Hello all! I've been reading through the forum quite a bit, but it's about time that I post some results and get a little bit of direction. This is our second summer with a pool that was built by our home's previous owner. We're still rather new to this, and just trying to get a handle on it all.
Our in ground pool is kidney shaped, about 15k gallons, and sits in direct Texas sunlight with just the shallow end shaded by a large Oak tree. We have another VERY large Live Oak tree that hangs over most of the house, so when it rains, both of them shed all sorts of goodies down into the pool. Other things that may help: We have an automatic chlorinator tube (Rainbow something) that doesn't seem to work very well. We had put a few pucks in it last year because the pool store seemed enthusiastic that we had one installed, but the chlorine remained there for the entire summer. I can't remember if it was 3 or 4 pucks, but a little bit of a couple were still there after 5 months, which didn't seem right. At this stage, I understand that I shouldn't really be using the trichlor pucks due to my CYA levels, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong!
Our issue has been that I've never been able to keep chlorine in the pool! I had NEVER been able to get a FC reading of more than 2ppm, even if I dumped all sorts of bleach or shock into the pool, so I recently bought the Taylor FAS-DPD kit to make sure my old one even worked. It looks like it was accurate, but this new kit has been awesome in getting a broader picture of what's going on. Below are my pool readings from three different times throughout today (not sure if that helps or not, but you can see how it sways). I was trying to overcome a high Combined Chlorine number (yesterday read 1.8ppm) by superchlorinating, and had used various websites to come up with the same result, that I would need approximately 4 gallons of 8.25% bleach to hit the mark. I dumped 4 gallons of bleach into the pool last night around 8:30pm and let the pump run...
6/24 @ 8:30am
FC - 2.6
CC - 1.4
pH - 7.2
TA - 110
CH - (didnt test at this time)
CYA - (didnt test at this time)
6/24 @ 12:45pm
FC - 1
CC - 1
pH - 7.2
TA - 110
CH - (didnt test at this time)
CYA - (didnt test at this time)
6/24 @ 2:15pm
FC - 0.4
CC - 1
pH - 7.2
TA - 110
CH - 230-450?? (This test is tricky for me, as it says it should turn to red if calcium hardness is present, and yet it only ever really turns pink. Then, it's supposed to change to blue, but I never see a true blue. Instead, it clearly changes colors at the 23 drop mark, to purple. No doubt about it, this is purple, not blue. I'm just not sure if this is how the test is supposed to work, and after a little bit of Googling, it looks like I really should be seeing a bright red and blue? Either way, I kept adding drops until 45, and it stayed purple through it all. Again, there was a very clear point where it changed colors, but not to what the directions suggest.)
CYA - 80 (where the dot really seems to disappear, but I can still see it, barely), or 65 (when I really can't see it, even with focusing harder on the black dot)
Based on what I'm reading, my CYA levels are a bit high, but maybe not so bad considering the amount of sun we have throughout the day, and how hot it can get. I understand that I would need to drain something like 47% of the pool and replace with new water to get down to 50ppm.
The pool water looks like glass at the moment, and is normally clear and appealing. What really prompted this post was a small amount of a pink something forming on the side of one step in the shallow end. I'm not yet sure what that is, but my brush just broke and another should arrive in a day or two.
Aside from the pink stuff, is my issue the high CYA level, and the amount of sun the pool sees? Or, because of the sun, does that 65-80ppm reading sound okay? Based on what I've read, 20-50 seems to be ideal, but that each pool is different still.
Right now, I'm just trying to determine (after a failed attempt) how to rid myself of the combined chlorine and get back to a higher free chlorine reading, which according to the FC/CYA chart on this site, should be closer to 5ppm. Was 4 gallons of bleach just not enough? I had used the formula on the PPOA.org site on their Superchlorinating webpage.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance, yall!
Michael
Our in ground pool is kidney shaped, about 15k gallons, and sits in direct Texas sunlight with just the shallow end shaded by a large Oak tree. We have another VERY large Live Oak tree that hangs over most of the house, so when it rains, both of them shed all sorts of goodies down into the pool. Other things that may help: We have an automatic chlorinator tube (Rainbow something) that doesn't seem to work very well. We had put a few pucks in it last year because the pool store seemed enthusiastic that we had one installed, but the chlorine remained there for the entire summer. I can't remember if it was 3 or 4 pucks, but a little bit of a couple were still there after 5 months, which didn't seem right. At this stage, I understand that I shouldn't really be using the trichlor pucks due to my CYA levels, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong!
Our issue has been that I've never been able to keep chlorine in the pool! I had NEVER been able to get a FC reading of more than 2ppm, even if I dumped all sorts of bleach or shock into the pool, so I recently bought the Taylor FAS-DPD kit to make sure my old one even worked. It looks like it was accurate, but this new kit has been awesome in getting a broader picture of what's going on. Below are my pool readings from three different times throughout today (not sure if that helps or not, but you can see how it sways). I was trying to overcome a high Combined Chlorine number (yesterday read 1.8ppm) by superchlorinating, and had used various websites to come up with the same result, that I would need approximately 4 gallons of 8.25% bleach to hit the mark. I dumped 4 gallons of bleach into the pool last night around 8:30pm and let the pump run...
6/24 @ 8:30am
FC - 2.6
CC - 1.4
pH - 7.2
TA - 110
CH - (didnt test at this time)
CYA - (didnt test at this time)
6/24 @ 12:45pm
FC - 1
CC - 1
pH - 7.2
TA - 110
CH - (didnt test at this time)
CYA - (didnt test at this time)
6/24 @ 2:15pm
FC - 0.4
CC - 1
pH - 7.2
TA - 110
CH - 230-450?? (This test is tricky for me, as it says it should turn to red if calcium hardness is present, and yet it only ever really turns pink. Then, it's supposed to change to blue, but I never see a true blue. Instead, it clearly changes colors at the 23 drop mark, to purple. No doubt about it, this is purple, not blue. I'm just not sure if this is how the test is supposed to work, and after a little bit of Googling, it looks like I really should be seeing a bright red and blue? Either way, I kept adding drops until 45, and it stayed purple through it all. Again, there was a very clear point where it changed colors, but not to what the directions suggest.)
CYA - 80 (where the dot really seems to disappear, but I can still see it, barely), or 65 (when I really can't see it, even with focusing harder on the black dot)
Based on what I'm reading, my CYA levels are a bit high, but maybe not so bad considering the amount of sun we have throughout the day, and how hot it can get. I understand that I would need to drain something like 47% of the pool and replace with new water to get down to 50ppm.
The pool water looks like glass at the moment, and is normally clear and appealing. What really prompted this post was a small amount of a pink something forming on the side of one step in the shallow end. I'm not yet sure what that is, but my brush just broke and another should arrive in a day or two.
Aside from the pink stuff, is my issue the high CYA level, and the amount of sun the pool sees? Or, because of the sun, does that 65-80ppm reading sound okay? Based on what I've read, 20-50 seems to be ideal, but that each pool is different still.
Right now, I'm just trying to determine (after a failed attempt) how to rid myself of the combined chlorine and get back to a higher free chlorine reading, which according to the FC/CYA chart on this site, should be closer to 5ppm. Was 4 gallons of bleach just not enough? I had used the formula on the PPOA.org site on their Superchlorinating webpage.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance, yall!
Michael
