Thanks to a lot of reading here and some excellent advice from some very knowledgeable and friendly folks here, I have taken the plunge and ordered a Taylors K-2006C kit - hopefully it will be here mid to late next week.
As an interim measure I have tested using a new pack of AquaChek Salt strips, and 4-in-1 strips. I know they are nowhere near the accuracy I can expect from the Taylors, but its more about testing my understanding of the process and I want to validate that my thinking is right!!
Results are:
FC: 0
pH: 6.8
TA: 40
CH: - Not tested -
CYA: 0
Salt: 3400
Note, those numbers definitely won't be accurate as the test strips are purely colour matching and I may have picked the wrong square due to my feeble eyesight
So my thinking (with some help from the PoolMath page and the wisdom on this site) is:
#1 priority is fix the CYA - planning to add 2kg of Stabiliser. Probably needs more, but I want to go slowly and don't want to go too high. Aiming for 70-80 here.
#2 priority is fix FC - planning to add 1 litre of liquid chlorine I just happen to have. Aiming for 4-6 here?
#3 priority is add some salt to get up around 4200 (I'm in Australia and my SWG recommends 4000)
I'm going to leave pH and TA until the CYA is better as I know CYA will mess with pH. Please feel free to tell me if this isn't a good idea - you guys know *way* more about this than I do.
Then when my Taylors kit arrives next week it will hopefully give me much more accurate numbers than the "guideline" approach of the coloured strips.
I'm still not really clear on which additions I can make at the same time and which ones I need to spread out and allow time in between so I need to research that, but I reckon that doing the 3 changes above will improve things for when I can test properly with the Taylors kit.
Any comments / advice / criticisms on my thinking is most welcome !
Sal
As an interim measure I have tested using a new pack of AquaChek Salt strips, and 4-in-1 strips. I know they are nowhere near the accuracy I can expect from the Taylors, but its more about testing my understanding of the process and I want to validate that my thinking is right!!
Results are:
FC: 0
pH: 6.8
TA: 40
CH: - Not tested -
CYA: 0
Salt: 3400
Note, those numbers definitely won't be accurate as the test strips are purely colour matching and I may have picked the wrong square due to my feeble eyesight
So my thinking (with some help from the PoolMath page and the wisdom on this site) is:
#1 priority is fix the CYA - planning to add 2kg of Stabiliser. Probably needs more, but I want to go slowly and don't want to go too high. Aiming for 70-80 here.
#2 priority is fix FC - planning to add 1 litre of liquid chlorine I just happen to have. Aiming for 4-6 here?
#3 priority is add some salt to get up around 4200 (I'm in Australia and my SWG recommends 4000)
I'm going to leave pH and TA until the CYA is better as I know CYA will mess with pH. Please feel free to tell me if this isn't a good idea - you guys know *way* more about this than I do.
Then when my Taylors kit arrives next week it will hopefully give me much more accurate numbers than the "guideline" approach of the coloured strips.
I'm still not really clear on which additions I can make at the same time and which ones I need to spread out and allow time in between so I need to research that, but I reckon that doing the 3 changes above will improve things for when I can test properly with the Taylors kit.
Any comments / advice / criticisms on my thinking is most welcome !
Sal