Just got Taylor k-2006 test need help with results please!

[Bec2854]

Hello. We just received the Taylor k-2006 test kit in the mail and have all of our values.
Free chlorine - .8
Combined chlorine - 3.4
ph - 7.5
Hardness - 150
Alkalinity - 70
Cyanuric Acid - the black dot never disappeared so I'm going to say low

Questions:
1. I thought there was supposed to be some sort of quick daily chlorine/ph test? I don't see that in my test kit?
2. What are you supposed to do when your fc is low and your combined chlorine is so high? Still put in the bleach amount I compute on pool math?
3. What should I do about the CYA? Also, we just received a solar cover in the mail and plan on putting it on as soon as we figure out if we need the sun to get rid of some combined chlorine? We were told you don't need CYA if using a solar cover from the pool store.
4. Hardness and alkalinity are on the low side right? Should I just let them be or add chemical for those too?

We have a 30,000 gallon vinyl pool that has a salt water generator. However, we don't think the SWG is working so we didn't even add salt this year. We are kind of treating the pool as a non-swg since we think it's broken (probably will have another post about that soon!)

Somebody please help me!!!

 

[jblizzle]

1. Not in the K-2006. The TF-100 includes the OTO chlorine test

2. You should follow the ShockLevelAndMAINTAIN Process since the CC should be zero. Since you need to SLAM and ordered the K-2006, you need to order refills for the FAS-DPD sooner than later. Get the CYA refills while you are at it.

3. You should get the CYA up to about 30ppm for the SLAM process to protect the FC from the sun. The pool store does not know what they are talking about. Also the cover should not be left on for all the SLAM process as the pool needs to "breathe"

4. Low CH does not matter for a vinyl pool and I would say your TA is perfect.

Have you discovered Pool School yet? Start with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to Chlorinate Your Pool
Recommended Chemistry Levels

 

[Richard320]

Hello. We just received the Taylor k-2006 test kit in the mail and have all of our values.
Free chlorine - .8
Combined chlorine - 3.4
ph - 7.5
Hardness - 150
Alkalinity - 70
Cyanuric Acid - the black dot never disappeared so I'm going to say low

Questions:
1. I thought there was supposed to be some sort of quick daily chlorine/ph test? I don't see that in my test kit?
2. What are you supposed to do when your fc is low and your combined chlorine is so high? Still put in the bleach amount I compute on pool math?
3. What should I do about the CYA? Also, we just received a solar cover in the mail and plan on putting it on as soon as we figure out if we need the sun to get rid of some combined chlorine? We were told you don't need CYA if using a solar cover from the pool store.
4. Hardness and alkalinity are on the low side right? Should I just let them be or add chemical for those too?

We have a 30,000 gallon vinyl pool that has a salt water generator. However, we don't think the SWG is working so we didn't even add salt this year. We are kind of treating the pool as a non-swg since we think it's broken (probably will have another post about that soon!)

Somebody please help me!!!

The TF100 comes with the colorblock test. The K-2006 does not.

With low CYA, high CC and low FC, I'm worried that your CYA decomposed over the winter into ammonia. You could have a pool store test for that, you could buy an ammonia test kit at a pet store that sells tropical fish, or you can add enough chlorine to get to about 10 FC and brush it around to ensure it's well mixed. Then recheck FC & CC in thirty minutes. If FC has dropped to next to nothing and CC has climbed even higher, you've got ammonia. At that point, you need to pause and consider a few things. If water is cheap and doesn't come from a well that might get overtaxed or add Iron, it may be cheaper to drain the thing. Because it takes gallons and gallons and gallons of bleach to knock out the ammonia before you can really get going on algae killing. You need to worry about groundwater rising behind your liner, and you also can't drain all of it lest the liner shift and wrinkle. So it's something to stop and consider the pros and cons.

Try it. poolmath says 3 jugs of clorox 8.25% bleach will add 8 FC to your pool. If the CC actually drops, you don;t have ammonia and you've got a head start on the SLAM.

 

[jblizzle]

I agree what Richard proposes for the 30 minute FC test would be a good check.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and use 10ml for the FAS-DPD chlorine test instead of 25ml of water ... so each drop is 0.5ppm and you will not run out as fast.

 

[Bec2854]

Ok. So I added 3 gallons of Walmart (Great Value) bleach at 7.9%. It is possible that one of those gallons could have been from last year. But 2 were definitely brand new. I added half near the shallow end return and half to the deep end return to ensure it would evenly disperse. After 30 min, my FC and CC are almost exactly what they were before.

Post 3 gallon Bleach:
FC .8
CC 3.2

Praying, based on your description of what ammonia would do to the results, that this is not it.

We also have a SWG that we don't believe has been working as even though I cleaned it with Acid last year, it still says cell life dying. We did not add the hundreds of pounds of salt to the pool this year because we did not believe the SWG to be working. (the SWG says salt low) This wouldn't have any effect on our problem above would it?

