Possible Mustard algae with CYA 80

[JamieP]

How precise are you being with filling up your test tube? I would hold it to eye level and when you fill to the line make sure that the bottom of the curve in the water lines up with the line. You probably already know this but I am really anal with this stuff and I don't know if it makes that big of a difference or not.

Make sure when you add the drops from your reagent that you do it slow so a full drop can form each time. I wait a second between drops.

Also do you have newer chemicals or are they from when you started your pool? I found mine were weak when I started using a new bottle of reagent for my chlorine test and the FC level was probably 20-30% lower with the new bottle.

If you already do all this you can tell me to shove off Oh and I hated college chemistry because I would always accidentally do an extra drop from my pipette. At least with the pool it isn't as big of a deal.

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Oh and one more thing is I always try to measure when there is no more sun out and I know my kids have been out of the pool for at least a hour or two. I think the chlorine can drop after dark battling whatever they put in there. Plus yesterday I had a ton of leaves and grass put into the water by my lawn guys and that was frustrating. My wife measured at 1 and mine had dropped to 15ppm and it was from all that stuff floating around. Thankfully she got it out.

Thanks ummm! I do appreciate your input. Yes, I am very careful about all the test methods you mentioned, but the one point you make that has me thinking is the reagent. When I started this SLAM I had the TFT stuff, but ordered a pint from Amazon because I go through it so quickly and didn't want to worry about running out. That date shows it good through summer of 2017 but it was mailed here through the heat of summer and sat in my mailbox the day it arrived. So it's probably giving me inaccurate readings like happened to you. Come to think of it, I think my beginning to use it coincides with when my SLAM started to get worse.

I wonder what I can do about it while I order some new reagents from TFT and wait for it to come? Does anyone know how to test its potency so I can just adjust my calculations and continue using it for now?

 

[ummgood]

Thanks ummm! I do appreciate your input. Yes, I am very careful about all the test methods you mentioned, but the one point you make that has me thinking is the reagent. When I started this SLAM I had the TFT stuff, but ordered a pint from Amazon because I go through it so quickly and didn't want to worry about running out. That date shows it good through summer of 2017 but it was mailed here through the heat of summer and sat in my mailbox the day it arrived. So it's probably giving me inaccurate readings like happened to you. Come to think of it, I think my beginning to use it coincides with when my SLAM started to get worse. I wonder what I can do about it while I order some new reagents from TFT and wait for it to come?

You might be able to buy a small amount of reagent at Leslies and then compare to your reagent and see if you get similar numbers. If not then order another bottle from TF test kits and use the one from leslies until you get the other bottle. They usually ship pretty fast I have always gotten my stuff within 2 or 3 days.

I would think Leslies would have it because it is part of the refills for the Taylor K-2006 test kit.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Jamie,

Don't use your hand for a smell test. When you immerse your hand in highly chlorinated water water, the chlorine will react with the natural swear and oils in your skin and form CCs. This is perfectly normal. As long as the water and outdoor air smells clean and you're measuring zero CCs, you'll be fine.

 

[JamieP]

You might be able to buy a small amount of reagent at Leslies and then compare to your reagent and see if you get similar numbers. If not then order another bottle from TF test kits and use the one from leslies until you get the other bottle. They usually ship pretty fast I have always gotten my stuff within 2 or 3 days.

I would think Leslies would have it because it is part of the refills for the Taylor K-2006 test kit.

Good idea. I just called and they have it, so my husband is on his way to get some.

I called Taylor Texhnologies to find out if there was a way to make a standard chlorine solution to test the potency of the reagent, but the guy who helped me said there wasn't. He also was quite adamant that the reagent would not degrade through shipping and it would have to noticeably change color before it was unreliable for testing. I mentioned your experience and he chalked it up to user error. Even though I wasn't looking to criticize his product, and was only asking about how to proceed from here, I got the impression he was just being defensive. But with the Leslies reagent I'll be able to compare.

 

[ummgood]

Good idea. I just called and they have it, so my husband is on his way to get some.

I called Taylor Texhnologies to find out if there was a way to make a standard chlorine solution to test the potency of the reagent, but the guy who helped me said there wasn't. He also was quite adamant that the reagent would not degrade through shipping and it would have to noticeably change color before it was unreliable for testing. I mentioned your experience and he chalked it up to user error. Even though I wasn't looking to criticize his product, and was only asking about how to proceed from here, I got the impression he was just being defensive. But with the Leslies reagent I'll be able to compare.

I am super anal and was being very careful with the tests. I ran two tests back to back on the same sample and I would expect maybe 1 or 2 ppm difference between the samples but using my old bottle that I bought last year when my pool was being built I was at 56 drops to get the pink to disappear. With the new bottle it was taking 40. That is way too much of a discrepancy with the same bottle of water. I just figured that the old bottle was old and had weakened over time.

Great idea about the standardized testing. I wonder though it if would be tough because bleach can lose its potency so fast. It would be difficult to know if the bottle you get from the store had been sitting too long.

