need help with reading FC test

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brisketbabe

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Jun 1, 2011
20
Trenton, TX
Started baquacil to chlorine conversion last night, added 3 gallons of bleach initially, then another 1 1/2 gallons after 1 hour, then another after one more hour. No colors, since we hadn't added any chemicals since the fall. Right now, water just looks cloudy, kind of milky. When I do the chlorine test, do you add a drop, swirl, and count the result right then? It got clear but then went back to pink when I stopped swirling after 5 drops last night, and after 2 drops this morning. Do I keep adding drops until it stays clear after you stop swirling? Or, do I count them as soon as the water clears while I'm swirling it?

I have a 15' round, 4' deep above ground pool, calculator says 5300 gallons for that size. Thanks!
 
pool is still cloudy

This is day 6 of our conversion, and our pool is still cloudy. We started Monday night, have added lots of bleach. The FC gets up to 17 at night, then in the morning is down to 11 or 12 the last two mornings. Initially, our ph was fine and now it reads 6.5. Could the bleach be lowering our ph? We have very soft water with a normally high ph which needs the muriatic acid to keep it down. When we took the cover off, we got a lot of leaves and dirt into the pool. After daily vacuuming, it's now clean, but still cloudy. I just tested:

FC 1
CC 2
PH 6.5
CL .5 This is from the tester in the blue box.

What do I need to do? 15' round above ground. Our water ph is just normally so high I hesitate to add anything to raise it.

Thanks,
brisketbabe
Trenton, TX
 
Do you have a test result for TA?

It is unusual for the PH to go down that much, normally it drifts up a little. The PH and TA should be adjusted to be back in range, PH between 7.2 and 7.4, and TA between 60 and 150, before continuing.

One of the most interesting numbers at this stage is how much chlorine you are losing overnight. That will give you a good idea of where you are in the process.
 
We added 1 1/2 gallons of bleach last night, water is clean but still cloudy. Here's this morning's numbers:

ph 6.5
ta 240 This from a test strip
fc 6 Last night was 17
cc 2 same as last night

calcium is 0, we have very soft water and haven't added any calcium

Should we add borax to get the ph up? Just seems weird, it's always been high and we haven't added any
muriatic acid since we uncovered the pool When we uncovered, ph and ta were both in the okay range on
the test strip. Now, ph is low and ta is way high. Haven't added any bleach yet today, wanted to check
with you first to see what I should do.

Thanks!
 
Well, I wondered about the test strips being old, or something, but last night when I used the blue box kit with the ph side to test, it showed 6.5, same as the test strip, so I figured they were okay, but I'll retest the TA at lunchtime with the testing kit liquid.
 
Didn't make it home at lunch, but here's numbers from 7:30 p.m.:

PH 7
CL 5 These two from blue box kit

FC 3
CC 2

TA 240 From test kit, not a test strip

Pool calculator has me confused on what to do next. We bought some borax, but it says it will raise the TA. What do we need to do?

Thanks,
Frustrated Brisketbabe in Texas PS Could the 99 degree daily heat be affecting anything?
 
PH at 7.0 is alright, especially with TA that high. I'd leave it alone until later. That is still a little lower than I would expect PH to be, but not a problem.

The heat means chlorine gets used up more quickly, but won't make a big difference.

At this point it is probably most efficient to only raise FC to 15 in the evenings. Raising FC during the day will get the conversion done more quickly, but it will also require more total chlorine, since you will be losing much more of your chlorine to sunlight.
 

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Welll, we're day 10 into conversion, we put our fountain in to help with the ph and TA. Added bleach last night, here's this mornings numbers:

ph 7.6
TA 220
FC 12
CC 2

Looks like we're still using 3-4 ppm of chlorine during the night. The rest is going during the day; just checked, right now FC is 1. Since the ph has come back up, should we add the muriatic acid to try to get the TA down? Pool is clean and clear on top, but is cloudy enough we can't see the bottom. When can we get in? Seems like this is taking longer than expected.
 
Don't worry about your TA until you are finished shocking. You still have >0.5 CC and heavy FC use overnight. Keep shocking. Once your CC is <0.5 and you aren't losing any more than 1 ppm FC overnight, then we can talk about TA. :goodjob:
 
This is day 15 of the conversion. Here's today's numbers:

ph 7.2
CL 5-10
TA 130
FC 11
CC .5

Pool is still a little cloudy. We did add the muriatic acid the last three nights along with enough bleach to bring FC up to 15, plus our fountain is in. TA and ph have been about the same the last two days in the morning. Is the TA still the reason for the cloudiness? Is it tiime to add the CYA so we don't lose all the chlorine during the day? Temp is about 98 every day.

Thanks
 
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