Cloudy water TA finally down

[frustratedpoolmom]

The water still cloudy? Are you running the filter 24/7?

If you are certain that the pool is 33ft round 4.5 feet deep, I would add 3 gallons of 12.5% liquid chlorine ("pool shock" it is sometimes sold as)
or 3 to 4 182oz jugs of regular Clorox bleach - how many depends on what strength you buy. This is a guess on my part. I'm targeting 12 for your FC level because I believe you have CYA in your water - how much needs to be determined and not via Strips. A FC of 12 is the minimum shock value of a CYA of 30. So its at least safe to add this amount of chlorine. If you do this today, and then add another jug tonight, another tomorrow morning/and night if its still cloudy - you can safely add at least 1 jug a day until the test kit comes. At least the pool is getting some chlorine this way. It may not be enough, it may be too much - but without the kit its the best I can suggest.

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All of this can be overwhelming but I promise you once you get it and start using it you will be amazed at how confident you become and happy that you have taken control of your pool.

 

[buglogger]

Hi! I bought the TF 100 test kit a couple years ago when I was converting from Bacquacil to chlorine, and it is very easy to use. Very clear instructions on how to do each test. Hang in there, it's worth it!

 

[melissalivengood]

Ok. Im ordering the kit. The kit is all i need right now? Im heading to get some bleach. Still cloudy. Filtering 24/7. certain on size

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Yes kit and bleach for now. Till we have accurate tests to go by, can't really tell you much else.

 

[melissalivengood]

I think we have a taylor test kit. Will that work for now?

 

[melissalivengood]

Idk what we have. Im going to go through all of our pool stuff before i buy one. Ill get back with you later today

 

[KrisIL]

Do you aerate to drop the TA or only add acid?

 

[melissalivengood]

how would i aerate?

 

[jblizzle]

Order the kit. Highly unlikely you have the FAS-DPD already. How old is it and how did you store it? May not be good anyway.

 

[KrisIL]

how would i aerate?

Water fountain or a lot of kids playing in the pool. If you check poolmath it tells you that you have to lower pH using the acid and then aerate to lower TA. You use acid to lower pH because by aerating you raise pH but lower TA
Also to aerate you can point your return upwards so it will break the water surface

 

[amccaul]

I thought it would be complicated to use as well but their directions which are included on laminated card are the easiest I have ever seen and now my 12 year old son has been out each morning to check the levels

 

[Casey]

You won't regret ordering the TF100.

 

[zea3]

Water fountain or a lot of kids playing in the pool. If you check poolmath it tells you that you have to lower pH using the acid and then aerate to lower TA. You use acid to lower pH because by aerating you raise pH but lower TA
Also to aerate you can point your return upwards so it will break the water surface

Almost correct, you use acid to lower pH and TA then aerate to raise the pH if needed. The TA is not affected by aeration. You use the acid aeration cycle until the TA is at the desired level. Also keep in mind that TA is not a critical level to adjust. Most of the time you can leave it as is unless your pH has frequent wide swings between high and low values.

 

[KrisIL]

Also keep in mind that TA is not a critical level to adjust. Most of the time you can leave it as is unless your pH has frequent wide swings between high and low values.

I do not have much pH swings. But my TA is 350. Should I worry about it? Or just leave it at is?

 

[Smykowski]

I do not have much pH swings. But my TA is 350. Should I worry about it? Or just leave it at is?

Please ask your questions in your own thread...we need more information to give a recommendation, and that will very quickly take the focus off the question of the OP.

 

[KrisIL]

Please ask your questions in your own thread...we need more information to give a recommendation, and that will very quickly take the focus off the question of the OP.

I'm sorry. I just thought there might be a simple answer to it.

 

[Beens]

Hi Melissa! Welcome to TFP!

The reason you need a test kit is that everything you add to the pool depends on certain test results. We have some that we recommend mainly because we know that those kits come with the tests you need. It's also been researched as far as finding the best kits for the best prices so people aren't wasting money buying a kit and finding out an important test is missing and they have to buy another add-on.

The TF-100 kit is recommended here a lot because it has well balanced amounts of the "ingredients" that you will be using the most. It is available through tftestkits.net.
The Taylor K-2006 has the same exact "ingredients" but there are less (which is why it is a little cheaper) and people tend to run out of some of them very very quickly and then need to buy refills right away. It comes in a cute little box though.. ;-) You can order it from amazon.com and very seldom you might be able to find it locally. The problem is there is a very similar kit that pool stores sometimes sell to people and tell them it is the same thing. It is NOT. Those people end up having to buy an add-on for the kit.

So believe it or not, we're trying to help to keep it simple by suggesting that people order the kits so they know they are getting the right one.

The chlorine test we use here (and comes with either of those kits) is called the FAS-DPD test. We use it because it can test much higher levels of chlorine (FC) than the other tests. Some other tests only go to 5 or 10 whereas the FAS-DPD test can go way up to like...50 (I think I'm right on that top number) It's also more specific. No color matching where you have to try to figure out what shade of yellow or pink you're looking at. You'll get an exact number so there's no guessing.

It's really important to be able to test your CYA (it can't be a big range like a test strip would tell you. The recommended kits will give you something more solid.) How much chlorine you need in your water is dependent upon how much CYA you have.

Test strips, besides being very inaccurate, give too broad of a range of numbers. Drop based kits will get nice specific results and we can tell you exactly what to do once we can see those results.


I see you said you were going to get a kit so I'm not trying to badger you or anything. I just wanted to explain it a little more so you know we're not just trying to sell you something! (I won't get anything no matter what you buy or don't buy! lol)

There is also always someone around here to help if you have questions so even when you get the kit and your eyes bug out all you have to do is ask and we'll help you figure it all out! It looks daunting but it really is simple. There's a lot of little bottles but the tests themselves are easy.

This probably all sounds complicated and maybe even like "why do I have to worry this much about this stuff?" but in the end it's all about knowing what's going on in your pool so you're not always dealing with cloudy water or algae and guessing games about how to fix it. It very quickly becomes extremely simple and the prize is clear sparkling water...all the time!