 

[jblizzle]

Well, 3 gallons (are you sure it was not 121 oz of 8.25% bleach) would not have reached 10ppm ... but any case ... ammonia or something seems likely here.

Continue to dose to 10ppm and recheck every 30 minutes until the CC drops and the FC is up closer to 10ppm.

 

[Bec2854]

yes, it was 3 jugs. (121 oz).

Also on a brighter note. After 2 doses of 3 (121oz) jugs, (6 total):
FC 1.6 ppm
CC .6 ppm

Were you suggesting 10ppm FC to get our CC down?
I feel like now we should just need another jug of bleach to get our FC up to 4ppm.

 

[jblizzle]

I would do the 30 minute test again ... that FC is not as high as it should be.

When the FC starts to hold, given the CC level you had, you need to now follow the entire ShockLevelAndMAINTAIN Process. After adding 30ppm of CYA.

 

[Richard320]

If it was ammonia, it looks like you may have whipped it. I looked back in your post history and see where you've already dumped huge amounts of chlorine in. In which case, you're almost ready to perform the Shock Level And Maintain process. In brief... raise chlorine to shock level and retest and add more every few hours until the water is sparkling - no algae anywhere - you have no CC, and it hold FC overnight. Yes, really. You can get your pool so clean that you will lose nothing after dark and only a couple ppm per day. Complete Instructions.

Yes, it will take distressing and embarrassingly large amounts of bleach (or liquid pool shock - same stuff just stronger) and a few days to complete.

How does the water look? Is it clear, cloudy, murky, green? Is the pool full of debris?

 

[Bec2854]

The water doesn't have any debris, looks clear/blue, no green. I'm so confused this morning. We kept adding bleach last night (I think a total of 3 more jugs after our initial 3 jugs we did at once yesterday afternoon) until we got to fc close to 3ppm and cc .5. I wanted to test this morning to see if the fc dropped but I have added 15 scoops of the DPD powder and the water is only slightly tinged pink. I thought last night it was getting really pink after a scoop or 2? Am I supposed to keep adding powder until it really looks pink? I feel like I'm wasting expensive supplies now...

 

[Bec2854]

Well after letting it sit there for about 10 minutes it looked more pink to me so I went ahead and tested it - fc dropped from 3ppm last night to .4 ppm this morning. CC was about .2. So today we should go ahead and SLAM I'm assuming. Once we SLAM, should that help the FC stay in the system longer? So overnight we won't be losing 2.5ppm of FC? One more question, once we SLAM, do we add stabilizer at that point or do we wait for the levels to come down to normal range (i.e. FC between 3 and 7?) Thanks again for your help!

 

[Scuba_Steve]

You are wasting supplies! 2 heaping scoops at the most, and that is if you have really high chlorine. Don't let it sit. It will give you a false reading.

It won't turn pink if you have no chlorine. (which you don't) Not enough to matter anyways.

Follow the procedure to battle ammonia. DONT ADD CYA!!!! CYA is food for ammonia creating bacteria. Test water. Add enough Chlorine to bring you to a level of 10. Scrub pool walls to help mix it in. Retest in 30 minutes. Add chlorine to bring you back to 10. Keep repeating this over and over until your chlorine actually starts holding and not disappearing right away. Your cc will also plummet when it is complete, although not necessarily all the way down.

Once that happens your ammonia is now gone. Now test CYA, it more than likely will test 0. Add enough CYA to bring you to 30ppm. Dont bother testing. It wont show up for about a week. Just assume it is in there. Now follow the SLAM procedure. It is very important that you keep your FC at or past SLAM level. That is above 12 with a CYA of 30.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW, stop using the 25ml sample amount. Again you are wasting reagents. Use the 10ml. Every drop is 0.5 FC now. You dont need that much accuracy. 0.2, 0.5, 0.8, etc. That is still a 0 in my books. Still means you are in bad water.

 

[jcowart]

Hey welcome to the forum. Just a few things, some have been covered already. First is you need to ask your self what pool advice you would like to go with. What is taught here and pool store "chemical sales" is two different directions. The slam that is talked about is a process and not a one time supper dose. The slam is done over time and not complete until the water is clear, your CC's are under .5ppm, and you loose less than 1ppm over night. CYA does several things with chlorine. One it helps protect the CL from UV, but it also buffers the harshness from the chlorine. So with CYA your effective amount of chlorine is much lower. We base the mount of chlorine needed on the amount of CYA in the water. With none in the water all the chlorine will be consumed by the sun within a few hours, that's why we suggest a min of 30ppm. You have the k2006. That is a kit that has the needed FAS/DPD test. The only problem with that kit is the amount of testing supplies that comes in the box. To effectively slam you will need to test a lot. I would go on and order refills for that test. You can get the FAS/DPD XL refill from tftestkits. Also with numbers like .2 .4 and so on shows you are using the 25ml sample. Test with the 10ml sample for chlorine. Then each drop will be .5. You will use less regents. Most household bleach is now 121oz and is 8.25%. That is the number used in poolmath. 8.25% shows 7.9 available chlorine use 8.25 though. Also look on the bottle. There should be a date code of where its made. I am in Texas and Great Values looks like this. 15 161 0758 TX2. That translates to 2015 June 10th 7:58am Texas plant packing line 2.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