I know when I went to walmart to buy my stuff some bottles had tons of sediment on them from sitting I think. I always try to buy the bottles with the least amount of dust on them. Oh and another funny thing is I get the bottles from the pool section and if I go to one walmart all their bottles look old with a lot of dust but if I go to the more affluent part of town to get bottles they all look new. I think probably more pools on that side of town.

 

[JamieP]

Jamie,

Don't use your hand for a smell test. When you immerse your hand in highly chlorinated water water, the chlorine will react with the natural swear and oils in your skin and form CCs. This is perfectly normal. As long as the water and outdoor air smells clean and you're measuring zero CCs, you'll be fine.

Thanks Matt. I did measure 5 for CC last night. The smell is so unpleasant to me even on my arm (maybe I'm just sensitive?) that I can't imagine swimming in it. But again, there is no discernible smell around the pool.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks Matt. I did measure 5 for CC last night. The smell is so unpleasant to me even on my arm (maybe I'm just sensitive?) that I can't imagine swimming in it. But again, there is no discernible smell around the pool.

5 or 0.5 ppm for CCs??

5ppm for CCs would be bad!

 

[JamieP]

I am super anal and was being very careful with the tests. I ran two tests back to back on the same sample and I would expect maybe 1 or 2 ppm difference between the samples but using my old bottle that I bought last year when my pool was being built I was at 56 drops to get the pink to disappear. With the new bottle it was taking 40. That is way too much of a discrepancy with the same bottle of water. I just figured that the old bottle was old and had weakened over time.

Don't worry... I'd way sooner trust your testing method and conclusions than this guy's seemingly biased defense of his product. But he's the Taylor guy, so to be fair, I would assume he knows his product.

Great idea about the standardized testing. I wonder though it if would be tough because bleach can lose its potency so fast. It would be difficult to know if the bottle you get from the store had been sitting too long.

This is exactly what the guy said about the standard chlorine solution being impossible. He said I could use my tap water and check with the municipality on what their tested reading is to compare, but now that I'll be getting the Leslies reagent it will be even better to test with that.

I know when I went to walmart to buy my stuff some bottles had tons of sediment on them from sitting I think. I always try to buy the bottles with the least amount of dust on them.

Good idea. I check the dates but dust is a good indicator too.

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5 or 0.5 ppm for CCs??

5ppm for CCs would be bad!

Haha! Oops... Yes, I meant 0.5.

 

[Marlahoutex]

Jamie, just caught up with your thread here. I am now going to go out and check my skimmers!

Do you have a pool light? If so, did you check behind it?
BTW, how's that new baby??

 

[JamieP]

Here are the interesting results of my reagent comparison. I used two Taylor 9198 tubes and the SampleSizer with each, then I visually compared the meniscuses (menisci? ;-) ) and adjusted to make sure they were visibly identical. I used the SpeedStir with each and did one test at a time, using two heaping scoops of powder for each since the Taylor guy confirmed that it's possible too little but not too much (so more is better.)

For reference, my test this morning using the Amazon Taylor reagents in a TFT bottle:
5:20 am FC: 30.0

10 am comparison test-
Amazon Reagents in TFT bottle- FC: 27.5, CC: 0.5 (This shows an expected drop since the 5:20 am test.)
Leslies Taylor bottle- FC: 33, CC: 0.5

I used the same technique for both tests for forming the drops and at the same rate, but the Taylor bottle drops looked smaller which would account for the higher drop count. Since my FC went up with the Leslies reagents, it seems like I have the opposite situation to what ummm experienced.

It would also seem to indicate that by using the lower drop count from the refilled TFT bottle, I have been WAY high on my FC dosing. Would this explain the strong smell on my skin when the water touches it?

In light of all that, does anyone have any advice on where to go from here? I've got my boys out brushing right now.

***

Also, any advice for or against using a cooling fountain during this SLAM? The water is way too hot.

 

[JamieP]

Jamie, just caught up with your thread here. I am now going to go out and check my skimmers!

Do you have a pool light? If so, did you check behind it?
BTW, how's that new baby??

Hi Marla! I've been MIA on most other areas of this site because of having to deal with all the ups and downs of learning our new pool (read: SLAMming!)

Yes, I did remove the lights and scrubbed the niches. The lights are actually still sitting on the coping from 7 days since I didn't want to risk putting them back in too early.

Baby is great! He's chunking up nicely and I can hardly believe what a good sleeper he is... He often sleeps 10+ hours straight at night without waking to nurse. I guess it's so I can get up early to do the OCLT without him interrupting me!

 

[Marlahoutex]

Wow! 10 hours a night! My son and DIL were ecstatic when their baby girl started sleeping for 5 hours a night and she's almost 4 months old. I keep reminding my son that he didn't sleep through the night until he was 2....

Good luck with your SLAM!

 

[pooldv]

Cooling fountain during SLAM is fine except that it will make your PH rise and you can't test it. Do you have records on your PH history?

 

[JamieP]

Another strange development... What happened to my CYA?

