trichlor for vacation - questions

[vnkt0207]

I am a new pool owner (for 3 weeks only) and have been using bleach and getting great water test results.

I will be away for 7 days and was experimenting with trichlor pucks (7.2 oz). I have like 50 of them that were given to me so I don't know necessarily how they were stored. CYA is a little low at 30 anyhow so I can tolerate CYA increasing.

Sunday afternoon, FC = 2.5 and I added two trichlor pucks in a float. Next morning FC = 2.0. Then in the afternoon of that second day, FC=1.5

pH = 7.6 and TA=80 over the same duration.
Over the period described above, no liquid chlorine was added. So my question is that the amount of FC added per day is a function of how many pucks are in the float? Should the float be in the vacinity of the return jet? Any thoughts or experiences are welcome.

 

[JasonLion]

Most floaters have a sliding panel or some other adjustment that controls how quickly the tablets dissolve. Chlorine added each day should change when you change the setting, and should not change very much depending on how many tablets are in the floater.

 

[vnkt0207]

It does a have an "adjustment" as you indicated. It was wide open over the whole time. With two 7.2 oz pucks in the floater, it doesn't keep FC at or above 2.

 

[jblizzle]

Sounds like you need to put a few more tablets in the floater.

 

[timerguy]

Last year, I went on a 10 day vacation. The morning I left, I boosted my FC up to 9 and put 5 pucks in a floater. When I returned 10 days later I still had the remnants of about 1- 1.5 tabs left and my FC was still 4. But to do a better experiment I'd put 4 pucks in a floater then determine how long they last . Then using pool math determine how much FC was was dissolved into the water and divide it by the number of days it took to dissolve them all. That should give you a fairly close estimate of daily FC being put into the water. Measuring fc at the beginning of the day and comparing it to the fc at the end of the day is pretty meaningless or even over night for that matter. Of course, if you're leaving in the next couple days that won't work for you anyhow. But I'd be pretty sure if you did it similar to the way I did, you will still be in pretty good shape at the end of your trip. Then when you have some time, you might try that experiment the way I suggested.

Bottom line is that's why I installed a swg this spring. I was going to be gone for 2 weeks. In the week before I was going to leave, I ran my fc up to 10. I had someone look after my pool to top off or drain excess water as necessary. Set up my swg to run at 80% for 12 hrs daily came home 2 weeks later and my fc was still at 10 what a relief. I shut down my swg for about 2 days and got my FC down to 5. I was using about 2.5/ day. Turned it back on and it increased a little better than keeping up with FC loss everyday. It's still 6 now and it's been that way for a couple weeks. Tonight it was 6.0 and 0 CC. Good luck with your pool.