ALSO BTW, if you did manage to beat the ammonia already as Richard suggested, then your FC will hold with the first dose. You needed to bring your FC to 12+ anyways. Just make sure your CYA is right now.

To expound on the above post. 15 161 0758 TX2. the 161 means the 161st day of the year. i.e. June 10th. I got confused by that number the first time I saw it, so I wanted to clarify.

 

[Bec2854]

Thank you all for your help. My head is just spinning trying to understand everything. So I'm still confused on when to add stabilizer. I know I have to get Fc up to 10 or 12, then I need to slam it? I thought slamming it was the same thing as getting it up to 10? If I'm understanding your posts, this is what I need to do:
1. Keep adding bleach until I reach 10ppm fc
2. Add stabilizer
3. Slam (which my understanding is get it up to 10 again?)

Is that correct? I apologize for being so dense.

 

[jcowart]

Don't let get you down. I sounds like a lot of information but take it slow. You will soon learn that it really is easy. I don't think you have a ammonia problem. If I get this right from your other post you added 4 3" pucks. That will have added 3.3ppm of CYA. Also 2 bags of "shock" do you know what the "shock" was? It seems you have very little CYA in the water. What chlorine you add will quickly burn off. You can start the slam with a target of 10ppm. What that is, is a continued process of 10ppm. You dose to 10. 2 hours later you test and bring it back to 10. The key is to keep it at that level based off your CYA for as long as it takes to pass all three things for the slam. Get a water sample in a clean vessel. Pour 10ml into the test block. Add 1-2 spoons of dpd powder. The sample should turn pink. Then count the drops of 871 til it turns clear. Divide that in half and that's your free chlorine. Immediately add 5 drops of 00003. The sample may turn pink again. Count the drops of 871 til it turns clear. Divide in half and that's your combined chlorine. You can also plan to add some stabilizer also. Pool math shows 6lbs to target 30ppm. Let us know what your shock was because that 6lb might change. That is put in a sock and dangled over the edge in front of your return. When you get it in the water your new slam level will be 12ppm.

 

[Bec2854]

How long does it process usually take to pass the slam test? Just asking because I have a 1 year old to take care of and is difficult to continually test and dump chemicals. Might need a sitter for a day to figure this out.

Since we put 6 jugs of bleach in last night, and we were back to zero this morning, I fear we're going to just keep throwing bleach away since there isn't any stabilizer in there. So as soon as I see 10ppm fc can I put the stabilizer in to keep it in the system?

 

[Scuba_Steve]

As soon as you see FC that doesnt drop to 0 or really close to 0 within an hour or so.

If you do have ammonia, which if the above situation is failing proves that you do, the only way to tame it is a lot of bleach.

You can not test for this overnight though. You need add enough to theoretically bring you to 10, wait 30 minutes, then test. Overnight and algae can take you down to 0. We are not trying to get rid of algae right now. Ammonia must be eliminated first.

 

[Richard320]

How long does it process usually take to pass the slam test? Just asking because I have a 1 year old to take care of and is difficult to continually test and dump chemicals. Might need a sitter for a day to figure this out.

Since we put 6 jugs of bleach in last night, and we were back to zero this morning, I fear we're going to just keep throwing bleach away since there isn't any stabilizer in there. So as soon as I see 10ppm fc can I put the stabilizer in to keep it in the system?

What you want to see is CC going down. If the water was perfect, you'd add 10 FC and an hour later maybe see 9 FC and 0 CC. With algae, you might see 5 FC and 2 CC. With ammonia you'd see 0 FC and 6 CC. So once the CC has peaked and is falling off, test and adjust the CYa and start the regular SLAM process, where you only need to check and adjust things every couple hours.

 

[kimkats]

You are SLAMing now. Neat huh? You are doing a good job!

SLAM=adding bleach when your FC goes below the SLAM level for your CYA level.

You need to test as often as possible. If you cannot test every hour that is okay. Just make sure you go a little over your target level so it is still at the SLAM level when you are back at the pool.

Once your pool starts holding FC you can back off of the testing to every other hour.

There are some people who work outside the home so can only test 3 or 4 times a day. A SLAM can be done this way but it takes longer and uses more bleach.

The more you keep you FC at SLAM level the faster your pool will clear.

Kim