Unexplained FC Consumption - SOLVED - although the Mystery Remains

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Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

In my opinion, I really don't think losing 4ppm in a 26.5 hour time period with NO chlorine addition and high & hot sun is excessive. That would seem rather plausible to me.

My final opinion would be this, next week when you're home do a quick SLAM for a day or two and see if you pass an OCLT. If you do (which sounds like you will) then let everything drift down back to normal.

Then just relax, stop chasing your tail and enjoy the pool. If this year you use twice as much bleach as last year but your pool is fine, chalk it up to the quirky pool gods. No sense in ruining your swim season trying to split hairs. I suspect the extra bleach cost isn't really breaking the bank on you here.


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Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

SunnyOptimism said:
In my opinion, I really don't think losing 4ppm in a 26.5 hour time period with NO chlorine addition and high & hot sun is excessive. That would seem rather plausible to me.

My final opinion would be this, next week when you're home do a quick SLAM for a day or two and see if you pass an OCLT. If you do (which sounds like you will) then let everything drift down back to normal.

Then just relax, stop chasing your tail and enjoy the pool. If this year you use twice as much bleach as last year but your pool is fine, chalk it up to the quirky pool gods. No sense in ruining your swim season trying to split hairs. I suspect the extra bleach cost isn't really breaking the bank on you here.


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Click to expand...

I agree!
 
Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

Ok, home for 5 days :)

On Friday, when I left FC = 6.5 at 11:30 AM, figured I would be safe and decided to dose 3 PPM a day till I got back on Sunday.

On Sunday, when I returned at 4:15 PM, FC = 8.5 HOLLY MOLLY - I dosed 6 PPM since I left, that means if I burned NONE I would be at 12.5, I was at 8.5 so that means I burned 2 PPM per day of FC, back to where I was last year.

Oh, and the cover was on the whole weekend...since I failed that experiment, figured I would see what happened.

I decided to shut off stenner Sunday PM and Monday around 5 PM I was at FC = 6.5, so yet another day of 2 PPM burn.

Looks like I am over the hump and getting FC results like last year...what changed WHO KNOWS! Other than I must have had a wacky strain of algae that required a new version of SLAM, which is SLAM until the FC daily is "normal" compared to your CYA.

I will continue to post results for a few days.....
 
Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

Nah, your neighbor finally got bored of peeing in your pool while you were away :p

CONGRATS!!! Glad to hear the good news. Now open yourself a can of your favorite adult beverage, throw on a pair of seriously undersized speedos, hop in your giant pink unicorn floaty tube and give the neighbors something to talk about....you could also consider setting up the boom-box and playing "YMCA" by The Village People on the highest possible volume....
 
Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

aussieta said:
well i'm glad you are now holding FC
but i would love to know what was going on
now i'm looking at you and thinking dementia or schizophrenia
just kidding, but don't do it again next year
Click to expand...

Honestly, I am kind of ****** that for no reason it is magically fixed.

In all reality, I MUST have had some weird strain of algae that did not respond to normal SLAM techniques, or somehow something kept getting introduced back into the water, but I doubt it was the latter as environmentally nothing changed.
 
Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

I don't think it was algae but perhaps some sort of chemical that was rather slow to oxidize. If it were algae, then the SLAM would have killed it off fairly quickly. However, slow-to-oxidize chemicals will persist until they are gone one way or another either from getting oxidized, filtered (and cleaned or backwashed), or diluted. Now how you got something like that into your pool is an open question.
 
Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

chem geek said:
I don't think it was algae but perhaps some sort of chemical that was rather slow to oxidize. If it were algae, then the SLAM would have killed it off fairly quickly. However, slow-to-oxidize chemicals will persist until they are gone one way or another either from getting oxidized, filtered (and cleaned or backwashed), or diluted. Now how you got something like that into your pool is an open question.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all your help along the way, I agree I DOUBT it was algae, although remember at times of FC close to SLAM levels I still had a SLIGHT bit of Algae - my FC NEVER dropped below the HIGEST normal levels....how algae grows in that is what baffles me.

I have to agree it was some wacky chemical...I still will research all my notes and see if I can find something now that makes sense.

- - - Updated - - -

Todays results:

24 hours later I burned exactly 2 PPM of FC.

Yesterday evening started around 7 PPM (oh and I passed OCLT again just for fun, but not at SLAM levels of course) and now I am at 5 PPM of FC
 
Re: Unexplained FC Consumption (updated title)

You can have algae in areas of poor circulation, but if you expose algae to shock levels of chlorine, the chlorophyll in the algae gets bleached out which is why green swamps turn cloudy white. There are some algae such as yellow/mustard varieties that are more resistant to chlorine, but only by a factor or two and they can still be killed.
 
I am still somewhat baffled...meaning it cooled off and little or no sun and I burned about 1 PPM of FC today with the cover on - which is great.

However, as I was vacuuming the pool I saw a few "green" spots on the mouth of the skimmer, this is at FC = 7 in a CYA of 40. How can this be, how can this algae still be alive and kicking or how can this bizarre chemical I have in my pool still be causing wacky issues. OR is a little bit of algae here and there totally normal, and as long as I brush and it goes away all is fine ?
 

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The only times I even have any signs of algae is if husband gets lazy about brushing. Brushing includes behind and under ladder, all side, all bottom, around return, around and inside skimmer. That is his only job. I do everything else. It only has to be done every 2 or 3 days. He does the bottom one day and the sides another. The sides include return and skimmer.

Kim
 
So, I'm left wondering what sorts of chemicals chemgeek may have been considering. In my case, it could likely be fertilizer or herbicide. Chances are also small it could be a fungicide or an insecticide. In any case it would have come from residue left in hoses. There was never a large quantity of anything but well water and chlorine added to my pool. Are there any known chemicals that cause issues like toofast and I have been experiencing?
 
First, circulation of water goes to zero at surfaces so unless you've got a return pointed directly at a surface then algae can grow on the surface especially if it's not smooth. It doesn't happen all the time because the algae would have to get to that surface surviving the trip from the air into the bulk water and getting to the surface. Weekly brushing ensures that anything that made its way to a surface can't stay there and that chlorine will get circulated to it and that it will get physically brushed away into the bulk water.

As for the cause of the high chlorine demand, I wrote a response to the other thread about this here, but regarding chemicals I can't really speculate intelligently about them. We've had people spill all kinds of products into pools but more likely it's some chlorine-consuming source that still exists in your pool that you have not yet found.
 

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