Hi,
First-time poster, 6-month reader. Last fall I purchased a used home in the Palm Springs desert area of CA, and knew NOTHING about caring for the pool. Many, many thanks to all here for making me into a pseudo-pool boy. I don't yet know enough to consider myself even competent in pool care, but it's coming slowly through experience and reading the many great posts here.
Anyway, after recently shocking, brushing, and rubbing with trichlor puck to get rid of the start of black algae on the concrete between stone tiles at waterline, I decided to monitor the FC level, perform the overnight FC test, and monitor how long it took for FC to drop.
This area has extreme UV levels and temperature May-Sept.
After shocking (2nd time in 2 days, first time being to peak of ~30 ppm FC):
TF test kit results:
7:30 PM:
FC: 21.5
CC: 0
pH: 7.6
TA: 70
CYA: ~45
CH: not performed
7:00 AM next morning:
FC: 22.5 (went up -- assume due to local currents in pool)
12:30 PM:
FC 14.5
7:00 PM
FC 10.5
12:00 Noon next day:
FC 9.0
As you can see, the FC loss was on the order of 50% the first day, slowing to what looks to be 5-10% loss the second day (I'll test again tonight - but it'll be off since we're swimming today).
For those of you who live in hot, dry, sunny climates, what CYA level works best for you?
I have seen ranges of 40-70 suggested. I am considering slowly bringing my CYA up to 65/70 over the next month with triclor pucks. As a side note, the trichlor pucks in a floater (and this may be my imagination) seemed to do a good job of keeping the black algae off the waterline concrete between the stones.
I assume this b/c until I went to straight clorox I had been using Trichlor floater as well to bring my CYA up, and no significant black algae problems. My "hypothesis" is that the floater bumps along the wall providing localized increased FC that keeps the black algae at bay, as it really seems to prefer the concrete vs the pebble-tec.
First-time poster, 6-month reader. Last fall I purchased a used home in the Palm Springs desert area of CA, and knew NOTHING about caring for the pool. Many, many thanks to all here for making me into a pseudo-pool boy. I don't yet know enough to consider myself even competent in pool care, but it's coming slowly through experience and reading the many great posts here.
Anyway, after recently shocking, brushing, and rubbing with trichlor puck to get rid of the start of black algae on the concrete between stone tiles at waterline, I decided to monitor the FC level, perform the overnight FC test, and monitor how long it took for FC to drop.
This area has extreme UV levels and temperature May-Sept.
After shocking (2nd time in 2 days, first time being to peak of ~30 ppm FC):
TF test kit results:
7:30 PM:
FC: 21.5
CC: 0
pH: 7.6
TA: 70
CYA: ~45
CH: not performed
7:00 AM next morning:
FC: 22.5 (went up -- assume due to local currents in pool)
12:30 PM:
FC 14.5
7:00 PM
FC 10.5
12:00 Noon next day:
FC 9.0
As you can see, the FC loss was on the order of 50% the first day, slowing to what looks to be 5-10% loss the second day (I'll test again tonight - but it'll be off since we're swimming today).
For those of you who live in hot, dry, sunny climates, what CYA level works best for you?
I have seen ranges of 40-70 suggested. I am considering slowly bringing my CYA up to 65/70 over the next month with triclor pucks. As a side note, the trichlor pucks in a floater (and this may be my imagination) seemed to do a good job of keeping the black algae off the waterline concrete between the stones.
I assume this b/c until I went to straight clorox I had been using Trichlor floater as well to bring my CYA up, and no significant black algae problems. My "hypothesis" is that the floater bumps along the wall providing localized increased FC that keeps the black algae at bay, as it really seems to prefer the concrete vs the pebble-tec.