is NO WAY these strips compare in accuracy or reliability to the drop kits. These new strips are now good enough to give a reasonable BALL-PARK view of the water--but no more.
This is a huge improvement. Previous strips have ONLY been able to say if I have lots of chlorine, or little to none--no more.
Greg, I have no idea what you are basing your statement on. Certainly it cannot be from day-to-day comparisons, like I have made over the last 7 years.
I have found LOTS of pool stores using and pushing strips for one reason, and one reason only--they are EASY TO USE--apparently. Oh--and they are expensive, too. But that is deceptive. You have to use them and read them VERY carefully. And most importantly, you have to be VERY skeptical of them and know when the SLIGHTEST thing off means you cannot trust it.
I can and do use strips--I'd rather not but with two kids and school, I'm lucky some days to have the 30 seconds for a strip, much less the 2-5 minutes I need for drop-testing--which I ALWAYS prefer.
If you use strips, use them wisely. Be skeptical of them. And do NOT use them instead of drop testing.
Carl
Hi, Carl,
That is a well thought out post. Excellent.
I agree with Carl 150% on all points! The strips are useful for a quick check on your levels to make sure they are in range. Accuracy of the strips are not in question. They are extremely accurate and based on excellent chemistries. The problem with them is the precision (or rather the lack of) and the amount of human error in using them reading them because of the procedure that needs to be followed and the lack of resolution on the scale provided. There is a big difference between accuracy (is the test giving the proper results?) vs. precision (is the scale precise enough that I can determine whether the pH is actually 7.4 or just somehwhere between 7.2 and 7.8?). This is the biggest problem with strips! They aren't as easy to use as most people think. If you look at the instructons on the LaMotte 6 way strips, for example, they tell you to hold the strip HORIZONTALLY in the water, swirl it three times with the pads face up, remove them from the water without shaking off the excess, and give you a time frame of seconds in which to read each test in order starting with CYA which is to be read immediately for accurate results. IMHO, I think this is actually harder for most people to perform correcty than a test with a drop based kit!
Retired pool store and commercial pool maintenance guy.
tested the pool again today and says no chlorine...hmmm.
PH was 7.2, Alk was 180 and CYA was around 85.....
Could lack of chlorine be from simply using the algecide? This is driving me crazy...I want to go in my pool!!!
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