How long does it take???

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soupy8728

soupy8728

0
Sep 19, 2012
66
Temecula, CA
Ok,

I know this is a beat to death subject but I can't really find anything on here that meets all of my criteria for this question. I just bought a house that has an inground pool, plaster, approx 30K gallons with an attached spa, solar heated. It hadn't been drained in over 5 years and the water (I was told by my pool guy...who I have since fired) was chemically saturated. We drained the pool, did an acid wash, repaired a broken light, and replaced a missing drain cover. I refilled the pool and started noticing algae after about a week....this is why I fired the pool guy....he said everything was "good to go". Anyways, here is my question:

How long does it take to get the FC levels to where they need to be?

FC - 0
PH - 7.8
CYA - 50-60
TA - 130
Water temp - 82-86 degrees.
Tested with Taylor test kit.


I have been pouring liquid bleach in the skimmer, added one of those floats with chlorine tablets in it, and I have an inline chlorinator with tablets in it as well. Why is my FC still 0? Thanks.

p.s. The algae is gone now.
 
There are various things that can be consuming chlorine. Algae is the most obvious possibility, but other things you can't see, like ammonia, can also consume chlorine. You need to keep adding chlorine until you can maintain an FC reading overnight. How long that takes is unpredictable, but once achieved, you should be good from then on.

By the by, I'm not sure if you realize or not that you need to be adding chlorine daily in normal operation.
 
Your target FC level is 4 to 9, based on CYA being somewhere around 55.

Until you can maintain an FC level you should SLAM the pool. Your SLAM level is FC around 22. See the instructions on SLAMing the pool in the How To section of Pool School.
 
If your CYA is really in the 50-60 range then you need to avoid adding more stabilized chlorine (pucks, etc,) or else you will be facing another partial drain and replacement of water in the near future. In general we suggest a maximum CYA level of 50 ppm for most sunbelt conditions, 60 is pushing it for manually chlorinated pools.
 
Which Taylor test kit are you using?

I did not see anyone else say that we do not recommend pouring bleach into the skimmer. Just pour it slowly in front of a return jet. If there was nothing in the pool consuming the FC, then it would show up on the test within 30 minutes.

And get all those tablets out of the chlorinator before your CYA is even higher. Read this: How to Chlorinate Your Pool
 
What would be the difference of pouring it into the skimmer vice in front of a jet? Isn't it all the same water? I'll take the pucks out when I get home. Didn't realize that would boost the CYA as well.

- - - Updated - - -

jblizzle said:
Which Taylor test kit are you using?

It's a Leslie Pool kit but all the bottles inside of it say Taylor so I'm guessing it's a K-2006? When I look that kit up online, it looks just like the one I have.
Click to expand...
 
By pouring bleach slowly in front of a return, the chlorine is diluted before it enters your pump. When you pour in the skimmer, highly concentrated chlorine water is going directly to your pump and can damage it. I'm not sure if it's the actual bleach, or the high ph of the bleach that is bad for the components of your pump. :)
 

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It's a pink color matching test. It says to add 5 drops of R-001 and 5 drops of R-002. Everytime I've tested it...it just reads zero. There isn't any algae in the pool since I started adding the bleach. I brush and vacuum it daily and check my levels every night.
 
If you already have a kit that does the pH, TA, CH and CYA, then just add the FAS-DPD chlorine test that Joel linked to above. That is the key to the recommended test kits.
 
Ok...got the new test kit today. Here are my results:

FC - 4
CC - 0
TC - 4
PH - 7.8
TA - 150
CYA - 55
CH - 270
Water temp 79F

I added some muratic acid to bring the PH down to 7.5 and I'm gonna add some bleach to bring the FC up to around 6. I'll do the chlorine loss test tonight. Pool looks very clear and I don't see any signs of algae. I even opened up the filter canister and checked the cartridges and they were clean.
 
Sounds good. Don't use any solid forms of chlorine as you CYA is right at the top of the recommended range.
Remember a FC of 4ppm is your minimum so I might shoot for 7ppm each day.
 

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