7/6- CYA: 80
7/16- CYA: between 70-80 (Decided to order the CYA standard to make sure I was reading it right, but it still hasn't arrived.)
Today, 7/22 CYA: 50

I've been SLAMming using the FC level for a CYA of 80. Based on my post above (#30) I learned that I was overdosing even by that level by comparing my FC test results between using a Taylor reagent bottle and a refilled TFT bottle. Now, it seems I was way overdosing because my CYA is much lower than I thought. We have only swam once this week during the SLAM (besides today) and I'm pretty sure I've only topped off the pool once or twice due to evaporation and it shouldn't have deleted CYA). So... What happened to my CYA?

Research here has some posts where chem geek has mentioned high chlorine consuming it especially at higher temperatures (I'm not sure how much was educated speculation) and that seems to fit with my situation:

Chlorine slowly oxidizes CYA. Usually it's around 2-3 ppm CYA per month in pools and 5 ppm CYA per month in hot spas. Perhaps more exposure to sunlight accelerates its degradation. Scientific papers such as this one and this one describe why CYA, unlike most organic compounds, is resistant to breakdown from hydroxyl radicals. Resistant does not mean completely immune, however. So it is possible that when chlorine breaks down in sunlight to form hydroxyl radicals that it accelerates the breakdown of CYA and the second paper showed that hydrogen peroxide in sunlight (which produces hydroxyl radicals in the water) did break down CYA. However, we don't see this consistently in all pools exposed to sunlight so there may be something else in pools with higher CYA loss rates.

We have seen that chlorine loss rates in sunlight are higher than explained by the unbound chlorine (hypochlorous acid and hypochlorite ion) so as I describe in this post, this breakdown might result in creation of a partially oxidized CYA which would not fully show up in CYA tests and may not bind to chlorine as strongly (not sure about that, however).

Note that the lack of CYA breakdown during the winter months could in part be due to lower temperature so slower chlorine oxidation of CYA and less sunlight. However the change of rate was rather dramatic. The solar insolation for Houston (Dallas wasn't listed, but would be similar) is the following in kWh/m²/day by month.

Jan ... Feb .. Mar ... Apr .. May .. Jun .. Jul ... Aug .. Sep ... Oct .. Nov .. Dec
2.47 . 3.50 . 4.40 . 5.59 . 6.03 . 6.45 . 6.36 . 6.07 . 5.46 . 4.61 . 3.30 . 2.44

Regardless, I guess I will now target a SLAM FC for a CYA of 50 and see how it goes. I can bring it back up to 80 when we are done, (soon, I hope!)

 

[pooldv]

Yes, I have seen a few high FC SLAMs where CYA has dropped. Yes, good plan. I think it might help your OCLT.

 

[JamieP]

Cooling fountain during SLAM is fine except that it will make your PH rise and you can't test it. Do you have records on your PH history?

You make a good point about the PH rise. I ran it today with no noticeable help to the overall pool temp, although it was cooler to swim under when we were in today. I think I might need a second fountain to have more of an effect anyway.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

That would explain the chloramine smell from your hands and arm and why you can't pass an OCLT. If you truly are at a CYA of 50ppm then your FC of 30ppm is a 60% ratio. That's way too much chlorine and the chlorine loss rate (even with no UV) could have been enough to keep you from passing an OCLT. Hypochlorite (OCl-) degrades all on its own into oxygen gas and chloride ion (Cl-).

 

[JamieP]

Yes, I have seen a few high FC SLAMs where CYA has dropped. Yes, good plan. I think it might help your OCLT.

I sure hope so! I'll test tonight and see where we are. My boys just finished brushing a second time. One of the poles fell apart by the glue deteriorating under the fittings. Probably from all the chlorine!

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That would explain the chloramine smell from your hands and arm and why you can't pass an OCLT. If you truly are at a CYA of 50ppm then your FC of 30ppm is a 60% ratio. That's way too much chlorine and the chlorine loss rate (even with no UV) could have been enough to keep you from passing an OCLT. Hypochlorite (OCl-) degrades all on its own into oxygen gas and chloride ion (Cl-).

Thank you Matt. I'm hoping once the FC comes down that we can pass the OCLT. And to imagine we swam today in that chlorine bath before I knew the CYA. Oops!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I sure hope so! I'll test tonight and see where we are. My boys just finished brushing a second time. One of the poles fell apart by the glue deteriorating under the fittings. Probably from all the chlorine!

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Thank you Matt. I'm hoping once the FC comes down that we can pass the OCLT. And to imagine we swam today in that chlorine bath before I knew the CYA. Oops!

The swim probably wasn't harmful at all except to bathing suits. Think of it this way - your kids are now the cleanest they ever have been

FYI - Ariela sleeps 9-10 hours per night ... but only for daddy (when mommy is on overnight call at the hospital) She demands nursing from mommy several times per night when she's home.

 

[JamieP]

The swim probably wasn't harmful at all except to bathing suits. Think of it this way - your kids are now the cleanest they ever have been

Funny! We were saying the same thing at dinner.

FYI - Ariela sleeps 9-10 hours per night ... but only for daddy (when mommy is on overnight call at the hospital) She demands nursing from mommy several times per night when she's home.

That's great! (For you, but not so much for your wife! It's amazing how babies just seem to "know" sometimes.). Btw, did the sleep book help naps at all?