Free and Combined Chlorine not changing

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No worries, Lauren, I'm just trying to help you sleuth out causes of the high ccs ;). Leslie's fresh and clear does appear to be MPS, which is an oxidizer (the mono persulphate I mentioned earlier) intended to eliminate ccs but generally perceived to only useful for an indoor pool or a hot tub.

SO some of your cc reading and its increase may indeed be "false" on the test due to its presence.

Give it a few days for the effect of the MPS to wear off and in the mean time, just consider that your true cc level may be lower than its reading.

You've said your water is crystal clear. How are you holding FC on the overnight loss test?
 
Yikes!! I put the oxidizer in Sunday, do you think it could still
be affecting results?

I haven't performed a true overnight test because of my work schedule. I'm off today and the next few days.

Last night we aimed to bring the level up to 17.5. I'm going to check it before I head to my doctor's appointment.

I'm starting to run out of r-0871. I ordered a new one Tuesday morning, but it still hasn't shipped yet.

I read in another post I can decrease the sample size to 5ml and each drop will count as 1ppm. Is this true? The math seems to work out.

Thank you all so much for your help and advice. I feel very much on my own and like I don't have a clue what I'm doing!
 
I hadn't considered that non-chlorine shock had been in the equation as I didn't see it mentioned. Good insight Swampwoman!

You can decrease sample size, but it's not going to give you a very precise result, but precise enough to keep you in business temporarily.
 
Stick with the SLAM. You need to test your overnight loss. Test your FC around 8 or 9 pm. Bring it up to shock level. Then test it at 6 or 7 am. See if you are the same.

Try to get the water level right at the 10ml mark. When i first started, i was all over the place with my water level. Sometimes it was lower, sometimes it was higher and i was getting mixed results. I found it was easier when i first started out to get a bottle like your CYA mixing bottle. Fill it with pool water and fill the tube from that bottle. You can get a more accurate measurement that way.

Just to make sure you are testing right....You are filling the tube to 10ml. Adding one heaping scoop of powder. Then swirling it while adding one drop at a time of 871 till the pink is COMPLETELY gone. The number of drops times .5 is your FC level. Once its gone, add 5 drops of your 00003. It should turn pink if you have CCs. Then swirl and add one drop of 0871 at a time till it goes clear again. The number of drops this time times .5 is your CC reading.

Video of FC test
 
Yes, I believe I am following the instructions exactly.

I use water sample bottle to drip the water in, like you suggest, Kris. But I use two level scoops of the powder, like the instructions say. Am I supposed to use less because I'm using a smaller (10ml) sample? I've been wondering that but the instructions in the kit don't mention it. I hold the bottle exactly vertical and count each drop while swirling until it turns clear. Then the 5 drops of r-0003 and swirl - the water immediately turns pink when the drops hit it.

This morning at 7:45am the FC result was 16 and the CC was between 1 and 2. I used a 5ml sample because I'm getting dangerously low on the R0871. I counted each drop as 1ppm. The pink was fairly light after the first drop of the CC test, so my instinct tells me it's closer to 1.5 than to 2.

I was going to check walmart to see if they sell a FC/CC test kit to hold me over until my replacement bottle comes. If they do have one, I will compare its results to the Taylor results to make sure they're similar. Or am I just wasting money?
 
I have not been able to do the OCLT yet. Last night I dosed the pool to bring it up to 17.5 at 10:30pm. This morning at 7:45am it was 16, but I can't say for sure what it was last night. I will do the OCLT tonight. How long after adding bleach do I need to wait to retest?
 
I don't know about the pool stores in your area, but some Leslie's have r-0871. It's a small bottle and overpriced. A couple phone calls might be worth while. Just make very sure that the label on it says r-0871.
 

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Until your refill comes, you're sorta stuck. I would look at what your chlorine additions were for the last few days and add no more each day than you have in the last few. You're not going to lose much ground as long as you keep some FC in your pool. I'd even try out a "best guess" method by using your K-1000 color match block when you know your FC is at 14ish and get a picture of the color in your head or with a camera. All this being said, it's a band-aid only. There is no replacement for having a FAS-DPD Chlorine test and reagents that's accurate and reliable. Having these tools and using them to control your own pool is the only way to get comfortable yourself with managing the pool. Practice makes perfect.
 
I ordered a new one a Tuesday from Amazon and it still has not shipped yet. I called Leslie's near me but they said its special order only ("That's the one that goes with the powder, right?")

Just out of curiosity, I took a sample to my local store, who installed the pool. Their readings were FC 11.4 CC .76. I like their results better than mine but I guess I can't trust it? They use the Water Link computer test.
 
Donldson said:
Why?
Click to expand...

Because theirs showed that my CC was dropping.

I did a test at 8pm... FC 11.5 CC1.... Finally a small improvement in CC. I was planning to do the OCLT tonight, but I am officially out of drops. There's probably 4 drops left in the bottle.

To top it off, I got an e-mail from Amazon saying the Taylor refill I ordered won't be in stock until next week! It said it was in stock when I ordered it :mad:

What should I do until it finally comes in? I have test strips that show up to 10 FC... I can use those to at least make sure I don't fall below that. And I can keep using the pool store's test but I don't believe it to be accurate.

Here is a picture of the water... it looks perfectly clear to me. There isn't a speck on the bottom.

pool water.jpg
 
Lauren, I've made the mistake of ordering on Amazon long ago and if its the vendor I'm thinking of, they're SLOW! Order it in the future from TFTTestKits -- they ship fast, give TFP discounts, etc.: TFTestkits.net

In the ran time, you can usually get r0871 in store as chief says from Leslie's...just don't listen to em ;)

Re cc's...I do expect to see these dropping as time passes because in part I'm pretty certain the MPS was contributing to the phenom. So keep the faith. Your water looks great ;)
 
Hi, Lauren,

Your water looks phenominal!

Stick with your own testing.....you are far more precise than any computer test (it's true) and any pool store.

A word about CC's......don't sweat them too much. They are certainly an indicator that there's more to be done in your pool but the process of clearing a pool completely usually means your cc's will go up and down a little.....they seldom get lower in a predictable, uniform scale.

Also remember that when your cc's are .5 ppm or less, we treat that exactly the same as zero so your goal is really .5 ppm

Have you given us a complete set of test results yet? I don't see them above. pH, CYA are really important but we'd like FC, CC, CH, pH, TA, CYA when you can.
 

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