My son is taking over maintenance of his own pool and I am trying to give him advise. He will be joining TFP and learning on his own, but I am helping him get started. It's a 10K gallon plaster pool, no SWCG. Pentair single speed pump (not sure the size), Jandy cartridge filter. The pool has a Northern exposure in Central Florida and is screened-in so is a bit shaded from direct sunlight. He has had a pool service for the couple of years that he has owned the house/pool. I tested the waters last summer with my Taylor 2006 kit and found his CYA to be well over 100. The TC was 13, no CCs. I told him to tell his pool company to stop using so many stabilized chlorine tabs and let the CYA come down. He bought a TF-100 kit a couple of weeks ago in preparation to take over his pool. TC 8, CC 0, TA 80, Calcium 350, CYA 50, pH 8.0. He added acid to lower to pH to 7.6 and figured everything was looking pretty good compared to last summer. We went to a pool store to get a TDS reading and some liquid chlorine. I still use pool stores for supplies, but never accept their advice or pay much attention to their test results. This time, the test results were very close to what we found with the TF-100 kit. Except, the pool guy said TC was 8 but Free Chlorine was only 4. I told him there was no way the pool had 4 ppm of CC, I tested 8 TC with zero CC. I explained that we were taking over the pool from the pool service company. Then he said they might be using a sodium bromide product and we could be picking up the FC plus bromine/bromide with our test. The pool store is using the ACCUBLUE testing system. My son is checking with the dismissed pool service company to see if they have been using sodium bromide or not. 1. My initial question for experts in this forum, is there a good way to verify whether or not sodium bromide has been used and how much? My son wants to follow the TFP method, so we he is going to work to eliminate the bromide/bromine over time if we can confirm that bromine is throwing of his testing. I have read up on sodium bromide/bromine in this forum and it seems the best way to eliminate the bromine/bromide it to chlorinate well and drain/fill over time. In Florida we must be concerned about floating the pool on ground water, so I understand he should only drain a few inches at a time before re-filling. 2. Any other advice from the TFP team?
