I've had a couple of bouts of water getting a little cloudy. Thanks to TFP, I know how to fix it. I think this time I read something that will help me...I think this from "Shock your pool" might be a good clue to me "Many people also like to shock the pool when the FC level falls significantly". If I'd done that a couple of weeks ago when FC dropped suddenly, I probably wouldn't have had my recent problem.

Anyhow, I track my history in Excel and what I've noticed over some incidents last year and this year is that my CC has never gotten above 0.5 when I've had a problem. If I'm currently having a problem with something consuming FC, wouldn't that mean that my CC should be going up? Just wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if that can be normal.

Here's what I "think" the answer to your question is, or at least what I've found to be true in my case. CC doesn't necessarily go up, higher or through the roof like maybe you'd expect if you have a "growing" algae issue. It can go up when you start to "kill" the algae though--think decomposing little dead algae bodies. Mine rises on rare occassion with a heavy swimmer load with all the usual stuff implied with that, i.e. sweat, urine, dead skin cells suntan oils and such...........even dirt with microorganisms in it. I had one heckuva time convincing myself this summer that I had a mustard algae issue this summer because CC never went above .5 I was convinced it was blown in red clay dust due to a total lack of rain or sand/dirt coming back in from the filter.

CCs only happen when the chlorine combines with certain elements. CC levels are not a good indicator of algae. The best test for algae is the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test.

pool-school/overnight_fc_test